The name is absent



The Breviary of Aesthetic 83

But the forms which I have briefly described are forms of
criticism, however erroneous; though this cannot, in truth,
be said of other forms which raise their banners and combat
among themselves, under the names of “aesthetic criticism”
and ‘historical criticism.” These I beg leave to baptise, on
the contrary, as they deserve,
pseudo-æsthetie criticism (or
æsthetistie), and
pseudo-historical criticism (or Iiistoristi-
cal). These two forms, though very much opposed, have a
common hatred of philosophy in general, and of the concept
of art in particular: against any intervention of thought in
the criticism of art, which in the opinion of the former is the
affair of artistic souls; in the opinion of the latter, of the eru-
dite. In other words, they debase criticism below criticism,
the former limiting it to pure taste and enjoyment of art,
the latter to pure exegetical research or preparation of ma-
terials for reproduction by the fancy. Wliat Æsthetic, which
implies thought and concept of art, can have to do with pure
taste without concept is difficult to say; and what history can
have to do with disconnected erudition relative to art, which
is not organisable as history because without a concept of
art and ignorant of what art is whereas history demands al-
ways that we should know that of which we narrate the his-
tory), is yet more difficult to establish; at the most we could
note the reasons for the strange “fortune” which those two
words have experienced. But there would be no harm in
those names or in the refusal to exercise criticism, provided
that the upholders of both should remain within the bound-
aries assigned by themselves, these enjoying works of art,
those collecting material for exegesis; and they might leave
criticism to him who should wish to criticise, or satisfy them-
selves with speaking ill of it without touching problems
which properly belong to criticism. In order to attain to such
an attitude or reserve it would be necessary neither more nor



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