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INTRODUCTORY

In most of the departments of Life or Knowledge, Englishmen have earned the character of yielding a ready obedience to the claims of Law and Order. We are strict in requiring submission to the prescriptions of Moral Law. We know that our civil liberties depend on our loyal observance of the Common Law of the land. We perceive the necessity of subordinating the freedom of individual fancy to the severe laws of Physical Science. But there is a very extensive region of the understanding within which each of us is inclined to claim for himself an absolute exemption from law; we do not admit that there is any obligation on the individual to examine, school, and regulate his perceptions in matters of Art and Taste. "There has never been in England," says Augustus Schlegel, "an academical school of taste; in art, as in life, every man there gives his voice for what best pleases him, or what is most suitable to his own individual nature." And so far have we carried this liberty that criticism, or the would-be exposition of æsthetic law, has fallen

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among us into something like disrepute. critics," said Lord Beaconsfield, making an epigram which he knew would be popular, "are the men who have failed."

How far is this tendency in the English mind reasonable? It is undoubtedly grounded on two fundamental instincts in the constitution of our nature, our determination to abide by the results of experience, and our love of what is practical. Englishmen are sceptical in all matters that cannot be brought to the test of actual experience, and it is this national characteristic which has given rise on one side to the inductive philosophy of Bacon, Locke, and Newton, and on the other to the speculative school of David Hume, which maintains that no system of order is discoverable transcending the immediate perceptions of sense. Within the domain of philosophy we are right to follow logic to its legitimate conclusions. But reasoning which is valid for the philosopher may for the average mind simply provide an excuse for avoiding the primary duties of thought. We are obliged to recognise not only the fact that from the days of Aristotle men in every generation, and in every civilised society, have occupied themselves with attempts to discover the fundamental laws of Fine Art, but also that, by the very constitution of the human mind, each man is a critic. When we read a work of fiction, or look at a picture or a statue, if we reflect at all, we go through some process of reasoning and comparison which justifies our mind in remaining in a state of

pleasure or dissatisfaction. Moreover, we find that this process of reasoning is not an operation peculiar to ourselves, but something that can be compared with and measured by the experience of our neighbours. Evidently, then, our immediate æsthetic perceptions are capable of analysis, and there is at least a possibility, that the common perceptions of any society of men about objects of art may be derived from some absolute system of Law and Order in Nature itself.

Again, it is argued that, even if the laws of taste were discoverable, they would be of no practical use, either to the artist who creates, or to the world which judges of the artist's work. This is an argument which finds a kind of ally in the disposition of the philosopher. For example, a distinguished member of this University, Mr. Bernard Bosanquet, the author of a very valuable History of Esthetic, which may be studied with the greatest advantage by all who wish to follow me in this course of lectures, says: "Esthetic theory is a branch of philosophy, and exists for the sake of knowledge, and not as a guide to practice." Now that is surely not quite true. Aristotle, the first of æsthetic theorists, was no doubt interested in discovering the laws of fine art, mainly as part of the system of Nature, but no sooner had he defined the fundamental laws of poetry than he proceeded to apply them, as we see from the rules he lays down for the composition of "the perfect tragedy." In the same way Mr. Ruskin in our own time began his Modern Painters with an

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investigation of general principles, and after satisfying himself as to the nature of these, he brought many painters and poets to his bar of judgment, causing thereby a great revolution in the sphere of

taste.

The truth is, that art forms so large a part of the enjoyment of life, that the study of its principles cannot be carried on altogether in the sublime and indifferent region of philosophy. The fears, the hopes, the ambitions of men mingle themselves inseparably with the serene practice of art, often, indeed, stirring up something of that eager and acrid emotion which accompanies the conflict of politics in a free country; so that though it be true, as Schlegel says, that " in England every man gives his voice for what best pleases him, or what is most suitable to his own nature," yet it is equally true that every man of spirit is anxious to see his own. artistic opinion prevail, and, just as in politics, will use all the machinery at his disposal to make it prevail. To the constant clashing of myriads of individual tastes, advocated without method, and with all the heat of party spirit, is to be attributed the unhappy reputation which has gathered round the name of the English critic.

My object in the course of lectures which I propose to deliver is to consider the question of Law in Taste in a practical temper, to examine what its nature is, where it is to be looked for, how it is to be applied, and to what extent it can be made the subject of mental training and discipline. I am

anxious to remove the question alike from the region of metaphysics and the atmosphere of party, and I therefore ask my hearers to condescend to enter upon the inquiry in the most elementary manner, banishing, as far as possible, all technical and philosophical terms, and making use only of such arguments as can be popularly understood.

Now the Law of Taste must be determined by the end of Fine Art, and let me say at once that when I speak of Fine Art, I am satisfied with the distinction which Aristotle draws between the useful and the imitative Arts; between those which have a practical end in use or profit, and those whose end is pleasure; between those which seek to make Nature their servant, and those which are satisfied with imitating her; the latter alone-namely Poetry, Sculpture, Painting, Music, and to a certain extent Architecture-being entitled to the name of the Fine Arts. The end of Fine Art may therefore be regarded from two sides: one being the object of Imitation which the artist proposes to himself; the other the effect which the imitation itself produces on the mind. First, as to the object of imitation. I use the word "imitation " partly because it has been consecrated by long usage in all discussions about Fine Art, and partly because it is, on the whole, the most general and philosophic term applicable to the subject, since it is obvious that, in one sense or another, all the fine arts involve a representation either of external objects or of the facts of human

nature.

This is the case even with Music.

Music,