But I began this book with no intention of writing a treatise on _Momentary_ (or _Monochronous_) _Apolaustics_, and except that it might have seemed discourteous to offer no explanation of (I can hardly call this any apology for) a feature, or the lack of one, which has disturbed well-willing readers, I should have preferred to keep such questions out altogether. Nor can I see that there is any “confusion of thought,” any contradiction, or even any want of “architectonic” in the plan which I have actually pursued. A man may surely write a _History of England_ without including in it an abstract treatise on politics, and describe an interesting country without philosophising on the architecture of its buildings, the family story of its tribes, or the chemical constitution of its natural products. I set before myself and my readers at the outset the promise of a simple survey of the actual critical opinions, actually expressed, in “judging of authors,” by the actual critics of recorded literature. To the survey of these I have added another of the chief reasons which they alleged for their tastes when they alleged any: and when, as naturally happens, these opinions and tastes, and the attempted explanations of them, appeared in groups or schools, I have adapted my survey, by means of the Interchapters of the book, to the summary consideration of these also. I have not thought it incumbent on me either to express, or to refrain from expressing, agreement or disagreement with their views: but where (as in the case of the Subject theory, of Boileau’s Good-Sense-worship and other things) it seemed to me that certain views and theories could be actually demolished by argument, I have endeavoured to show how. Where it is a simple question of taste, my own _Haupt-theorie_ forbids my attempting anything of the sort.