we may hear the roaring and singing of the sea. CHAPTER X OBJECTIONS AND ANSWERS If the preceding discussion has been to any degree convincing, the reader may perhaps have put to himself a question which has often presented itself to the author—why no complete æsthetic system has been based on the psychology of feeling. In recent times some attempts have indeed been made to deduce the æsthetic value of art-works from their emotional content.[166] But we do not know of any comprehensive theory in which all the distinctive features of art had been consistently explained by reference to an emotionalistic principle. This fact is so much the more remarkable as the importance of feeling has been at least accidentally acknowledged by some of the greatest writers on æsthetic, such as, for instance, Taine and Ruskin.[167] It cannot have been without some reason that these authors have refrained from basing their art-theories on the notion of a craving for expression,—which would have provided a clear line of demarcation between æsthetic and non-æsthetic activities,—and have instead explained art as an intellectual function, which appears confused alternately with scientific, philosophic, and ethical activity. An attempt to trace the causes of this attitude will contribute to a further elucidation of the emotionalistic theory of art. It may be contended with some appearance of truth that as soon as authors, who are themselves artists, have pronounced their opinion on the purposes of their own art, those who are not artists have no call to continue the discussion. But this would be to overlook the fact that the pure artist, as well as the purely artistic activity, must be considered as an abstraction. The bent of Goethe’s genius, for example, was perhaps by nature quite as much towards science, particularly philosophy, as towards art. Thus, although an artist may himself lay the chief stress on the intellectual or ethical elements in his work, his opinion should not induce us to give up the purely æsthetic criteria which we need for the theoretical definition of art-production as an activity to itself.