We do not expect the scientific writer to stir our emotions,
otherwise than by the secondary influences which arise from our awe and
delight at the unveiling of new truths. In his own researches he should
extricate himself from the perturbing influences of emotion, and
consequently he should protect us from such suggestions in his
exposition. Feellng too often smites intellect with blindness, and
intellect too often paralyses the free play of emotion, not to call for
a decisive separation of the two. But this separation is no ground for
the disregard of Style in works, of pure demonstration--as we shall see
by-and-by.
The Principle of Beauty is only another name for Style, which is an
art, incommunicable as are all other arts, but like them subordinated
to laws founded on psychological conditions. The laws constitute the
Philosophy of Criticism; and I shall have to ask the reader's
indulgence if for the first time I attempt to expound them
scientifically in the chapter to which the present is only an
introduction. A knowledge of these laws, even presuming them to be
accurately expounded, will no more give a writer the power of
felicitous expression than a knowledge of the laws of colour,
perspective, and proportion will enable a critic to paint a picture.
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