"David Hume - Of the Standard of Taste" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

the performance supposes. If the work be addressed to persons
of a different age or nation, he makes no allowance for their
peculiar views and prejudices; but, full of the manners of his
own age and country, rashly condemns what seemed admirable in
the eyes of those for whom alone the discourse was calculated.
If the work be executed for the public, he never sufficiently
enlarges his comprehension, or forgets his interest as a
friend or enemy, as a rival or commentator. By this means, his
sentiments are perverted; nor have the same beauties and
blemishes the same influence upon him, as if he had imposed a
proper violence on his imagination, and had forgotten himself
for a moment. So far his taste evidently departs from the true
standard; and of consequence loses all credit and authority.

It is well known, that in all questions, submitted to the
understanding, prejudice is destructive of sound judgment, and
perverts all operations of the intellectual faculties: It is
no less contrary to good taste; nor has it less influence to
corrupt our sentiment of beauty. It belongs to good sense to
check its influence in both cases; and in this respect, as
well as in many others, reason, if not an essential part of
taste, is at least requisite to the operations of this latter
faculty. In all the nobler productions of genius, there is a
mutual relation and correspondence of parts; nor can either
the beauties or blemishes be perceived by him, whose thought
is not capacious enough to comprehend all those parts, and
compare then with each other, in order to perceive the
consistence and uniformity of the whole. Every work of art has
also a certain end or purpose, for which it is calculated; and
is to be deemed more or less perfect, as it is more or less
fitted to attain this end. The object of eloquence is to
persuade, of history to instruct, of poetry to please by means
of the passions and the imagination. These ends we must carry
constantly in our view, when we peruse any performance; and we
must be able to judge how far the means employed are adapted
to their respective purposes. Besides, every kind of
composition, even the most poetical, is nothing but a chain of
propositions and reasonings; not always, indeed, the justest
and most exact, but still plausible and specious, however
disguised by the colouring of the imagination. The persons
introduced in tragedy and epic poetry, must be represented as
reasoning, and thinking, and concluding, and acting, suitably
to their character and circumstances; and without judgment, as
well as taste and invention, a poet can never hope to succeed
in so delicate an undertaking. Not to mention, that the same
excellence of faculties which contributes to the improvement
of reason, the same clearness of conception, the same
exactness of distinction, the same vivacity of apprehension,
are essential to the operations of true taste, and are its
infallible concomitants. It seldom, or never happens, that a