uncertainty, and fufpenfe, appear the only refult "of our most accurate fcrutiny concerning this fub"ject?" Or fhould not rather the melancholy hiftories which he has exhibited of the follies and caprices of fuperftition, direct our attention to those facred and indelible characters on the human mind, which all these perverfions of reafon are unable to obliterate; like that image of himself, which Phidias wished to perpetuate, by ftamping it fo deeply on the buckler of his Minerva; "ut nemo delere pof"fet aut divellere, qui totam ftatuam non imminuer ❝et."* In truth, the more ftriking the contradic

tions, and the more ludicrous the ceremonies to which the pride of human reason has thus been reconciled; the stronger is our evidence that religion has a foundation in the nature of man. When the greatest of modern philofophers declares, that "he

would rather believe all the fables in the Legend, " and the Talmud, and Alcoran, than that this uni"verfal frame is without mind;"t he has expreffed the fame feeling, which, in all ages and nations, has led good men, unaccustomed to reafoning, to an implicit faith in the creed of their infancy;-a feeling which affords an evidence of the existence of the Deity, incomparably more ftriking, than if, unmixed with error and undebased by fuperftition, this most important of all principles had commanded the universal affent of mankind. Where are the other truths, in the whole circle of the fciences, which are fo effential to human happiness, as to procure an eafy accefs, not only for themselves, but for whatever opinions may happen to be blended with them? Where are the truths fo venerable and commanding, as to impart their own fublimity to every

* Select Discourses by JOHN SMITH, p. 119. Cambridge, 1678. Lord BACON, in his Essays.

trifling memorial which recals them to our remembrance; to beftow folemnity and elevation on every mode of expreffion by which they are conveyed; and which, in whatever scene they have habitually occupied the thoughts, confecrate every object which it prefents to our fenfes, and the very ground we have been accustomed to tread? To attempt to weaken the authority of fuch impreffions, by a detail of the endless variety of forms, which they derive from cafual affociations, is furely an employment unfuitable to the dignity of philofophy. To the vulgar, it may be amusing, in this, as in other inftances, to indulge their wonder at what is new or uncommon; but to the philofopher it belongs to perceive, under all these various disguises, the workings of the fame common nature; and in the fuperftitions of Egypt, no less than in the lofty vifions of Plato, to recognize the existence of those moral ties which unite the heart of man to the Author of his being.

SECTION II.

Influence of the Affociation of Ideas on our Judgments in Matters of Tafte.

THE very general observations which I am to make in this Section, do not prefuppofe any particu lar theory concerning the nature of Tafte. It is fufficient for my purpose to remark, that Tafte is not a fimple and original faculty, but a power gradually formed by experience and obfervation. It implies, indeed, as its ground-work, a certain degree of natural fenfibility; but it implies alfo the exercise of the judgment; and is the flow refult of an attentive examination and comparison of the agreeable or difagreeable effects produced on the mind by external objects.

Such of my readers as are acquainted with "An "Effay on the Nature and Principles of Tafte," lately published by Mr. Alifon, will not be furprifed that I decline the difcuffion of a fubject which he has treated with fo much ingenuity and elegance.

The view which was formerly given of the procefs, by which the general laws of the material world are investigated, and which I endeavoured to illuftrate by the ftate of medicine among rude nations, is ftrictly applicable to the hiftory of Tafte. That certain objects are fitted to give pleasure, and others difguft, to the mind, we know from experience alone; and it is impoffible for us, by any reafoning a priori, to explain, how the pleasure or the pain is produced. In the works of nature we find, in many inftances, Beauty and Sublimity involved among circumftances, which are either indifferent, or which obftructs the general effect: and it is only by a train of experiments, that we can separate those circumftances from the reft, and ascertain with what particular qualities the pleafing effect is connected. Accordingly, the inexperienced artist, when he copies Nature, will copy her fervilely, that he may be certain of fecuring the pleafing effect; and the beauties of his performances will be encumbered with a number of fuperfluous or of difagreeable concomitants. Experience and obfervation alone can enable him to make this difcrimination : to exhibit the principles of beauty pure and unadulterated, and to form a creation of his own, more faultlefs than ever fell under the obfervation of his fenfes.

This analogy between the progrefs of Tafte from rudeness to refinement; and the progrefs of phyfical knowledge from the fuperftitions of a favage tribe, to the investigation of the laws of nature, proceeds on the fuppofition, that, as in the material world there are general facts, beoynd which philosophy is

unable to proceed; fo, in the constitution of man, there is an inexplicable adaptation of the mind to the objects with which his faculties are converfant; in confequence of which, these objects are fitted to produce agreeable or difagreeable emotions. In both cafes, reafoning may be employed with propriety to refer particular phenomena to general principles; but in both cafes, we must at laft arrive at principles of which no account can be given, but that fuch is the will of our Maker.

A great part, too, of the remarks which were made in the laft Section on the origin of popular prejudices, may be applied to explain the influence of cafual affociations on Tafte; but these remarks do not fo completely exhauft the fubject, as to fuperfede the neceffity of farther illuftration. In matters of Tafte, the effects which we confider, are produced on the Mind itself; and are accompanied either with pleasure or with pain. Hence the tendency to cafual affociation, is much stronger than it commonly is, with refpect to phyfical events; and when fuch af fociations are once formed, as they do not lead to any important inconvenience, fimilar to those which refult from physical mistakes, they are not fo likely to be corrected by mere experience, unaffifted by ftudy. To this it is owing, that the influence of affociation on our judgments concerning beauty and deformity, is ftill more remarkable than on our fpeculative conclufions; a circumftance which has led fome philofophers to fuppofe, that affociation is fufficient to account for the origin of these notions; and that there is no fuch thing as a ftandard of Tafte, founded on the principles of the human conftitution. But this is undoubtedly pushing the theory a great deal too far. The affociation of ideas can never account for the origin of a new notion; or of a pleafure effentially different from all the others which we know. It may indeed, enable us to conceive

how a thing indifferent in itself, may become a fource of pleasure, by being connected in the mind with fomething else which is naturally agreeable; but it prefuppofes, in every inftance, the existence of those notions and those feelings which it is its province to combine infomuch that, I apprehend, it will be found, wherever affociation produces a change in our judgments on matters of Tafte, it does fo, by cooperating with some natural principle of the mind, and implies the existence of certain original fources of pleasure and uneafiness.

A mode of drefs, which at first appeared awkward, acquires, in a few weeks or months, the appearance of elegance. By being accuflomed to fee it worn by those whom we confider as models of Tafte, it be comes affociated with the agreeable impreffions which we receive from the ease and grace and refinement of their manners. When it pleases by itfelf, the effect is to be afcribed, not to the object actually before us, but to the impreffions with which it has been generally connected, and which it naturally recals to the mind.

This obfervation points out the cause of the perpetual viciffitudes in drefs, and in every thing whofe chief recommendation arifes from fashion. It is evi, dent that, as far as the agreeable effect of an ornament arises from affociation, the effect will continue only while it is confined to the highest orders. When it is adopted by the multitude, it not only ceases to be affociated with ideas of taste and refinement, but it is affociated with ideas of affectation, abfurd imitation, and vulgarity. It is accordingly laid afide by the higher orders, who ftudioufly avoid every circumftance in external appearance, which is debafed by low and common ufe; and they are led to exercise their invention, in the introduction of fome new peculiarities, which firft become fashionable, then common, and last of all, are abandoned as vulgar.