The various systems of taste, however apparently dissimilar, may be referred in principle to one or other of the two following: that this is an original and independent faculty; or, that it may be resolved into a modification of the general powers of the mind. Of these opinions, the first has been, within the present century, satisfactorily proved utterly unphilosophical and inadequate to its purpose; the second is preferable, but imperfect in the explications hitherto given, chiefly from three causes. First, writers have formed their conclusions from a consideration of the quality, in its full and complete exercise, instead of tracing the steps by which it is acquired or improved: secondly, this intellectual quality, even by the best writers, has been treated too much as an external sense--or it has been resolved into direct and inflex perceptions, and confounded with so many accidental feelings, that the inferences have been most perplexing and cumbrous: and, thirdly, the subject in general has been treated too metaphysically. Hence, however learned, or even abstractly just, the investigations may have been, they have exerted slight influence in establishing practice upon obvious and enlightened theory.
But declining to enter upon the exposure of what may be conceived former mistakes, we shall proceed briefly to explain our own views. Following out, then, the tenor of the preceding remarks, we conceive taste to be nothing more than a certain acuteness, which necessarily is acquired by, and always accompanies, the frequent exercise of the powers of understanding in any one given pursuit. It seems to differ from mere knowledge, in being attended by a love or desire of the particular exercise. This desire, whether it precedes or follows acquirement, is easily accounted for, in the one case, as an agreeable anticipation of advantage to be gained, and in the other as a mental habitude; or it is frequently cherished from impressions received at an age too early for notice. The gratification of this desire, exclusive even of the enjoyment received from the successful exercise of the mental powers, sufficiently explains the origin of the pleasures of taste.
This view of taste, as applicable to, and indeed resulting from, training of the understanding in all dignified pursuits, is agreeable, as already shown, to common feeling and common language. But in deference to the same authorities, it is necessary to limit the idea to a restricted, that is, a proper sense of the word. Hence we have said that the object of taste is beauty, as perceivable in the works of nature and art: thus confining its province to literature and the fine arts, which reflect nature either by direct imitation, or by more remote association.