e free play of emotion, not to call for
a decisive separation of the two. But this separation is no ground for
the disregard of Style in works, of pure demonstration--as we shall see
by-and-by.

The Principle of Beauty is only another name for Style, which is an
art, incommunicable as are all other arts, but like them subordinated
to laws founded on psychological conditions. The laws constitute the
Philosophy of Criticism; and I shall have to ask the reader's
indulgence if for the first time I attempt to expound them
scientifically in the chapter to which the present is only an
introduction. A knowledge of these laws, even presuming them to be
accurately expounded, will no more give a writer the power of
felicitous expression than a knowledge of the laws of colour,
perspective, and proportion will enable a critic to paint a picture.
But all good writing must conform to these laws; all bad writing will
be found to violate them. And the utility of the knowledge will be that
of a constant monitor, warning the artist of the errors into which he
has slipped, or into which he may slip if unwarned.

How is it that while every one acknowledges the importance of Style,
and numerous critics from Quinctilian and Longinus down to Quarterly
Reviewers have written upon it, very little has been done towards a
satisfactory establishment of principles? Is it not partly because the
critics have seldom held the true purpose of Style steadily before
their eyes, and still seldomer justified their canons by deducing them
from psychological conditions? To my apprehension they seem to have
mistaken the real sources of influence, and have fastened attention
upon some accidental or collateral details, instead of tracing the
direct connection between effects and causes. Misled by the splendour
of some great renown they have concluded that to write like Cicero or
to paint like Titian must be the pathway to success; which is true in
one sense, and profoundly false as they understand it. One pestilent
contagious error issued from this misconception, namely, that all
maxims confirmed by the practice of the great artists must be maxims
for the art; although a close examination might reveal that the
practice of these artists may have been the result of their peculiar
individualities or of the state of culture at their epoch. A true
Philosophy of Criticism would exhibit in how far such maxims were
universal, as founded on laws of human nature, and in