There is indeed required--and herein may be found the secret of Remy de Gourmont's evasive talent--a certain fundamental _irresponsibility,_ if we are to become clairvoyant critics of life. As soon as we grow responsible, or become conscious of responsibility, something or other comes between us and the clear object of our curiosity, blurring its outline and confusing its colours. Moral scruples, for instance, as to how precisely this new fragment of knowledge or this new aspect of art is likely to affect the inclinations of the younger generation; religious scruples as to whether this particular angle of cosmic vision will redound to the glory of God or detract from it or diminish it; political or patriotic scruples as to whether this particular "truth" we have come to overtake will have a beneficial or injurious effect upon the fortunes of our nation; domestic scruples as to whether we are justified In emphasising some aspect of psychological discrimination that may be dangerous to those stately and ideal illusions upon which the more sacred of human institutions rest. Looked at from this point of view it might seem as if it were almost impossible for a thoroughly responsible or earnest-minded man to become an ideal critic. Such a one keeps his mind so closely and gravely fixed upon his ethical "point d'appui," that when he jumps he misses the object altogether. In a certain sense every form of responsibility is obscurantism. We are concerned with something external to the actual thing under discussion; something to be gained or lost or betrayed or guarded; and between the pure image of what we are looking at and our own free souls, float a thousand distorting mists. The whole philosophical attitude of Remy de Gourmont is full of interest and significance for those who are watching the deeper movements of European thought. At one, in a limited sense, with Bergson and William James in their protests against final or static "truth," de Gourmont's writings, when taken as a whole, form a most salutary and valuable counterpoise to the popular and vulgar implications of this modern mysticism. That dangerous and pernicious method of estimating the truth of things according to what James calls somewhere their "cash-value" receives blow after blow from his swift and ironic intelligence. Things are what they are and their hidden causes are what they are, quite apart from whether they produce a pleasant or unpleasant effect upon individual lives. The sordid and utilitarian system of judging the value of thoughts and ideas in proportion to their efficiency in the world of practical exigencies does not appeal to this rational and classical mind.