To bridge the gulf, to bring the level of popular appreciation nearer to the consensus of best qualified opinion, and to defend this opinion against damaging attacks (Tolstoy’s is a typical example), a much clearer account than has yet been produced, of why this opinion is right, is essential. These attacks are dangerous, because they appeal to a natural instinct, hatred of ‘superior persons’. The expert in-matters of taste is in an awkward position when he differs from the majority. He is forced to say in effect, “I am better than you. My taste is more refined, my nature more cultured, you will do well to become more like me than you are.” It is not his fault that he has to be so arrogant. He may, and usually does, disguise the fact as far as possible, but his claim to be heard as an expert depends upon the truth of these assumptions. He ought then to be ready with reasons of a clear and convincing kind as to why his preferences are worth attention, and until these reasons are forthcoming, the accusations that he is a charlatan and a prig are embarrassing. He may indeed point to years of preoccupation with his subject, he may remark like the wiseacre Longinus, sixteen hundred years ago, “The judgment of literature is the final outcome of much endeavour,” but with him are many Professors to prove that years of endeavour may lead to nothing very remarkable in the end. To habilitate the critic, to defend accepted standards against Tolstoyan attacks, to narrow the interval between these standards and popular taste, to protect the arts against the crude moralities of Puritans and perverts, a general theory of value, which will not leave the statement “This is good, that bad,” either vague or arbitrary, must be provided. There is no alternative open. Nor is it such an excursus from the inquiry into the nature of the arts as may be supposed. For if a well-grounded theory of value is a necessity for criticism, it is no less true that an understanding of what happens in the arts is needed for the theory. The two problems “What is good?” and “What are the arts?” reflect light upon one another. Neither in fact can be fully answered without the other. To the unravelling of the first we may now proceed. CHAPTER VI Value as an Ultimate Idea Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.—_Aire and Angels_.