Sensuous attention and accuracy. _Disadvantage of Dilettantism in General_ The Dilettante jumps over the steps, stops at certain steps which he regards as the end, and from which he thinks himself justified in judging of the whole; this prevents his perfectibility. He subjects himself to the necessity of working by false rules, because he cannot work even as a Dilettante without some rules, and he does not understand the true objective rules. He departs more and more from the truth of objects, and loses himself in subjective errors. Dilettantism deprives art of its element, and spoils art’s public by depriving it of its earnestness and strictness. All tendency to easy contentment destroys art, and Dilettantism brings in indulgence and favor. At the expense of the true artists, it brings into notice those that stand nearest to Dilettantism. With Dilettantism the loss is always greater than the gain. From handicraft the way is open to rise to art, but not from botch-work. Dilettantism favors the indifferent, partial, and characterless. Injury Dilettanti do to art by bringing artists down to their level. Can bear no good artist near them. In all cases where the art itself has no proper regulative power, as in Poetry, the art of Gardening, acting, the injury Dilettantism does is greater, and its pretensions more arrogant. The worst case is that of histrionic art. _In Lyrical Poetry_ Belletristic shallowness and emptiness, withdrawal from solid studies, or superficial treatment. A greater danger exists in this than in the other arts of mistaking a merely Dilettante dexterity for a true genius for art, and in this case, the subject is worse off than in any other Dilettantism, because its existence becomes an entire nullity; for the poet is nothing at all except through earnestness and conformity to art. Dilettantism in general, but especially in poetry, weakens the feeling and perception for the good that lies beyond it, and whilst it is indulgent to a restless desire to produce, which leads it to nothing perfect, robs itself of all the culture it might derive through the perception of foreign excellences. Poetical Dilettantism may be of two sorts. Either it neglects the (indispensable) mechanical, and thinks enough done if it shows mind and feeling; or it seeks poetry only in the mechanical, acquiring a technical dexterity therein, but without spirit or significance. Both are injurious, but the former rather injures the art, and the latter the subject.