Aristotle himself, from whom Oscar Wilde frequently quotes, and incidentally from whose poetics he attempts, by means of brilliant paradox, to infer an attitude which is not really there, has pointed out that art is a means of purification. If the morality of a work of art is false and wrong, if the artist is either ignorant of the subject with which he deals or deliberately misrepresents the morality of it, then his work is viewed merely as a work of art--and therefore as a thing whole and complete in itself--is a failure in art. In many respects it may have æsthetic excellence, but as a complete thing, as a work of art, it must inevitably fail. Sibbern in his "Æsthetik" tells us very sanely and wisely that art need not be limited by choice of subject, but depends for its artistic qualities upon the attitude of the artist in dealing with it. That art must not be limited by choice of subject is a great point of Oscar Wilde's own philosophy, and here he is perfectly sound. But he goes further in his paradoxical view, and shows that the artist must hold no brief for either good or evil, and that the excellence of a work of art depends entirely upon the skill of presentation. The German student, on the contrary, writes: "There are dramas in which the moral element is not brought into special prominence, but just hovers above the surface, and which yet have their poetic value. What must, however, be absolutely insisted on is, that the artistic treatment should never insult morality. We do not mean that art must not represent the immoral as well as the moral, for this is, on the contrary, indispensable, if art is truly to reflect life as it is. But immorality must not infect and be inherent in that view of life and those opinions which the poet desires by his work to promulgate; for then he would injure morality, and violate that moral ideal to which all human life, and therefore art itself, must be subordinated. Plays and novels which depict virtue as that mere conventionality and Philistinism which is but an object of ridicule, or which hold up to our admiration false and antinomian ideals of virtue, representing _e.g._, the sentimentality of a so-called good heart as sufficient to justify the most scandalous moral delinquencies or 'free genius' as privileged to sin, which paint vice in attractive and seductive colours, portraying adultery and other transgressions as very pardonable, and, under certain circumstances, amiable weaknesses, and which by means of such delineations bestow absolution on the public for sins daily occurring in actual life--such plays and novels are unworthy of art, and are as poison to the whole community.