Page:Three Lectures on Aesthetic (1915).djvu/47

32 of how things go together; like William James’s malicious example of aesthetic judgment, “lemon juice goes well with oysters.” Starting from the judgment of taste goes along with the idea that the aesthetic attitude is mainly critical, external. Some great men have rebelled altogether against this suggestion, and Lave said that good taste pretty generally fails to appreciate genius.

It is pretty much the same problem when you ask how the spectator’s enjoyment is related to the creative artist’s. Take a drama, for instance. The spectator must be absorbed and move along with it. His is really a lower degree of the creative artist’s feeling. Then what about the critic? Has he the same attitude, and if not, which is the right one?

The word that will help us here and show us how to appreciate all these points of view is perhaps that we discussed above, “Imagination.” From the simplest perception of a square or a cube, or of a rock or stream, upwards to the greatest achieve-