III
In France, taste is applied to beauty at least as early
as 1645 by Guez de Balzac (Borgerhoff, 1950), and is
used with this meaning by Molière in 1659 (Molière,
1659; 1663; 1669), and by La Fontaine in 1668. La
Rochefoucauld, in a posthumous essay, Du goût, is
probably the first theorist of taste in France. Taste is
variable, depending on personal inclinations and cir-
cumstances, but good taste (bon goût) is an instinctive
power of correct evaluation based on judgment (juger
sainement, discernement, lumière naturelle) rather than
on feeling; it concerns all kinds of intellectual, moral,
and aesthetic objects (La Rochefoucauld, 1949). Méré's
bon goust (1677) is very similar; it is thought to be
un sens intérieur peu connu, independent of learning,
but founded sur des raisons très-solides; mais le plus
souvent sans raisonner (Méré, 1930). For Saint-
Evremond, on the contrary, taste may, as
bon goût,
bon sens, be close to reason, but more generally it is
relative and whimsical (von Stein, 1886). Malebranche
in
La Recherche de la vérité (1674) regards taste as
pertaining to sensory things (
beautez sensibles), an
inferior, sensitive kind of beauty, and holds it as relative
(Malebranche, 1958f.). But, if for Rapin and Bouhours
taste is relative to centuries and to nations (von Stein,
1886), for Bouhours
good taste, especially connected
with aesthetics, is a sort of instinctive good judgment,
une espèce d'instinct de la droite raison. And La
Bruyère writes that good taste is the effect of sound
judgment:
Entre le bon sens et le bon goût il y a la
différence de la cause à son effet (
Les Caractères, “Des
Jugements,” 1694). This rationalist conception of good
taste, shared by Mme Dacier (Dacier, 1684), reaches
a climax in aesthetics with Crousaz (1715), who con-
siders taste a sentimental substitute for reason, which
can be improved by education (Baeumler, 1923).
This attitude is opposed, under English influence, by
the Abbé Dubos (1719); taste as a sensitivity to beauty
is for him basically a matter of feeling; this feeling
is not a substitute for reason, or the expression of an
unconscious rational judgment: it is the basis of the
judgment of beauty, as a special faculty, defined as a
“sixth sense” (Baeumler, 1923). A lively discussion with
Charles Rollin ensued (Rollin, 1725). Cartaud de la
Vilate was also inclined to irrationalism; and he was
especially interested in the study of the evolution of
taste through the ages (Cartaud, 1736).
But the rationalist trend still dominated in French
aesthetics. For the Abbé Batteux (1747), taste is knowl-
edge of rules through a feeling which can be educated
(Baeumler, 1923, von Stein, 1886). Diderot conceives
taste as a faculty of immediate judgment; a faculty
acquired through recurrent experiences, of grasping the
true and the good, with whatever renders it beauti-
ful, and of being instantly and vividly affected (faculté
acquise par des expériences réitérées, à saisir le vrai
et le bon, avec la circonstance qui le rend beau, et d'en
être promptement et vivement touché; Belaval, 1950).
Vauvenargues (1746) and D'Alembert (Encyclopédie,
1757) seem to subordinate taste to reasoning
(Vauvenargues, 1746; Baeumler, 1923; Encyclopédie,
1757; von Stein, 1886). For Voltaire too taste comes
close to reasoning, and may be corrected by reasoning;
really good taste is universal, in spite of national and
other differences of taste in general (Encyclopédie,
1757; Wellek, 1955). One of Voltaire's most famous
critical works is entitled Le Temple du goût (1733).
A later supporter of rationalism in taste is Pierre
Mingard (Felice, 1773; see also: Duclos, 1805). But
Montesquieu revives, at least partially, the irra-
tionalism of Dubos, for whom taste is independent of
reasoning; it is the faculty enabling one to apply to
individual cases the rules of art, and to establish excep-
tions to them (Encyclopédie, 1757; von Stein, 1886).
