Passing over that unfortunately large percentage of up-to-date people, in whose minds Art in general is associated with jewellery, French pastry and goldfish, as a more or less superfluous, though pleasing, luxury, the rest of the civilized world certainly feels with varying degrees of conviction that Art has some essential bearing upon life; and, though few will grant it the importance that Nietzsche claims for it, a goodly number will realize that it is quite impossible to reckon without it. Now, if by chance, one of the last-mentioned people, having grown disgusted at the prevailing degeneration of Art, should start out in quest of a canon, or a standard whereby he might take his bearings in the sea of confusion around him, what are we to suppose would await him? Unfortunately, we know only too well what awaits him! He may turn to the art-critics--the class of men which society sustains for his special benefit in art matters,--or he may turn to the philosophers. He may spend years and years of labour in studying the Art and thought of Antiquity, of the Middle Ages, and of the Renaissance; but, unless he have sufficient independence of spirit to distrust not only the Art, but every single manifestation of modern life, and to try to find what the general corrosive is which seems to be active everywhere, it is extremely doubtful whether he will ever succeed in reaching a bourne or a destination of any sort whatsoever. He will still be asking: "What is a good poem?" "What is good music?" --and, above all, "What is a good picture or a good statue?" We know the difficulties of the layman, and even of the artist in this matter; for most of us who have thought about Art at all have experienced these same difficulties. The general need, then, I repeat, is a definite canon,[49] a definite statement as to the aim and purpose of Art, and the establishment of an order of rank among tastes. Once more, I declare that I have attempted to arrive at these things by the principles of Nietzsche's Æsthetic; but, in order to forestall the amusement which an announcement of this sort is bound to provoke nowadays, let me remind you of two things: _First_, that any artistic canon must necessarily be relative to a certain type of man; and _secondly_, that the most that an establishment of an order of rank among tastes can do for you, is to allow you the opportunity of exercising some choice--a choice of type in manhood, therefore a choice as to a mode of life, and therefore a choice of values, and the customs and conditions that spring from them.