Page 210 - DENG502_PROSE

Prose

Notes To summarize Hume on taste, aesthetic and moral response is “immediate” in the sense that the
feeling occurs spontaneously in anyone who makes customary imaginative associations. Hume
wants to emphasize that a critic does not infer the presence of beauty. Yet he also acknowledges
the relevance of sound understanding to taste. This combination of doctrines has implications for
the practice of justifying judgments of taste, and becomes the focus of the essay “Of the Standard
of Taste.” Knowing that a sonnet has the same form as a second, beautiful sonnet will not offer any
reason to think that they are equally fine poems. Only a reading of the sonnet can support claims
about its beauty. However, Hume’s theory should be interpreted with caution, against the backdrop
of his other claims about moral and aesthetic distinctions. The general, natural principles of taste
are supplemented by learned rules, so that knowledge of other sonnets contributes to a more
accurate or refined evaluation of the merits and flaws of a particular sonnet. His subjectivism does
not lead to relativism. Not every sentiment is equally good.

20.2 Of Essay Writing: Critical Analysis
“Of Essay Writing” appeared in 1742 in Volume two of Hume’s Essays, Moral and Political, but
was removed from all subsequent editions of that text published during Hume’s life. The text file
here is based on the 1875 Green and Grose edition. Spelling and punctuation have been modernized.
Of Essay Writing The elegant part of mankind, who are not immersed in the animal life, but
employ themselves in the operations of the mind, may be divided into the learned and conversible.
The learned are such as have chosen for their portion the higher and more difficult operations of
the mind, which require leisure and solitude, and cannot be brought to perfection, without long
preparation and severe labour. The conversible world join to a sociable disposition, and a taste of
pleasure, an inclination to the easier and more gentle exercises of the understanding, to obvious
reflections on human affairs, and the duties of common life, and to the observation of the blemishes
or perfections of the particular objects, that surround them. Such subjects of thought furnish not
sufficient employment in solitude, but require the company and conversation of our fellow-
creatures, to render them a proper exercise for the mind: and this brings mankind together in
society, where everyone displays his thoughts and observations in the best manner he is able, and
mutually gives and receives information, as well as pleasure. The separation of the learned from
the conversible world seems to have been the great defect of the last age, and must have had a
very bad influence both on books and company: for what possibility is there of finding topics of
conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures, without having recourse sometimes to
history, poetry, politics, and the more obvious principles, at least, of philosophy? Must our whole
discourse be a continued series of gossiping stories and idle remarks? Must the mind never rise
higher, but be perpetually Stun’d and worn out with endless chat Of Will did this, and Nan said
that? This would be to render the time spent in company the most unentertaining, as well as the
most unprofitable part of ourlives. On the other hand, learning has been as great a loser by being
shut up in colleges and cells, and secluded from the world and good company. By that means,
every thing of what we call Belles Lettres became totally barbarous, being cultivated by men
without any taste of life or manners, and without that liberty and facility of thought and expression,
which can only be acquired by conversation. Even philosophy went to wrack by this moaping
recluse method of study, and became as chimericalin her conclusions as she was unintelligible in
her stile and manner of delivery. And indeed, what could be expected from men who never
consulted experience in any of their reasonings, or who never searched for that experience, where
alone it is to be found, in common life and conversation?’Tis with great pleasure I observe, that
men of letters, in this age, have lost, in a great measure, that shyness and bashfulness of temper,
which kept them at a distance from mankind; and, at the same time, that men of the world are
proud of borrowing from books their most agreeable topics of conversation. ’Tis to be hoped, that
this league betwixt the learned and conversible worlds, which is so happily begun, will be still
farther improved, to their mutual advantage; and to that end, I know nothing more advantageous

204 LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY