But some further explanation of the structure of the book is due to the reader. At sundry points—notably in Chapters VI, VII, and XI-XV—its progress appears to be interrupted by lengthy excursions into theory of value, or into general psychology. These I would have omitted if it had seemed in any way possible to develop the argument of the rest strongly and clearly in their absence. Criticism, as I understand it, is the endeavour to discriminate between experiences and to evaluate them. We cannot do this without some understanding of the nature of experience, or without theories of valuation and communication. Such principles as apply in criticism must be taken from these more fundamental studies. All other critical principles are arbitrary, and the history of the subject is a record of their obstructive influence. The view of value implied throughout is one which must be held in some form by very many persons. Yet I have been unable to discover anywhere any statement of it to which I might satisfactorily refer the reader. I had to make a fairly full statement with applications and illustrations myself. And I had to put in the forefront of the book where, to the more exclusively literary reader, it will appear a dry and uninviting tract to be crossed for problematical advantages. The same remarks apply to the second theoretical expansion, the psychological chapters; they are to the value chapters, I fear, as a Sahara to a Gobi. No other choice seemed open if I did not wish my later, critical, sections to be misunderstood, than to include as a preliminary what amounts to a concise treatise on psychology. For nearly all the topics of psychology are raised at one point or another by criticism, but raised from an angle which ordinary text-books do not contemplate. These two deserts passed, the rest of the book accords, I believe, much more closely with what may be expected of an essay in criticism, although the language in which some of the more obvious remarks are couched may seem unnecessarily repellant. The explanation of much of the turgid uncouthness of its terminology is the desire to link even the commonplaces of criticism to a systematic exposition of psychology. The reader who appreciates the advantages so gained will be forgiving. I have carefully remembered throughout that I am not writing for specialists alone. The omissions, particularly as to qualifications and reservations, which this fact entails, should in fairness to myself be mentioned.