1 84 ESSAYS IX PHILOSOPHY 



some higher end, but is itself a final aim ; or, as 

 we may otherwise say, art is its own end. It is not 

 a mere recreation for man, a piece of by-play in 

 human life, but is an essential mode of spiritual 

 activity, the lack of which would be a falling short 

 of the destination of man. It is itself part and 

 parcel of man's eternal vocation. 



Now, this self-sustenance, this serious necessity, 

 grounded in the very nature of art as the investiture 

 of the actual with its ideal-reality or real-ideality 

 (call it which you will), is the true criterion of art. 

 If a work comes to us claiming to be a piece of art, 

 its claim must stand or fall according as we can or 

 cannot find a place for it in a scheme of life that 

 is consistent with our permanently respecting and 

 revering human nature. And according to its place 

 in the scale of things compatible with the worth of 

 man, as measured by his rational self-criticism, must 

 be its rank in the scale of art. 



Applied to poetry, this theory would teach us that 

 what makes a poem a poem is the embodiment in 

 it of some element of actual experience, set in the 

 light of the genuine ideal — the ideal which by vir- 

 tue of fitting in with the ideal of human nature 

 forms at once the true reality of the embodied fact, 

 and a permanent factor in the complete reality of 

 man. The theory rests upon the doctrine that the 

 final truth of Nature and of man is one and the 



