TASTE

That |*iwer of the mind which is conversant about the beautiful, both of nature nnd of art. In the Latin language, the same metaphor obtained a very wide application, and the term sapient i a was employed to signify quickne and correctne of judgment generally. Shnftsbury's use of the term is nearly as extensive, being applied by him to manners, morals, and government, and to wit, ingenuity, nnd beauty. In its modern use it is restricted to those objects which fall within the province of imagination. Now, although imagination derives its objects pre-eminently from those of the sight and hearing, and although the epithet beautiful, is, for the most part, confined to these; yet the mental power which judges of them borrows its name from n third sense. The reason of this is satisfactorily shown by Cole ridge. (Literary Remains, vol. i.) The senses, he observes,are either purely organic, or mixed. The former present their objects to the mind distinct from its perception of them, while the latter invariably blend the percep;ion of the object with a certain consciousne of the percipient subject. To the latter cla belong the touch, the smell, and the taste. Of these, taste and smell differ from the touch, as adding to that reference to our vital being which is common to the three a degree of enjoyment or otherwise; while the taste is distinguished from the smell only by its more frequent and dignified use in human nature. By taste then, as applied to the fine arts, we must be supposed to mean an Intellectual perception of any object, blended with a distinct reference to our sensibility of enjoyment or dislike. In the same e ay Cole ridge gives nnother and a wider definiiiop of taste; as " a metaphor taken from one of the mixed senses, and applied to objects of the more purely organic, and of our moral sense, when we would imply the co-existence of an immediate personal dislike or complacency." Now, by the constitution of man's nature, every exertion of human activity, in the pursuit of the good, the beautiful, and the true, combines a sense of pleasure, or the contrary, with the perception of their respective objects; and this fact would justify the widest application of the metaEhor. While, however, in the case of the true, this co-exitent pleasure has not received4 H any distinctive appellation, [s. 1231]