2 The Rice Institute Pamphlet
doctrines, something altogether original, something extra-
neous to this consciousness, the revelation of an altogether
new world. But he does not blush, and continues upon
his way, for he is not ignorant that the question as to what
is art (as indeed every philosophical question as to the nature
of the real, or in general every question of knowledge), even
if by its use of language it seem to assume the aspect of a
general and total problem, which it is claimed to solve for
the first and last time, has always, as a matter of fact, a cir-
cumscribed meaning, referable to the particular difficulties
that assume vitality at a determined moment in the history
of thought. Certainly, truth does walk the streets, like the
esprit of the well-known French proverb, or like metaphor,
“queen of tropes” according to rhetoricians, which Mon-
taigne discovered in the babil of his chambrière. But the
metaphor used by the maid is the solution of a problem of
expression proper to the feelings that affect the maid at that
moment; and the obvious affirmations that by accident or in-
tent one hears every day as to the nature of art, are solu-
tions of logical problems, as they present themselves to this
or that individual, who is not a philosopher by profession,
and yet as man is also to some extent a philosopher. And as
the maid’s metaphor usually expresses but a small and vul-
gar world of feeling compared with that of the poet, so the
obvious affirmation of one who is not a philosopher solves a
problem small by comparison with that which occupies the
philosopher. The answer as to what is art may appear
similar in both cases, but is different in both cases owing
to the different degree of richness of its intimate content;
because the answer of the philosopher worthy of the name
has neither more nor less than the task of solving in an
adequate manner all the problems as to the nature of art that