

ON SOME PRINCIPLES OF CRITICISM 65 



would be the classification and history of all mental products 

 in the past ; another, the determination of definitions and 

 canons whereby such products should be estimated. 



No sooner have we stated these conditions than it becomes 

 apparent that too distinct a field is being claimed for criticism, 

 and that we are wandering from the proper meaning of the 

 word. Criticism is not of the same nature as science. It is 

 not a department of systematised knowledge, but an instru- 

 ment or organ ancillary to all sciences and to every branch of 

 investigation which implies the exercise of judgment. 



After admitting that criticism (as it is at present under- 

 stood) cannot enter the sphere of the sciences, we may still 

 pause to consider how far it can be exercised in a scientific 

 spirit, with a defined method, with principles established 

 rationally and applied logically. In pursuing this inquiry, 

 it will be convenient to limit attention to the criticism of 

 art and literature, which is the main subject of the present 

 essay ; although, as I have said, the critical faculty finds 

 exercise in every province of thought, and its operation in 

 each is determined by the same conditions of psychology 

 and logic. 



VI 



Criticism, in order to be methodical, implies a previous 

 metaphysic. The critic must possess views regarding art in 

 general, and the functions of the several arts. He ought also 

 to have formed conceptions of what is meant by the abstract 

 terms he uses. For the most part, in this country, the 

 practice of the critic is empirical, and notions common to 

 the vulgar are accepted at their current value. In Germany, 

 on the other hand, we have eminent examples, from Kant to 

 Hegel, from Kuno Fischer and Schopenhauer to Lotze, of 

 rigorous attempts to deduce the laws of criticism from 

 abstract metaphysic. The two systems differ less than they 

 appear to do ; for whether general notions are empirically 

 borrowed or logically demonstrated, notions of some sort 

 underlie all judgments, and the real acumen of the critic is 



F 



