light upon the particular
thought he wishes to convey, than as in themselves objects of
unconnected admiration.

Sec. 3. The first mode of selection apt to produce sameness and repetition.

Now, although the first mode of selection, when guided by deep
reflection, may rise to the production of works possessing a noble and
ceaseless influence on the human mind, it is likely to degenerate into,
or rather, in nine cases out of ten, it never goes beyond, a mere appeal
to such parts of our animal nature as are constant and common--shared by
all, and perpetual in all; such, for instance, as the pleasure of the
eye in the opposition of a cold and warm color, or of a massy form with
a delicate one. It also tends to induce constant repetition of the same
ideas, and reference to the same principles; it gives rise to those
_rules_ of art which properly excited Reynolds's indignation when
applied to its higher efforts; it is the source of, and the apology for,
that host of technicalities and absurdities which in all ages have been
the curse of art and the crown of the connoisseur.

Sec. 4. The second necessitating variety.

But art, in its second and highest aim, is not an appeal to constant
animal feelings, but an expression and awakening of individual thought:
it is therefore as various and as extended in its efforts as the
compass and grasp of the directing mind; and we feel, in each of its
results, that we are looking, not at a specimen of a tradesman's wares,
of which he is ready to make us a dozen to match, but at one coruscation
of a perpetually active mind, like which there has not been, and will
not be another.

Sec. 5. Yet the first is delightful to all.

Sec. 6. The second only to a few.

Hence, although there can be no doubt which of these branches of art is
the highest, it is equally evident that the first will be the most
generally felt and appreciated. For the simple statement of the truths
of nature must in itself be pleasing to every order of mind; because
every truth of nature is more or less beautiful; and if there be just
and right selection of the more important of these truths--based, as
above explained, on feelings and desires common to all mankind--the
facts so selected must, in some degree, be delightful to all, and their
value appreciable by all: more or less, indeed, as their senses and
instinct have been rendered more or less acute and accurate by use and
study; but in some degree by all, a