Although the two facts of the aesthetic experience--its uniqueness and claim to complete sympathy--upon which the skeptical opinion can be based, are undoubted, the inferences deduced from them do not follow. If they did follow, the aesthetic experience would be fundamentally different from every other type; it would be totally atomic and discrete, instead of fluid and continuous like the rest. But its apparent discreteness is due to a failure to distinguish between the silent, unobtrusive working of comparison and the more obvious and self-conscious working. When rapt in the contemplation of a work of art, I may seemingly have no thought for other works; relative isolation and circle-like self-completeness are characteristic of the aesthetic experience; yet, as a matter of fact, the completeness of my reaction and the measure of my delight and absorption are partly determined by the accordance of the given work of art with a certain expectation or set of mind with reference to objects of its sort. I can consent fully to the will of the artist only if he has first consented to my will as expressed in other works which I have enjoyed and praised. The situation in aesthetics is no different from that which exists in any other field of values; through many experiences of good things I come to form a type or standard of what such things should be like; and, if any new thing of the kind is presented to me, I cannot be so well pleased with it if it does not conform. The type may never be formulated by me explicitly, yet it will operate none the less. The formation of what is called good taste occurs by exactly this process. The first work of art that I see, if it please me, becomes my first measure. If I see a second, in order to win my approval, it will either have to satisfy the expectation aroused by the first, or else surpass it. In the latter case, a standard somewhat different from the old is created through the new experience; and, when I have acquired a large acquaintance with works of art, there grows up a standard which is the resultant of all of them--a type or schema no longer associated with particular works. Sometimes, however, it happens that the standard continues to be embodied in some one or few works which, because of outstanding excellence, serve as explicit paradigms governing judgment; such works are classics in the true sense. And the impressionist is certainly wrong in his contention that the aesthetic appreciation of a work of art excludes the recall of other works and conscious comparison with them. It is only when appreciation is of the more naive sort that this is the case. The trained observer, on seeing one of Vermeer's pictures, for example, cannot fail to think of other works of the same artist; and, if he is learned in the history of art, he may even recall the whole development of Dutch painting. For the moment, perhaps, at the beginning, the single work will completely absorb the