§ II.--COGNIZANCE OF THE BEAUTIFUL. _Beauty an Object of Cognition._--We have treated, in the preceding section, of the idea of the beautiful, in itself considered. We proceed to investigate the action of the mind as cognizant of the beautiful in its actual manifestations, whether in nature or art. Beauty, as we have found reason to believe, is not a conception merely, existing only in the mind, but a quality of certain objects. As such it has objective value and existence, and the mind is cognizant of it as such, perceives it, observes it, compares it and the object to which it pertains with other like and unlike objects, judges and decides respecting it. This quality of objects makes its appeal, as do all objects of perception, first to the senses, and through them to the mind. There is thus awakened in the mind, or suggested to it, the original and intuitive conception of the beautiful; there is also, and beside this, the cognizance by the mind of the beautiful as an actual and present reality manifest in the object before it. As it perceives other objects of a like nature, it classes them with the preceding, compares them severally, judges of their respective merits, their respective degrees and kinds of beauty. This discriminating power of the mind, as exercised upon the various objects of beauty and sublimity, whether in nature or art, we may designate by the general name of _taste_. _Nature of this Power._--There has been much difference of opinion as to the precise nature of this power, whether it is a distinct faculty of the mind, or the simple exercise of some faculty already known and described, whether it is of the nature of intellect, or of emotion, or the combination of both. Hence the various definitions of taste which have been given by different writers, some regarding it as strictly an intellectual faculty, others as an emotion, while the greater number regard it as including the action both of the intellect in perceiving, and of the sensibility in feeling, whatever is beautiful and sublime. What has been already said, sufficiently indicates with which of these general views our own most nearly accords. We use the term taste to denote the mind's power of cognizing the beautiful, a power of knowing, of discriminating, rather than of feeling, an exercise of judgment and the reflective power, directed to one particular class of objects, rather than any distinct faculty of the mind. Feeling is doubtless awakened on the perception of the beautiful; it may even precede the judgment by which we decide that the object before us is truly beautiful; but the feeling is not _itself_ the perception, or the judgment; is not itself _taste_, whatever may be its relation to taste.