Like Rousseau, Whom He Resembles Even More

A Culture May Be Conceived As A Network Of Beliefs And Purposes In Which Any String In The Net Pulls And Is Pulled By The Others,thus Perpetually Changing The Configuration Of The Whole. If The Cultural Element Called Morals Takes On A New Shape, We Must Ask What Other Strings Have Pulled It Out Of Line. It Cannot Be One Solitary String, Nor Even The Strings Nearby, For The Network Is Three-dimensional At Least.

On Reflection, Moral Judgment In The Arts Appears Rather As A Tribute To Their Power To Influence Emotion And Possibly Conduct. And Reflecting Further On What Some Critics Do Today, One Sees That A Good Many Have Merely Shifted The Ground Of Their Moralism, Transferring Their Impulse Of Righteousness To Politics And Social Issues.

Art Distills Sensation And Embodies It With Enhanced Meaning In A Memorable Form - Or Else It Is Not Art.

We Cannot Appreciate The Art Of Any Age Without First Acquiring An Equivalent Of The Experience It Depicts.

The Professionals Resemble And Recognize Each Other By Virtue Of The Stigmata That Their Trade Has Left Upon Them. They Are Like The Dog In The Fable, Whose Collar Has Made An Indelible Mark Around His Neck. The Amateur Is The Shaggy Wolf Whom No Dog Had Better Trust Too Far.