Volume 1

Essays on the nature and principles of taste / by Archibald Alison.

  • Alison, Archibald, 1757-1839.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on the nature and principles of taste / by Archibald Alison. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    proportioned to our accuracy in ascertain- ing the Nature of the Emotion itself. WJien we look back to the histoiy of these investigations, and to the Theories which have been so liberally formed upon the subject, there is one fact that must ne- ciessarily strike us, viz. That all these Theo- ries have uniformly taken for granted the Simpliciti/ of this Emotion ; that they have considered it as an Emotion too plain, and too commonly felt, to admit of any Analy- sis ; that they have as uniformly, therefore, referred it to some one Principle or Law of the Human Mind ; and that they have therefore concluded, that the Discover)'- of that one Principle was the essential key by which all the Pleasures of Taste were to be resolved. While they have assumed this funda- mental Principle, the various Theories of Philosophers may, and indeed must, be in- cluded in the two following Classes of Sup- position.