of a knowledge which _commands_ assent. Can even a Hegel write a
convincing Philosophy of Art--which implies a philosophy of complex
knowing and feeling; the feeling or emotion, or sensation, which
vibrates in music and colour and poetry. Could Hegel himself answer
this objection: that poetry eludes all tests--that that which you can
thoroughly explain in any way is not poetry, as Swinburne has said? It
is the inexplicable, then, which lies at the essence of art and it is
this, which if there is to be a Philosophy of Art must be its object.
The Inexplicable must be the object for the thinker with his orderly
sequences, his logical search for causes and results. It is not that
artistic feeling is too subtle as a subject; it is that we cannot get
hold of it at all. It is where? Here, in our emotion, our feeling, our
imagination; it flies from us and it comes again.

We do not ask for a philosophy of artistic _creations_ (whatever they
may be, in music, painting, or poetry), for a Philosophy of Art must
be a philosophy of the artistic _faculty_ that creates, and that
admires and understands and is absorbed in the creations. Philosophy
of Art is the philosophy of the creative--receptive qualities. We feel
these qualities, but we are not able to explain them, we cannot even
help another to feel them. The capacity comes from within. In
ourselves is a nameless response to Beauty. All art is an expression
of the artist thrown out towards a reproduction of some intuitive Idea
within, and what artist has ever satisfied his inward aspiration? Why
tell us that harmonies of art may be traced down to the simplest
lines, and, that at the root, lies an aim of edification? Simplify the
lines, as we will, let the basis of edification lie at the root of all
beauty, still the initial question remains unanswered. Why do certain
lines in a poem, curves of beauty in a statue, colour in a picture,
produce in us the feelings of beauty and delight? Why does