truth results from the real agreement or equality of original ideas

among themselves; from the agreement of the representation of any

object with the thing represented; or from the correspondence of

the several parts of any arrangement with each other. It is the

very same taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that is

pleased with the resemblance of a picture to an original, and

touched with the harmony of music.

All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in nature, and are

therefore equally investigated by reason, and known by study; some

with more, some with less clearness, but all exactly in the same

way. A picture that is unlike, is false. Disproportionate

ordinance of parts is not right because it cannot be true until it

ceases to be a contradiction to assert that the parts have no

relation to the whole. Colouring is true where it is naturally

adapted to the eye, from brightness, from softness, from harmony,

from resemblance; because these agree with their object, nature,

and therefore are true: as true as mathematical demonstration; but

known to be true only to those who study these things.

But besides real, there is also apparent truth, or opinion, or

prejudice. With regard to real truth, when it is known, the taste

which conforms to it is, and must be, uniform. With regard to the

second sort of truth, which may be called truth upon sufferance, or

truth by courtesy, it is not fixed, but variable. However, whilst

these opinions and prejudices on which it is founded continue, they

operate as truth; and the art, whose office it is to please the

mind, as well as instruct it, must direct itself according to

opinion, or it will not attain its end.

In proportion as these prejudices are known to be generally

diffused, or long received, the taste which conforms to them

approaches nearer to certainty, and to a sort of resemblance to

real science, even where opinions are found to be no better than