[Some] critics deliberately expand the theoretic phase of every practical problem. There is a tendency to urge the scientific principle and the statistical method, and in doing so to bring in the whole assorted world of thought. That Mr. Richards, who is an admirable critic and whose love and knowledge of poetry are incontestable, is a victim of the expansiveness of his mind in these directions, is what characterizes, and reduces, the scope of his work as literary criticism. It is possible that he ought not to be called literary critic at all. If we list the titles of his books we are in a quandary: The Foundations of Aesthetics, The Meaning of Meaning (these with C. K. Ogden), The Principles of Literary Criticism, Science and Poetry, Practical Criticism, Mencius on the Mind, and Coleridge on Imagination. The apparatus is so vast, so labyrinthine, so inclusive—and the...