Page:Criticism and Beauty.djvu/24

 attributes of the works of art which happen in this case or that to excite them?

Questions of this kind have, I suppose, haunted all those who cannot accept canons of criticism based on precedent or authority. And many are the devices adopted, or hinted at, by which the sceptical individualism, which these doubts suggest, may be removed or mitigated.

Of such devices the most familiar is the assumption that, however impossible it may be to discover in what beauty consists, it is quite unnecessary to do so, since there is a common agreement as to the things which are in fact beautiful. Though the naturalist may not be able to define life, yet the world is not embarrassed to distinguish the living from the dead. Though there are many colour-blind people among us, yet the world judges with practical security that the flowers of a geranium are red and its leaves green. In like manner (it is thought) the world recognizes beauty when it sees it, unmoved either by the dissent of negligeable minorities, or by the imperfections of aesthetic theory.

These analogies, however, are misleading. Biologists may be perplexed about the mystery of life, but they can always tell you why they regard this body as living, and that one as dead. Their canons