to all that have moved them, but, in fact, they do nothing of the sort.  I do not blame them.  Why should they bother to examine their feelings when for them to feel is enough?  Why should they stop to think when they are not very good at thinking?  Why should they hunt for a common quality in all objects that move them in a particular way when they can linger over the many delicious and peculiar charms of each as it comes?  So, if they write criticism and call it aesthetics, if they imagine that they are talking about Art when they are talking about particular works of art or even about the technique of painting, if, loving particular works they find tedious the consideration of art in general, perhaps they have chosen the better part.  If they are not curious about the nature of their emotion, nor about the quality common to all objects that provoke it, they have my sympathy, and, as what they say is often charming and suggestive, my admiration too.  Only let no one suppose that what they write and talk is aesthetics; it is criticism, or just “shop.”

The starting-point for all systems of aesthetics must be the personal experience of a peculiar emotion.  The objects that provoke this emotion we call works of art.  All sensitive people agree that there is a peculiar emotion provoked by works of art.  I do not mean, of course, that all works provoke the same emotion.  On the contrary, every work produces a different emotion.  But all these emotions are recognisably the same in kind; so far, at any rate, the best opinion is on my side.  That there is a particular kind of emotion provoked by works of visual art, and that this emotion is provoked by every kind of visual art, by pictures, sculptures, buildings, pots, carvings, textiles, &c., &c., is not disputed, I think, by anyone capable of feeling it.  This emotion is called the aesthetic emotion; and if we can discover some quality common and peculiar to all the objects that provoke it, we shall have solved what I take to be the central problem of aesthetics.  We shall have discovered the essential quality in a work of art, the quality that distinguishes works of art from all other classes of objects.

For either all works of visual art have some common quality, or when we speak of “works of art” we gibber.  Everyone speaks of “art,” making a mental classification by which he distinguishes the class “works of art” from all other classes.  What is the justification of this classification?  What is the quality common and peculiar to all members of this class?  Whatever it be, no doubt it is often found in company with other qualities; but they are adventitious—­it is essential.  There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.  What is this quality?  What quality is shared by all objects that provoke our aesthetic emotions?  What quality is common to Sta.  Sophia and the windows at Chartres,