First, every aesthetic experience is unique, and therefore, it is claimed, incomparable. Art is the expression of personality, and personality is always individual. But unique things are, in the end, incapable of classification, hence are not amenable to general laws or principles. Of course, works of art can be classified by following some abstract characteristic, arranged in a series according as this quality is realized in them to a greater or less degree; but, in so far as a work is beautiful, it contains at least one quality not possessed by other works, the quality that gives it its distinctive flavor,--which is, indeed, its beauty. The impressionist would admit, for example, that in intellectual power Keats's _Eve of St. Agnes_ is inferior to Wordsworth's _Intimations_; also that it lacks the moral grandeur of the latter; but would claim, on the other hand, that in saying this, one is far from judging the beauty of Keats's poem, because that is completely lacking in Wordsworth. So far as the poem is beautiful, it is unique; hence you get no farther with it through comparison with some other poem. You either appreciate it absolutely or you do not; if you do, well and good; you may then write a prose poem about it, if you desire, and so communicate some of your feeling for it to another person; if you do not appreciate it, no one can blame you or quarrel with you; all that any one can do is to invite you to read again, and, perhaps through his eloquence, seek to inspire you with--his own enthusiasm. Every work of art is superlative. Just as the lover thinks his sweetheart the most beautiful woman in the world, so he who appreciates a work of art finds it supreme. And among superlatives there is no comparison, no better or worse. From another point of view, moreover, the aesthetic experience seems unfavorable to comparison and classification. For a work of art demands a complete abandon of self, an entire absorption in it of attention and emotion. Every picture has a frame, and every other work of art an ideal boundary to keep you in its world. Beyond the frame you shall not go; beyond the stage you shall not pass; beyond the outline of the statue you shall not look. And if you do pass beyond, you have lost the full intensity and flower of the experience; and whatever comparisons you then make will not concern its original and genuine beauty. Every work of art is jealous; to appreciate it aright, you must for the moment appreciate it singly, without thought of another. Finally, the impressionist or skeptic would maintain that an alleged aesthetic principle would necessarily be abstracted from extant works of art; hence could not be applied to new art. A thing which does not belong within a class cannot be judged by principles governing that class. In so far, therefore, as a work of art is original, it must frustrate any attempt to judge it by traditional, historical standards--and what other standards are there?