one which urge us to ascertain the
other.

And after all, if men differ in their opinion concerning such matters,
their difference is not attended with the same important consequences;
else I make no doubt but that the logic of taste, if I may be allowed
the expression, might very possibly be as well digested, and we might
come to discuss matters of this nature with as much certainty as those
which seem more immediately within the province of mere reason. And
indeed, it is very necessary, at the entrance into such an inquiry as
our present, to make this point as clear as possible; for if taste has
no fixt principles, if the imagination is not affected according to
some invariable and certain laws, our labor is like to be employed to
very little purpose; as it must be judged a useless, if not an absurd
undertaking, to lay down rules for caprice, and to set up for a
legislator of whims and fancies.

The term taste, like all other figurative terms, is not extremely
accurate; the thing which we understand by it is far from a simple and
determinate idea in the minds of most men, and it is therefore liable
to uncertainty and confusion. I have no great opinion of a definition,
the celebrated remedy for the cure of this disorder. For when we
define, we seem in danger of circumscribing nature within the bounds
of our own notions, which we often take up by hazard, or embrace on
trust, or form out of a limited and partial consideration of the
object before us, instead of extending our ideas to take in all that
nature comprehends, according to her manner of combining. We are
limited in our inquiry by the strict laws to which we have submitted
at our setting out.

_... Circa vilem patulumque morabimur orbem,
Unde pudor proferre pedem vetet aut operis lex._

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way
toward informing us of the nature of the thing defined; but let the
virtue of a definition be what it will, in the order of things, it
seems rather to follow than to precede our inquiry, of which it ought
to be considered as the result. It must be acknowledged that the
methods of disquisition and teaching may be sometimes different, and
on very good reason undoubtedly; but for my part, I am convinced that
the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of
investigation is incomparably the best; since, not content with
serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stoc