A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

from the reſemblance, which the imitation has to the original; the imagination, I conceive, can have no pleaſure but what reſults from one or the other of theſe cauſes. And theſe cauſes operate pretty uniformly upon all men, becauſe they operate by principles in nature, and which are not derived from any particular habits or advantages. Mr. Locke very juſtly and finely obſerves of wit, that it is chiefly converſant in tracing reſemblances; he remarks at the ſame time, that the buſi-G - neſs neſs of judgment is rather in finding differences. It may perhaps appear, on this ſuppoſition, that there is no material diſtinction between the wit and the judgment, as they both ſeem to, reſult from different operations of the ſame faculty of comparing. But in reality, whether they are or are not dependent on the ſame power of the mind, they differ fo very materially in many reſpects, that a perfect union of wit and judgment is one of the rareſt things in the world. When two diftin& objects are unlike to each other, it is only what we expect; things are in their common way ; and therefore they make no impreſſion on the imagination: but when two diſtinct objects have a reſemblance, we are ſtruck, we attend to them, and we are pleaſed. The mind of man has naturally a far greater alacrity and ſatisfaction in tracing reſemblances than in ſearching for differences; becauſe by making reſemblances we produce neu images, we' unite, we create, we enlarge our ON TASTE. 19