The only safe rule, therefore, is that which Aristotle mentions in the last chapter of his Topica:  not to dispute with the first person you meet, but only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance absurdities; to appeal to reason and not to authority, and to listen to reason and yield to it; and, finally, to cherish truth, to be willing to accept reason even from an opponent, and to be just enough to bear being proved to be in the wrong, should truth lie with him.  From this it follows that scarcely one man in a hundred is worth your disputing with him.  You may let the remainder say what they please, for every one is at liberty to be a fool—­desipere est jus gentium.  Remember what Voltaire says:  La paix vaut encore mieux que la verite.  Remember also an Arabian proverb which tells us that on the tree of silence there hangs its fruit, which is peace.

ON THE COMPARATIVE PLACE OF INTEREST AND BEAUTY IN WORKS OF ART.

In the productions of poetic genius, especially of the epic and dramatic kind, there is, apart from Beauty, another quality which is attractive:  I mean Interest.

The beauty of a work of art consists in the fact that it holds up a clear mirror to certain ideas inherent in the world in general; the beauty of a work of poetic art in particular is that it renders the ideas inherent in mankind, and thereby leads it to a knowledge of these ideas.  The means which poetry uses for this end are the exhibition of significant characters and the invention of circumstances which will bring about significant situations, giving occasion to the characters to unfold their peculiarities and show what is in them; so that by some such representation a clearer and fuller knowledge of the many-sided idea of humanity may be attained.  Beauty, however, in its general aspect, is the inseparable characteristic of the idea when it has become known.  In other words, everything is beautiful in which an idea is revealed; for to be beautiful means no more than clearly to express an idea.

Thus we perceive that beauty is always an affair of knowledge, and that it appeals to the knowing subject, and not to the will; nay, it is a fact that the apprehension of beauty on the part of the subject involves a complete suppression of the will.

On the other hand, we call drama or descriptive poetry interesting when it represents events and actions of a kind which necessarily arouse concern or sympathy, like that which we feel in real events involving our own person.  The fate of the person represented in them is felt in just the same fashion as our own:  we await the development of events with anxiety; we eagerly follow their course; our hearts quicken when the hero is threatened; our pulse falters as the danger reaches its acme, and throbs again when he is suddenly