Accordingly, virtue being only one kind of beauty, the principle which determines what is virtuous is, not conscience, but _taste_. “Could we once convince ourselves,” he says, “of what is in itself so evident, viz., that in the very nature of things there must of necessity be the foundation of a right and wrong _taste_, as well in respect of inward character of features as of outward person, behaviour, and action, we should be far more ashamed of ignorance and wrong judgment in the former than in the latter of these subjects.… One who aspires to the character of a man of breeding and politeness is careful to form his judgment of arts and sciences upon right models of perfection.… He takes particular care to turn his eye from every thing which is gaudy, luscious, and of false taste. Nor is he less careful to turn his ear from every sort of music, besides that which is of the best manner and truest harmony. ’Twere to be wished we had the same regard to a _right taste in life and manners_.… If civility and humanity be a taste; if brutality, insolence, riot, be in the same manner a taste, … who would not endeavour to force nature as well in this respect as in what relates to a taste or judgment in other arts and sciences?” Sometimes he distinctly contrasts this taste with principle and conscience, and gives it the preference over them. “After all,” he says, “_’tis not merely what we call principle_, but _a taste_, which governs men. They may think for certain, ‘This is right,’ or ‘that wrong;’ they may believe ‘this is a virtue,’ or ‘that a sin;’ ‘this is punishable by man,’ or ‘that by God;’ yet if the savour of things lies cross to honesty, if the fancy be florid, and the appetite high towards the subaltern beauties and lower orders of worldly symmetries and proportions, the conduct will infallibly turn this latter way.” Thus, somewhat like a Jansenist, he makes the superior pleasure infallibly conquer, and implies that, neglecting principle, we have but to train the taste to a kind of beauty higher than sensual. He adds: “_Even conscience_, I fear, such as is owing to religious discipline, will make but a slight figure, when this taste is set amiss.” And hence the well-known doctrine of this author, that ridicule is the test of truth; for truth and virtue being beauty, and falsehood and vice deformity, and the feeling inspired by deformity being that of derision, as that inspired by beauty is admiration, it follows that vice is not a thing to weep about, but to laugh at. “Nothing is ridiculous,” he says, “but what is deformed; nor is any thing proof against raillery but what is handsome and just. And therefore ’tis the hardest thing in the world to deny fair honesty the use of this weapon, which can never bear an edge against herself, and bears against every thing contrary.”