The elements of beauty have hitherto been confounded by many writers, as more or less applicable to objects of all kinds; and as this general and confused application was easily disproved as to many objects, uncertainty and doubt have been thrown over the whole. The remaining writers have consequently been led to adopt, as characters of beauty, only one or two of these elements, which were consequently capable of application only to one or two classes of its objects. Hence, no subject of human inquiry has hitherto been left in a more disgraceful condition than this, the very foundation of taste. I do not hesitate to state that, owing to the near approximations to truth, and the insensible transitions into error, which I have found in every writer, and the immense mass of confused materials which they present, this subject has cost me more trouble than any one I have ever investigated, except that of my work on the mind;[16] nor without some physiological knowledge, do I think tasks of this kind at all practicable. Generally speaking, each branch of knowledge is most surely advanced by acquaintance with its related branches; and philosophers cannot too much bear in mind the words of Cicero: "Etenim omnes artes quæ ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continentur." APPENDIX TO THE PRECEDING CHAPTERS. SECTION I. NATURE OF THE PICTURESQUE.[17] In landscape, the nature of the beautiful and the sublime seems to be better understood than that of the picturesque. There are few disputes as to the former; many as to the latter. These disputes, moreover, are not as to _what is picturesque_, but as to _what picturesque is_. Payne Knight asserts, that the picturesque has no distinctive character, and merely designates what a painter would imitate. Price, on the contrary, has given so many admirable illustrations of it, that its characteristics are before every reader. Strange to tell, its nature or essence has not been penetrated, because these characteristics have not been rigidly analyzed. Price has, indeed, generalized considerably on this subject, by showing that irregularity, roughness, &c., enter into all scenes of a picturesque description; and the examination of any one of them will certainly verify the truth of his observation.