_Uniformity of Results._--I change now the experiment. I repeat it. I place myself before other works, before works of other artists--works of the painter, the architect, the musician, the poet, the orator. Whatever is beautiful, in art or nature, I observe. I perceive, in all cases, the same results, the occurrence of essentially the same mental phenomena. I conclude that these effects are produced, not fortuitously, but according to the constitution of my nature; that they are not specific instances, but general laws of mental action; in other words, that the mind possesses a susceptibility of being impressed in this manner by such objects, and also a faculty of judging and discriminating as above described. To these two elements, essentially, then, do the mental phenomena occasioned by the presence of the beautiful, reduce themselves. _The Question._--Which, then, of these elements is it that answers to the idea of taste, as used to denote a power of the mind? Is it the susceptibility of emotion in view of the beautiful, the power of feeling; or is it the faculty of judging and discriminating; or is it both combined? Our definitions, as we have seen, include both; the word, itself, may denote either; both are comprised in our analysis of the mental phenomena in view of the beautiful. _Not the first._--Is it the first? I think not. Taste is not mere emotion, nor mere susceptibility of emotion. A child or a savage may be deficient in taste, yet they may be as deeply moved in view of the beautiful, in nature or art, as the man of cultivated mind; nay, their emotion may exceed his. They may regard, with great delight and admiration, what he will view with entire indifference. So far from indicating a high degree of taste, the very susceptibility of emotion, in such cases, may be the sure indication of a want of taste. They are pleased with that which a cultivated and correct taste would condemn. The power of being moved is simply sensibility, and sensibility is not taste, however closely they may be related. _Taste the intellectual Element._--Is taste, then, the power of mental discrimination which enables me to say that such and such things are, or are not, beautiful, and which, in some cases, perhaps, enables me to decide why, or wherein they are so? Does it, in a word, denote the _intellectual_ rather than the _emotional_ element of the process? I am inclined to think this the more correct view. Susceptibility of emotion is, doubtless, concerned in the matter. It has to do with taste. It may be even the ground and foundation of its exercise, nay, of its existence. But it is not, itself, taste, and should not be included, therefore, in the definition.