The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and casualty, if those

who are to judge of their excellences had no settled principles by

which they are to regulate their decisions, and the merit or defect

of performances were to be determined by unguided fancy. And

indeed we may venture to assert that whatever speculative knowledge

is necessary to the artist, is equally and indispensably necessary

to the connoisseur.

The first idea that occurs in the consideration of what is fixed in

art, or in taste, is that presiding principle of which I have so

frequently spoken in former discourses, the general idea of nature.

The beginning, the middle, and the end of everything that is

valuable in taste, is comprised in the knowledge of what is truly

nature; for whatever ideas are not conformable to those of nature,

or universal opinion, must be considered as more or less

capncious.

The idea of nature comprehending not only the forms which nature

produces, but also the nature and internal fabric and organisation,

as I may call it, of the human mind and imagination: general

ideas, beauty, or nature, are but different ways of expressing the

same thing, whether we apply these terms to statues, poetry, or

picture. Deformity is not nature, but an accidental deviation from

her accustomed practice. This general idea therefore ought to be

called nature, and nothing else, correctly speaking, has a right to

that name. But we are so far from speaking, in common

conversation, with any such accuracy, that, on the contrary, when

we criticise Rembrandt and other Dutch painters, who introduced

into their historical pictures exact representations of individual

objects with all their imperfections, we say, though it is not in a

good taste, yet it is nature.

This misapplication of terms must be very often perplexing to the

young student. Is not, he may say, art an imitation of nature?