to you before, does not belong so much to the external form of things,
but is addressed to the mind, and depends on its original frame, or, to
use the expression, the organisation of the soul; I mean the imagination
and the passions. The principles of these are as invariable as the
former, and are to be known and reasoned upon in the same manner, by an
appeal to common sense deciding upon the common feelings of mankind. This
sense, and these feelings, appear to me of equal authority, and equally
conclusive.

Now this appeal implies a general uniformity and agreement in the minds
of men. It would be else an idle and vain endeavour to establish rules
of art; it would be pursuing a phantom to attempt to move affections with
which we were entirely unacquainted. We have no reason to suspect there
is a greater difference between our minds than between our forms, of
which, though there are no two alike, yet there is a general similitude
that goes through the whole race of mankind; and those who have
cultivated their taste can distinguish what is beautiful or deformed, or,
in other words, what agrees with or what deviates from the general idea
of nature, in one case as well as in the other.

The internal fabric of our mind, as well as the external form of our
bodies, being nearly uniform, it seems then to follow, of course, that as
the imagination is incapable of producing anything originally of itself,
and can only vary and combine these ideas with which it is furnished by
means of the senses, there will be, of course, an agreement in the
imaginations as in the senses of men. There being this agreement, it
follows that in all cases, in our lightest amusements as well as in our
most serious actions and engagements of life, we must regulate our
affections of every kind by that of others. The well-disciplined mind
acknowledges this authority, and submits its own opinion to the public