who have
a taste fixed and independent of that of their friends, they follow
example and fashion which generally form the standard of taste.

In all the diversities of taste that we discern, it is very rare and
almost impossible to meet with that sort of good taste that knows how to
set a price on the particular, and yet understands the right value that
should be placed on all. Our knowledge is too limited, and that correct
discernment of good qualities which goes to form a correct judgment
is too seldom to be met with except in regard to matters that do not
concern us.

As regards ourselves our taste has not this all-important discernment.
Preoccupation, trouble, all that concern us, present it to us in another
aspect. We do not see with the same eyes what does and what does not
relate to us. Our taste is guided by the bent of our self-love and
temper, which supplies us with new views which we adapt to an infinite
number of changes and uncertainties. Our taste is no longer our own,
we cease to control it, without our consent it changes, and the same
objects appear to us in such divers aspects that ultimately we fail to
perceive what we have seen and heard.

IV. On Society.

In speaking of society my plan is not to speak of friendship, for,
though they have some connection, they are yet very different. The
former has more in it of greatness and humility, and the greatest merit
of the latter is to resemble the former.

For the present I shall speak of that particular kind of intercourse
that gentlemen should have with each other. It would be idle to show how
far society is essential to men: all seek for it, and all find it, but
few adopt the method of making it pleasant and lasting.

Everyone seeks to find his pleasure and his advantage at the expense of
others. We prefer ourselves always to those with whom we intend to
live, and they almost always perceive the preference. It is this which
disturbs and destroys society. We should discover a means to hide this
love of selection since it is too ingrained in us to be in our power to
destroy. We should make our pleasure that of other persons, to humour,
never to wound their self-love.

The mind has a great part to do in so great a work, but it is not merely
sufficient for us to guide it in the different courses it should hold.

The agreement we meet between minds would not keep society together for
long if she was not governed and sustained by good sense, temper, an