Whatever certainty is to be acquired in morality and the science of
life; just the same degree of certainty have we in what relates to them
in works of imitation. Indeed, it is for the most part in our skill in
manners, and in the observances of time and place, and of decency in
general, which is only to be learned in those schools to which Horace
recommends us, that what is called taste, by way of distinction,
consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.
On the whole it appears to me, that what is called taste, in its most
general acceptation, is not a simple idea, but is partly made up of a
perception of the primary pleasures of sense, of the secondary pleasures
of the imagination, and of the conclusions of the reasoning faculty,
concerning the various relations of these, and concerning the human
passions, manners, and actions. All this is requisite to form taste, and
the ground-work of all these is the same in the human mind; for as the
senses are the great originals of all our ideas, and consequently of
all our pleasures, if they are not uncertain and arbitrary, the
whole ground-work of taste is common to all, and therefore there is a
sufficient foundation for a conclusive reasoning on these matters.