deserve, on account of their duration and extent, to be considered as
really true, they become capable of no small decree of stability and
determination by their permanent and uniform nature.

As these prejudices become more narrow, more local, more transitory, this
secondary taste becomes more and more fantastical; recedes from real
science; is less to be approved by reason, and less followed in practice;
though in no case perhaps to be wholly neglected, where it does not
stand, as it sometimes does, in direct defiance of the most respectable
opinions received amongst mankind.

Having laid down these positions, I shall proceed with less method,
because less will serve, to explain and apply them.

We will take it for granted that reason is something invariable and fixed
in the nature of things; and without endeavouring to go back to an
account of first principles, which for ever will elude our search, we
will conclude that whatever goes under the name of taste, which we can
fairly bring under the dominion of reason, must be considered as equally
exempt from change. If therefore, in the course of this inquiry, we can
show that there are rules for the conduct of the artist which are fixed
and invariable, it implies, of course, that the art of the connoisseur,
or, in other words, taste, has likewise invariable principles.

Of the judgment which we make on the works of art, and the preference
that we give to one class of art over another, if a reason be demanded,
the question is perhaps evaded by answering, "I judge from my taste"; but
it does not follow that a better answer cannot be given, though for
common gazers this may be sufficient. Every man is not obliged to
investigate the causes of his approbation or dislike.