A few specimens of the most famous utterances of Aristotle, Longinus, Horace, Boileau, Dryden, Addison, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and some more modern authors, will justify this assertion. “All men naturally receive pleasure from imitation.” “Poetry is chiefly conversant about general truth.” “It demands an enthusiasm allied to madness; transported out of ourselves we become what we imagine.” “Beautiful words are the very and peculiar light of the mind.” “Let the work be what you like, provided it has simplicity and unity.” “De Gustibus. . .” “Of writing well right thinking is the beginning and the fount.” “We must never separate ourselves from Nature.” “Delight is the chief, if not the only end; instruction can be admitted but in the second place.” “The pleasures of Fancy are more conducive to health than those of the understanding.” “The spontaneous overflow of powerful feeling.” “The best words in the best order.” “The whole soul of man in activity.” “Unity in variety.” “The synthetic and magical power of the imagination.” “The eye on the object.” “The disimprisonment of the soul of fact.” “The identification of content and form.” “A criticism of Life.” “Empathy favourable to our existence.” “Significant form.” “The expression of impressions,” etc. etc. Such are the pinnacles, the _apices_ of critical theory, the heights gained in the past by the best thinkers in their attempt to reach explanations of the value of the arts. Some of them, many of them indeed, are profitable starting-points for reflection, but neither together, nor singly, nor in any combination do they give what is required. Above them and below them, around and about them can be found other things of value, of service for the appreciation of particular poems and works of art; comment, elucidation, appraisal, much that is fit occupation for the contemplative mind. But apart from hints such as have been cited, no explanations. The central question, What is the value of the arts, why are they worth the devotion of the keenest hours of the best minds, and what is their place in the system of human endeavours? is left almost untouched, although without some clear view it would seem that even the most judicious critic must often lose his sense of position.