d of man than he who is conversant only with the works of his own
age or country. What has pleased, and continues to please, is likely to
please again: hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable
foundation they must ever stand.

This search and study of the history of the mind ought not to be confined
to one art only. It is by the analogy that one art bears to another that
many things are ascertained which either were but faintly seen, or,
perhaps, would not have been discovered at all if the inventor had not
received the first hints from the practices of a sister art on a similar
occasion. The frequent allusions which every man who treats of any art
is obliged to draw from others in order to illustrate and confirm his
principles, sufficiently show their near connection and inseparable
relation.

All arts having the same general end, which is to please, and addressing
themselves to the same faculties through the medium of the senses, it
follows that their rules and principles must have as great affinity as
the different materials and the different organs or vehicles by which
they pass to the mind will permit them to retain.

We may therefore conclude that the real substance, as it may be called,
of what goes under the name of taste, is fixed and established in the
nature of things; that there are certain and regular causes by which the
imagination and passions of men are affected; and that the knowledge of
these causes is acquired by a laborious and diligent investigation of
nature, and by the same slow progress as wisdom or knowledge of every
kind, however instantaneous its operations may appear when thus acquired.

It has been often observed that the good and virtuous man alone can
acquire this true or just relish, even of works of art. This opinion
will not appear entirely without foundation when we consider that the
same habit of mind which is acquired by our search after truth in the
more serious duties of life, is only transferred to the pursuit of
lighter amusements: the same disposition, the same desire to find
something steady, substantial, and durable, on which the mind can lean,
as it were, and rest with safety. The subject only is changed. We
pursue the same method in our search after the idea of beauty and
perfection in each; of virtue, by looking forwards beyond ourselves to
society, and to the whole; of arts, by extending our views in the same
manner to all ages and all times.

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