means to good states of mind?" In the case of art our answer will be
prompt and emphatic. Art is not only a means to good states of mind,
but, perhaps, the most direct and potent that we possess. Nothing is
more direct, because nothing affects the mind more immediately; nothing
is more potent, because there is no state of mind more excellent or more
intense than the state of aesthetic contemplation. This being so, to
seek any other moral justification for art, to seek in art a means to
anything less than good states of mind, is an act of wrong-headedness to
be committed only by a fool or a man of genius.

Many fools have committed it and one man of genius has made it
notorious. Never was cart put more obstructively before horse than when
Tolstoi announced that the justification of art was its power of
promoting good actions. As if actions were ends in themselves! There is
neither virtue nor vice in running: but to run with good tidings is
commendable, to run away with an old lady's purse is not. There is no
merit in shouting: but to speak up for truth and justice is well, to
deafen the world with charlatanry is damnable. Always it is the end in
view that gives value to action; and, ultimately, the end of all good
actions must be to create or encourage or make possible good states of
mind. Therefore, inciting people to good actions by means of edifying
images is a respectable trade and a roundabout means to good. Creating
works of art is as direct a means to good as a human being can practise.
Just in this fact lies the tremendous importance of art: there is no
more direct means to good.

To pronounce anything a work of art is, therefore, to make a momentous
moral judgment. It is to credit an object with being so direct and
powerful a means to good that we need not trouble ourselves about any
other of its possible consequences. But even were this not the case, the