 Walton refers to David Hume as the first philosopher to diagnose the phenomenon of imaginative resistance. All of Hume’s remarks on imaginative resistance take place in few paragraphs towards the end of his essay “Of the Standard of Taste” (1757). There, Hume states that, even though it requires some effort, we can still engage with artworks that depict variations or deviations from what we are accustomed to, such as “princesses carrying water from the spring, and kings and heroes dressing their own victuals” or any other “innocent peculiarities of manners” and “speculative errors” (1757 [1875: 245–6]). However, he claims, there is a stark contrast between the ease of our engagement with such works and with works that depict moral deviations without proper approbation and blame. He writes,