"To see the object as in itself it really is," has been justly said to
be the aim of all true criticism whatever; and in aesthetic criticism
the first step towards seeing one's object as it really is, is to know
one's own impression as it really is, to discriminate it, to realise it
distinctly. The objects with which aesthetic criticism deals--music,
poetry, artistic and accomplished forms of human life--are indeed
receptacles of so many powers or forces: they possess, like the products
of nature, so many virtues or qualities. What is this song or picture,
this engaging personality presented in life or in a book, to ME? What
effect does it really produce on me? Does it give me pleasure? and if
so, what sort or degree of pleasure? How is my nature modified by its
presence, and under its influence? The answers to these questions are
the original facts with which the aesthetic critic has to do; and, as in
the study of light, of morals, of number, one must realise such primary
data for oneself, or not at all.
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