t the
same cause operating in the same manner, and on subjects of the same
kind, will produce different effects, which would be highly absurd.
Let us first consider this point in the sense of taste, and the rather
as the faculty in question has taken its name from that sense. All men
are agreed to call vinegar sour, honey sweet, and aloes bitter; and as
they are all agreed in finding these qualities in those objects, they
do not in the least differ concerning their effects with regard to
pleasure and pain. They all concur in calling sweetness pleasant, and
sourness and bitterness unpleasant.

Here there is no diversity in their sentiments; and that there is not
appears fully from the consent of all men in the metaphors which are
taken from the sense of taste. A sour temper, bitter expressions,
bitter curses, a bitter fate, are terms well and strongly understood
by all. And we are altogether as well understood when we say a sweet
disposition, a sweet person, a sweet condition, and the like. It is
confest that custom and some other causes have made many deviations
from the natural pleasures or pains which belong to these several
tastes; but then the power of distinguishing between the natural and
the acquired relish remains to the very last. A man frequently comes
to prefer the taste of tobacco to that of sugar, and the flavor of
vinegar to that of milk; but this makes no confusion in tastes, whilst
he is sensible that the tobacco and vinegar are not sweet, and whilst
he knows that habit alone has reconciled his palate to these alien
pleasures. Even with such a person we may speak, and with sufficient
precision, concerning tastes. But should any man be found who declares
that to him tobacco has a taste like sugar, and that he can not
distinguish between milk and vinegar; or that tobacco and vinegar are
sweet, milk bitter, and sugar sour; we immediately conclude that the
organs of this man are out of order and that his palate is utterly
vitiated. We are as far from conferring with such a person upon tastes
as from reasoning concerning the relations of quantity with one who
should deny that all the parts together were equal to the whole. We do
not call a man of this kind wrong in his notions, but absolutely mad.
Exceptions of this sort, in either way, do not at all impeach our
general rule, nor make us conclude that men have various principles
concerning the relations of quantity or the taste of things. So that
when it is