"There is indeed no moral theory of life, there are no maxims of conduct, such as youth above all things craves for, in Coleridge's teaching. Apart from the intrinsic difficulties of the task to which he invites his disciples, it labours under a primary and essential disadvantage of postponing moral to intellectual liberation. Contrive somehow or other to attain to just ideas as to the capacities and limitations of the human consciousness, considered especially in relation to its two important and eternally distinct functions, the Reason and the Understanding: and peace of mind shall in due time be added unto you. That is in effect Coleridge's answer to the inquirer who consults him; and if the distinction between the Reason and the Understanding were as obvious as it is obscure to the average unmetaphysical mind, and of a value as assured for the purpose to which Coleridge applies it as it is uncertain, the answer would nevertheless send many a would-be disciple sorrowful away." It is not necessary to pursue the subject. Between the reader and the metaphysician stands the poet and the critic, and for the greater part of the present and future generations these will suffice. INDEX "Absence," 64 "Æolian Harp," 65 _Æsthetical Essays_, 49 _Aids to Reflection_, 52, 53, 75, 87 Allsop, Thomas, 49, 50, 51, 75, 83 Beaumont, Sir George, 36, 41 _Biographia Literaria_, 48, 49, 75 Blackwoods, the, 51 Boyer, Rev. James, 18, 64 Burnett, 23, 26, 65