CEITICISM AND THE MAN 83 



not find it pretty. His business " is to classify and 

 analyze the fruits of the human mind as the natural- 

 ist classifies the objects of his study, rather than to 

 praise or blame them." 



To classify and analyze the fruits of the human 

 mind is certainly one of the functions of criticism, and 

 only one. The analogy Mr. Howells employs is mis- 

 leading. We do not sit in judgment on natural spe- 

 cimens and products except as they stand related to 

 human wants and utilities. We compare climates, 

 seasons, soils, landscapes, with reference to racial and 

 individual needs and well-being. If you bring me 

 trees from the woods or stone from the quarry to 

 build my house with, I am bound to sit in judgment 

 upon them. And when my house is built, my neigh- 

 bors will sit in judgment upon it. Of all artificial 

 things, of all man's works, we are bound to ask. Are 

 they well done ? are they what they should be ? are 

 they the best of their kind ? Shall we not ask these 

 questions of the poem also, of the novel, the essay, 

 the history ? 



Art has relations to life, and the critic is bound to 

 consider what these relations are in any given work, 

 — how true, how important ; he is examining a human 

 product, not a natural specimen, and is as competent 

 to reject as to accept ; he must compare, weigh, ap- 

 praise, to the best of his ability. 



The specimens of natural history are perfect after 

 their kind ; the main question with them is, to which 

 kind or species does a given specimen belong ? But 

 the poem or the history or the novel is not always 



