In the second place, this image of life can be created only by conscious effort on the part of the artist. For the creation of great poetry, genius, exercise, imitation, and study are all necessary, but to these art must be added to make them perfect, for only art can lead to perfection.[560] It is this insistence on art as a distinct element, almost as an end in itself, that distinguishes Jonson from his predecessors; and nowhere is his ideal of art expressed as pithily as in the address to the reader prefixed to the _Alchemist_ (1612):-- "In Poetry, especially in Plays, ... the concupiscence of dances and of antics so reigneth, as to run away from nature, and be afraid of her, is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose, and place, do I name art? When the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals, as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms, when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance. Nay, they are esteemed the more learned, and sufficient for this, by the many, through their excellent vice of judgment. For they commend writers as they do fencers or wrestlers; who, if they come in robustiously, and put for it with a great deal of violence, are received for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil. I deny not but that these men, who always seek to do more than enough, may some time happen on some thing that is good and great; but very seldom; and when it comes it doth not recompense the rest of their ill.... But I give thee warning, that there is a great difference between those that, to gain the opinion of copy [_i.e._ copiousness], utter all they can, however unfitly; and those that use election and a mean[561] [_i.e._ selection and moderation]. For it is only the disease of the unskilful to think rude things greater than polished; or scattered more numerous than composed."[562] Literature, then, aims at presenting an image of life through the medium of art; and the guide to art, according to Jonson, is to be found in the rules of criticism. Thus, for example, success in comedy is to be attained "By observation of those comic laws Which I, your master, first did teach the age;"[563]