Where no such feeling is awakened, and supposing no deficiency in the
recipient, he may safely, from its absence, pronounce the work false;
nor could any ingenious theory of the understanding convince him to
the contrary. He may, indeed, as some are wont to do, make a random
guess, and _call_ the work true; but he can never so _feel_
it by any effort of reasoning. But may not men differ as to their
impressions of truth? Certainly as to the degrees of it, and in this
according to their sensibility, in which we know that men are not
equal. By sensibility here we mean the power or capacity of receiving
impressions. All men, indeed, with equal organs, may be said in a
certain sense to see alike. But will the same natural object,
conveyed through these organs, leave the same impression? The fact is
otherwise. What, then, causes the difference, if it be not (as before
observed) a peculiar something in the individual mind, that modifies
the image? If so, there must of necessity be in every true work of
Art--if we may venture the expression--another, or distinctive, truth.
To recognize this, therefore,--as we have elsewhere endeavoured to
show,--supposes in the recipient something akin to it. And, though it
be in reality but a _sign_ of life, it is still a sign of which
we no sooner receive the impress, than, by a law of our mind, we feel
it to be acting upon our thoughts and sympathies, without our knowing
how or wherefore. Admitting, therefore, the corresponding instinct,
or whatever else it may be called, to vary in men,--which there is no
reason to doubt,--the solution of their unequal impression appears at
once. Hence it would be no extravagant metaphor, should we affirm that
some persons see more with their minds than others with their eyes.
Nay, it must be obvious to all who are conversant with Art, that
much, if not the greater part, in its higher branches is especially
addressed to this mental vision. And it is very certain, if there were