I do not propose the words kinetic and potential as terms of abuse or praise, though in different ages there have been artists who would have used them so. The eighteenth century poets would have used kinetic as a term of praise; the Symbolists would have used it as a term of abuse. The fact that different schools would have set different values on the words is itself a proof that they may be serviceable to historians and critics. Literature does indeed vary between these extremes, its kinetic quality preserving it from nonsense, its potential quality separating it from bad prose. Some sort of relevancy would be discoverable in any history that set itself to trace these variations. Some sort of relevancy is obvious in all criticism that attempts (as all good criticism does) the enhancement of the potential and the clarification of the kinetic element in such literature as happens to be its subject. In any case, an adoption of the definition of literature that this essay upholds would make ridiculous the classification of books by their subjects and of writers by their opinions, on which so many intellects have wasted time and vitality worthy of a more profitable employment. 1911. Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. Edinburgh & London FOOTNOTES [1] After passing this note for press, I learn that this essay has been reprinted at Tokyo in a new edition of Mr. Noguchi’s _The Pilgrimage_. [2] For the reputation of Breughel d’Enfer is based on his imitations of his father, Breughel le Vieux, to whom is attributed the _Temptation of St. Anthony_ at Genoa. [3] A piece of money coined by Charles VIII. [4] Figures that strike the hour on the clock-tower at Dijon. [5] The quotations in this essay are taken from Dr. Oscar Levy’s admirable English edition of Nietzsche, translated by Drs. W. A. Haussmann and M. A. Mügge, Messrs. Paul V. Cohn, Thomas Common, J. M. Kennedy, A. M. Ludovici and H. B. Samuel, and Miss Helen Zimmern: eighteen volumes published by Mr. T. N. Foulis. [6] Clarendon Press. 1910. [7] Oscar Wilde. [8] These references are to the page-numbers in Messrs. Macmillan’s library edition. [9] His inability to tell a story was perhaps the reason of, or, at least supplies a commentary upon, his readiness to admire the narratives of M. Filon, Octave Feuillet, Mrs. Humphry Ward, and to admire them, quite ingenuously, for the story’s sake, like the ordinary reader of novels. [10] _The Symbolist Movement in Literature_, 1899. [11] An English translation was published in 1912 by Messrs. Stephen Swift.