The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)Burke, Edmund
Philosophy
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 01 (of 12)
Burke, Edmund
Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 1760-1820; Political science -- Early works to 1800
to this nauseous morsel, or to any other bitter drug to which he had not
been accustomed; which proves that his palate was naturally like that of
other men in all things, that it is still like the palate of other men
in many things, and only vitiated in some particular points. For in
judging of any new thing, even of a taste similar to that which he has
been formed by habit to like, he finds his palate affected in the
natural manner, and on the common principles. Thus the pleasure of all
the senses, of the sight, and even of the taste, that most ambiguous of
the senses, is the same in all, high and low, learned and unlearned.
Besides the ideas, with their annexed pains and pleasures, which are
presented by the sense; the mind of man possesses a sort of creative
power of its own; either in representing at pleasure the images of
things in the order and manner in which they were received by the
senses, or in combining those images in a new manner, and according to
a different order. This power is called imagination; and to this belongs
whatever is called wit, fancy, invention, and the like. But it must be
observed, that this power of the imagination is incapable of producing
anything absolutely new; it can only vary the disposition of those ideas
which it has received from the senses. Now the imagination is the most
extensive province of pleasure and pain, as it is the region of our
fears and our hopes, and of all our passions that are connected with
them; and whatever is calculated to affect the imagination with these
commanding ideas, by force of any original natural impression, must have
the same power pretty equally over all men. For since the imagination is
only the representation of the senses, it can only be pleased or
displeased with the images, from the same principle on which the sense
is pleased or displeased with the realities; and consequently there must
be just as close an agreement in the imaginations as in the senses of
men. A little attention will convince us that this must of necessity be
the case.
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