The millions of mankind who admire the red of every morning, and the forests breaking green through the silver mists and the birds in awakened song rising from the flowers to the brightening sky, these millions do not begrudge one another such beautiful spectacles, nor are they mutually jealous as they listen to beautiful sounds. That unselfish, that unenvious contemplation of beauty marks off man from animals by an impassable chasm and makes him an image of the self-sufficing Creator, the source of all beauty, the exemplar of all beauty, whom the Blessed forever contemplate and forever enjoy, unenvying and unenviously. VIII THE VISCERAL TEST OF BEAUTY “What is the prime requisite of a critic?” was the question. “His sincerity,” said one; “his sympathy,” said a second; “his philosophy,” said a third, “because everything he says will be ruled by his principles, even his sincerity and sympathy.” The answer of the third speaker is pertinent to a symposium printed in the _New Republic_ on the function of criticism. It is the common view of the seven writers that criticism is an art and the critics, artists, but no one, except Mr. Francis Hackett, tries to show what the label of artist means. Mr. Dickinson Miller, a professor in a theological seminary, very justly and quite fittingly insists on the social responsibility of the artist, as one who deals with life. Mr. Lovett goes to history and prepares the ground for a discussion of principles by grouping critics in several classes. Mr. Clive takes the humblest and most practical view of the critic, calling him an appraiser, a function which Mr. H. L. Mencken vehemently repudiates and places a chip on his shoulder while belligerently proclaiming himself impressionistic. He makes one deep remark which would seem to put him in the same school of esthetics with Mr. Hackett. Presumably with humorous intent, or perhaps seriously, Mr. Mencken locates the artistic impulse in “hormones and intestinal flora.” Hormones are secretions of the glands (we just looked it up!) and “intestinal flora” may mean ferments. Mr. Mencken is abreast of the times. Graft on a new gland and masticate yeast, these are the new specifics for all the ills that flesh is heir to. The other contributors to this interesting symposium, though not, with the exception of Mr. Hackett, delving as deep as Mr. Mencken, would appear to be in philosophy individualists and subjectivists. The former editor of the _Athenæum_, Mr. J. Middleton Murry, accepts the dictum of Rémy de Gourmont: “Erect personal impressions into laws,” as the “true motto of a critic.” Mr. Murry is, however, too sensible to accord to individual impressions undue freedom and with some violence to his consistency asserts that personal laws stand or fall by their agreement with common experience and with human nature.