Hence men, even in the infancy of society, observe a certain
order in their words and actions, distinct from that of the objects
and the impressions represented by them, all expression being
subject to the laws of that from which it proceeds. But let us
dismiss those more general considerations which might involve an
inquiry into the principles of society itself, and restrict our
view to the manner in which the imagination is expressed upon its
forms.
In the youth of the world, men dance and sing and imitate natural
objects, observing in these actions, as in all others, a certain
rhythm or order. And, although all men observe a similar, they
observe not the same order, in the motions of the dance, in the
melody of the song, in the combinations of language, in the series
of their imitations of natural objects. For there is a certain
order or rhythm belonging to each of these classes of mimetic
representation, from which the hearer and the spectator receive
an intenser and purer pleasure than from any other: the sense
of an approximation to this order has been called taste by modern
writers. Every man in the infancy of art observes an order which
approximates more or less closely to that from which this highest
delight results: but the diversity is not sufficiently marked, as
that its gradations should be sensible, except in those instances
where the predominance of this faculty of approximation to the
beautiful (for so we may be permitted to name the relation between
this highest pleasure and its cause) is very great.
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