MATTHEW AENOLD'S CEITICISM 91 



land," mainly essays in political and social criticism; 

 three volumes of religious criticism, namely, "Liter- 

 ature and Dogma," "God and the Bible," and "St. 

 Paul and Protestantism," with "Last Essays;" and 

 one volume of "Discourses in America." Of this 

 body of work the eight volumes of prose are pure 

 criticism, and by criticism, when applied to Arnold, 

 we must mean the scientific passion for pure truth, 

 the passion for seeing the thing exactly as it is 

 carried into all fields. "I wish to decide nothing as 

 of my own authority," he says in one of his earlier 

 essays; "the great art of criticism is to get one's self 

 out of the way and to let humanity decide." He 

 would play the r61e of a disinterested observer. Apro- 

 pos of his political and social criticisms, he says : — 



"I do not profess to be a politician, but simply 

 one of a disinterested class of observers, who, with 

 no organized and embodied set of supporters to 

 please, set themselves to observe honestly and to 

 report faithfully the state and prospects of our civ- 

 ilization. " 



He urges that criticism in England has been too 

 "directly polemical and controversial ;" that it has 

 been made to subserve interests not its own, — the 

 interest of party, of a sect, of a theory, or of some 

 practical and secondary consideration. His own 

 effort has been to restore it to its " pure intellectual 

 sphere," and to keep its high aim constantly before 

 him, "which is to keep man from a self-satisfaction 

 which is retarding and vulgarizing; to lead him 

 towards perfection by making his mind dwell upon 



