Simple Imitation of Nature, Manner, Style
(1789)
It does not seem to be superfluous to define clearly the meaning we attach to these words, which we shall often have occasion to make use of. For, however long we may have been in the habit of using them, and however they may seem to have been defined in theoretical works, still every one continues to use them in a way of his own, and means more or less by them, according to the degree of clearness or uncertainty with which he has seized the ideas they express.