experts there is something distantly approaching a common body of doctrine about the literary and artistic masterpieces of the world. Set a dozen contemporary critics to make lists of the best books, pictures, buildings, operas, and the results will be fairly harmonious. These results (it is claimed) may be regarded as evidence that among qualified judges there is an agreement sufficient to serve as a working substitute for some undiscovered, and perhaps undiscoverable, criterion of artistic merit.
But the more we examine the character of this agreement among experts the less weight shall we feel disposed to attach to it;—and for more than one reason. In the first place, it must be remembered that the very fact of its existence has caused the cultivated portion of mankind—all who take even the most superficial interest in literature and art—to be brought under the influence of a common literary and artistic tradition. This has many consequences. It inclines some persons to assume an admiration which they do not feel for things which everybody round them thinks worthy to be admired. Others again keep silence when they cannot praise. Nothing, they think, is gained by emphasizing dissent. Why proclaim from the house-tops that some author, long since dead, does not, in their opinion, deserve the share of fame assigned to him
