sation
he perceives or prefers. But falsity may attach to his assertion or
supposition, either that what he himself perceives is from the same
object perceived by others, or is always to be by himself perceived, or
is always to be by himself preferred; and when we speak of a man as
wrong in his impressions of sense, we either mean that he feels
differently from all, or a majority, respecting a certain object, or
that he prefers at present those of his impressions, which ultimately he
will not prefer.

To the second I answer, that over immediate impressions and immediate
preferences we have no power, but over ultimate impressions, and
especially ultimate preferences we have; and that, though we can neither
at once choose whether we shall see an object, red, green, or blue, nor
determine to like the red better than the blue, or the blue better than
the red, yet we can, if we choose, make ourselves ultimately susceptible
of such impressions in other degrees, and capable of pleasures in them
in different measure; and because, wherever power of any kind is given,
there is responsibility attached, it is the duty of men to prefer
certain impressions of sense to others, because they have the power of
doing so, this being precisely analogous to the law of the moral world,
whereby men are supposed not only capable of governing their likes and
dislikes, but the whole culpability or propriety of actions is dependent
upon this capability, so that men are guilty or otherwise, not for what
they do, but for what they desire, the command being not, thou shalt
obey, but thou shalt love, the Lord thy God, which, if men were not
capable of governing and directing their affections, would be the
command of an impossibility.

Sec. 3. What power we have over impressions of sense.

I assert, therefore, that even with respect to impressions of sense, we
have a power of preference, and a corresponding duty, and I shall show
first the nature of the power, and afterwards the nature of the duty.

Let us take an instance from one of the lowest of the senses, and
observe the kind of power we have over the impressions of lingual taste.
On the first offering of two different things to the palate, it is not
in our power to prevent or command the instinctive preference. One will
be unavoidably and helplessly preferred to the other. But if the same
two things be submitted to judgment frequently and attentively, it will
be often found that their relat