ions change. The palate, which at first
perceived only the coarse and violent qualities of either, will, as it
becomes more experienced, acquire greater subtilty and delicacy of
discrimination, perceiving in both agreeable or disagreeable qualities
at first unnoticed, which on continued experience will probably become
more influential than the first impressions; and whatever this final
verdict may be, it is felt by the person who gives it, and received by
others as a more correct one than the first.

Sec. 4. Depends on acuteness of attention.

So, then, the power we have over the preference of impressions of taste
is not actual nor immediate, but only a power of testing and comparing
them frequently and carefully, until that which is the more permanent,
the more consistently agreeable, be determined. But when the instrument
of taste is thus in some degree perfected and rendered subtile, by its
being practised upon a single object, its conclusions will be more rapid
with respect to others, and it will be able to distinguish more quickly
in other things, and even to prefer at once, those qualities which are
calculated finally to give it most pleasure, though more capable with
respect to those on which it is more frequently exercised; whence
people are called judges with respect to this or that particular object
of taste.

Sec. 5. Ultimate conclusions universal.

Now that verdicts of this kind are received as authoritative by others,
proves another and more important fact, namely, that not only changes of
opinion take place in consequence of experience, but that those changes
are from variation of opinion to unity of opinion; and that whatever may
be the differences of estimate among unpractised or uncultivated tastes,
there will be unity of taste among the experienced. And that therefore
the operation of repeated trial and experience is to arrive at
principles of preference in some sort common to all, and which are a
part of our nature.

I have selected the sense of taste for an instance, because it is the
least favorable to the position I hold, since there is more latitude
allowed, and more actual variety of verdict in the case of this sense
than of any other; and yet, however susceptible of variety even the
ultimate approximations of its preferences may be, the authority of
judges is distinctly allowed, and we hear every day the admission, by
those of unpractised palate, that they are, or may be wrong in their