In fact we are never satisfied with our opinions till they are ratified
and confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We dispute and
wrangle for ever; we endeavour to get men to come to us when we do not go
to them.

He therefore who is acquainted with the works which have pleased
different ages and different countries, and has formed his opinion on
them, has more materials and more means of knowing what is analogous to
the mind of man than he who is conversant only with the works of his own
age or country. What has pleased, and continues to please, is likely to
please again: hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable
foundation they must ever stand.

This search and study of the history of the mind ought not to be confined
to one art only. It is by the analogy that one art bears to another that
many things are ascertained which either were but faintly seen, or,
perhaps, would not have been discovered at all if the inventor had not
received the first hints from the practices of a sister art on a similar
occasion. The frequent allusions which every man who treats of any art
is obliged to draw from others in order to illustrate and confirm his
principles, sufficiently show their near connection and inseparable
relation.

All arts having the same general end, which is to please, and addressing
themselves to the same faculties through the medium of the senses, it
follows that their rules and principles must have as great affinity as
the different materials and the different organs or vehicles by which
they pass to the mind will permit them to retain.