way as redness is predicated of a geranium. But it is not so. As I have already observed, we are merely naming the sentiments they produce, not the qualities by which they produce them. We cannot describe the higher beauties of beautiful objects except in terms of aesthetic feeling—and ex vi termini such descriptions are subjective.
It may, however, be admitted that if there were a general agreement about things that are beautiful, only philosophers would disquiet themselves in order to discover in what precisely their beauty consisted. But notoriously there is no such agreement. Difference of race, difference of age, different degrees of culture among men of the same race and the same age, individual idiosyncrasy and collective fashion occasion, or accompany, the widest possible divergence of aesthetic feeling. The same work of art which moves one man to admiration, moves another to disgust; what rouses the enthusiasm of one generation, leaves another hostile or indifferent.
These things are undeniable, and are not denied. But it is sometimes sought to soften the 'individualist' conclusions to which they lead, by appealing from the wild and wandering fancies of ordinary men to an aristocracy of taste; and it must in fairness be acknowledged that among
