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

This delicacy every one pretends to: Every one talks of it;
and would reduce every kind of taste or sentiment to its
standard. But as our intention in this essay is to mingle some
light of the understanding with the feelings of sentiment, it
will be proper to give a more accurate definition of delicacy,
than has hitherto been attempted. And not to draw our
philosophy from too profound a source, we shall have recourse
to a noted story in DON QUIXOTE.

It is with good reason, says SANCHO to the squire with the
great nose, that I pretend to have a judgment in wine: this is
a quality hereditary in our family. Two of my kinsmen were
once called to give their opinion of a hogshead, which was
supposed to be excellent, being old and of a good vintage. One
of them tastes it; considers it; and after mature reflection
pronounces the wine to be good, were it not for a small taste
of leather, which he perceived in it. The other, after using
the same precautions, gives also his verdict in favour of the
wine; but with the reserve of a taste of iron, which he could
easily distinguish. You cannot imagine how much they were both
ridiculed for their judgment. But who laughed in the end? On
emptying the hogshead, there was found at the bottom, an old
key with a leathern thong tied to it.

The great resemblance between mental and bodily taste will
easily teach us to apply this story. Though it be certain,
that beauty and deformity, more than sweet and bitter, are not
qualities in objects, but belong entirely to the sentiment,
internal or external; it must be allowed, that there are
certain qualities in objects, which are fitted by nature to
produce those particular feelings. Now as these qualities may
be found in a small degree, or may be mixed and confounded
with each other, it often happens, that the taste is not
affected with such minute qualities, or is not able to
distinguish all the particular flavours, amidst the disorder,
in which they are presented. Where the organs are so fine, as
to allow nothing to escape them; and at the same time so exact
as to perceive every ingredient in the composition: This we
call delicacy of taste, whether we employ these terms in the
literal or metaphorical sense. Here then the general rules of
beauty are of use; being drawn from established models, and
from the observation of what pleases or displeases, when
presented singly and in a high degree: And if the same
qualities, in a continued composition and in a small degree,
affect not the organs with a sensible delight or uneasiness,
we exclude the person from all pretensions to this delicacy.
To produce these general rules or avowed patterns of
composition is like finding the key with the leathern thong;
which justified the verdict of SANCHO's kinsmen, and
confounded those pretended judges who had condemned them.