ed authority, may become more dangerous than before to
the morality of the character; and that, under the guise of innocence,
nobleness, and purity, they may exercise over the will a tyranny a
hundred times worse than the other.

The man of taste willingly escapes the gross thraldom of the appetites.
He submits to reason the instinct which impels him to pleasure, and he is
willing to take counsel from his spiritual and thinking nature for the
choice of the objects he ought to desire. Now, reason is very apt to
mistake a spiritualized instinct for one of its own instincts, and at
length to give up to it the guidance of the will, and this in proportion
as moral judgment and aesthetic judgment, the sense of the good and the
sense of the beautiful, meet in the same object and in the same decision.

So long as it remains possible for inclination and duty to meet in the
same object and in a common desire, this representation of the moral
sense by the aesthetic sense may not draw after it positively evil
consequences, though, if the matter be strictly considered, the morality
of particular actions does not gain by this agreement. But the
consequences will be quite different when sensuousness and reason have
each of them a different interest. If, for example, duty commands us to
perform an action that revolts our taste, or if taste feels itself drawn
towards an object which reason as a moral judge is obliged to condemn,
then, in fact, we suddenly encounter the necessity of distinguishing
between the requirements of the moral sense and those of the aesthetic
sense, which so long an agreement had almost confounded to such a degree
that they could not be distinguished. We must now determine their
reciprocal rights, and find which of them is the real master in our soul.
But such a long representation of the moral sense by the sense of the
beautiful has made us forget this master. When we have so long practised
this rule of obeying at once the suggestions of taste, and when we have
found the result always satisfactory, taste ends by assuming a kind of
appearance of right. As taste has shown itself irreproachable in the
vigilant watch it has kept over the will, we necessarily come to grant a
certain esteem to its decisions; and it is precisely to this esteem that
inclination, with captious logic, gives weight against the duties of
conscience.

Esteem is a feeling that can only be felt for law, and what corresponds
to it. Whatever i