§ 8.
With respect to their other opinions, they are purely the result of this same imagination, having no basis in reality, and being only different modifications of which that faculty is susceptible. Thus, when the impressions made upon the nervous system through the medium of the eyes are agreeable, they pronounce that the objects viewed are beautiful. Smells are good or bad; tastes are sweet or bitter, things touched are hard or soft, according as the sensation produced is unpleasant or otherwise—as scents, and tastes, and contact, and sounds affect the system. Following up these ideas, men have believed that the Deity is pleased with melody, while others have believed that all the movements of the celestial bodies were one harmonious concert; a proof, that these men are persuaded that things are really such as they conceive them to be, or that the world is entirely ideal.—It is not to be wondered at therefore, if we scarcely ever meet with two individuals of the same opinion: indeed some make it their boast to doubt of every thing; for, although all men have a similar bodily conformation, and resemble each other in many respects, there are still as many respects in which they differ. Accordingly it must follow, that what pleases this party displeases that; and what appears good to one man appears evil to another.—We must conclude therefore, that their various opinions must be attributed to their different organizations and the diversity of their co-existences—that reason has little connection with them; and in short, that their conceptions of the material world are the decided results of imagination.