Sympathetically studied it is hardly too much to say that this monumental work is an education in itself. It is at any rate one which cannot fail to enlarge our conceptions of the significance and dignity of human art. Nor is this by any means impossible, even though we are unable to concur in, or indeed remain insufficiently qualified to express a judgment upon all or even a few of the most important of its conclusions. But it is perhaps not wholly unnecessary to observe that before venturing upon a verdict in our wisdom we must, as Robert Browning submitted in reference to the criticism passed upon his poetry, have awakened both our senses and intelligence "that they may the better judge." It is the modest aim of the present translation to make that preparatory process more easy for the English reader, to assist that intelligent assimilation of the truth as it appears to a great and world-famous thinker, which is the necessary condition of any criticism meriting respectful attention at all. Such assimilation is perhaps impossible in the case of Hegel without effort, and indeed something of sympathy with his general outlook and temper, making as he does little or no appeal whatever to the lover of literature as such, who had consequently far better leave him austerely alone to the consideration of others who are more attracted. I do not propose in these prefatory remarks to enlarge further on the actual content of the work, or on the nature of the criticism which has been directed either to fundamental positions or matters of detail. Some of these I have referred to in my notes on the text where they are most obviously pertinent. The general reader will find a very useful introduction to some of the more primary difficulties in the study of Hegel in Professor Bosanquet's prefatory essay to his translation. The more serious student can hardly dispense with the perusal of a considerable portion of the same writer's history of Aesthetik, at least that portion which directly deals with the writings of Kant, Schiller, Goethe, Schelling, and Hegel himself on the subject[12]. I hold my translation to be as literal as is possible consistently with an endeavour to render or interpret German philosophical language in the language or idiom of really expressive and intelligible English. It is now generally admitted that all translation is in the nature of an interpretation. However much I may have fallen short of my aim, that aim has been throughout to express the actual ideal content of the German, not merely with all the force and directness I could muster, but with as near an approach to the formal structure of the German text as was consistent with the like condition of really readable English. Above all I have striven to avoid the lassitude of mere paraphrase, that vague generalization of content which conceives itself to possess the right to eliminate from the text pretty much what it pleases.