ARTIST AND CRITIC 95 



still seem true, but the sources from which a knowledge of these 

 eternal canons can be gained are open to the layman as to the 

 artist. Many men who have no practical skill in any art take 

 great pleasure in studying the laws of art, and of these some 

 are far more competent than most artists to collect experience, 

 to analyse emotions, and to arrange in logical sequence the 

 facts observed. The artist is seldom a man of clear thought, 

 though instances to the contrary may be found. Nevertheless, 

 here we think that the seeming advantages of the layman tend 

 really to his disadvantage. In the mind of the artist the 

 vaguely apprehended principle may really live and guide his 

 work ; as religious faith may guide a man who could neither 

 defend a dogma by logic nor even apprehend its meaning with 

 accuracy. The layman, precisely because he formulates his 

 principles more clearly, is in greater danger of using them like 

 formulae. He then obtains his judgment by a sort of calcula- 

 tion and can no longer trust his senses. In other words, he be- 

 comes a pedant. No form of criticism, not even the dogmatic, is 

 so barren as that which endeavours to test the merit of a composi- 

 tion by a series of comparisons with a series of assumed standards. 

 The elements of beauty cannot be weighed in a balance like 

 chemical ingredients. We are not aware that any dramatic 

 critic (with the possible exception of Mr. William Winter) has 

 spoken of a play as containing fifteen measures of variety, ten 

 of repose, six of style, and so forth, though we suspect that 

 professorial examiners in literature have before now endeavoured 

 to estimate the comparative excellence of essays by some such 

 simple numerical process ; but even when numbers are eschewed, 

 the critic who systematically considers a work of art under a 

 series of heads, and endeavours to appraise its value by ascer- 

 taining how far it squares with each successive rule, is trying to 

 measure beauty with a tape line. A man's judgment of a work 

 of art, be he artist or layman, should come to him as a direct 

 perception, although when he desires to understand his sensation 

 or to explain it to others, he may have recourse to analysis and 

 comparison. The artist is in less danger than the layman of 

 inverting the proper order. 



Yet this is rather a dangerous argument to use in favour of 

 the artist that he is less likely to go wrong because he trusts 



