and fortified and the total measure of enjoyment increased. Even the
love of beauty, strong as it commonly is, may well find support through
connection with an equally powerful and enduring affection. The
aesthetic interest is no exception to the general truth that each part
of the mind gains in stability and intensity if connected with the
others; isolated, it runs the risk of gradual decay in satiety or
through the crowding out of other competing interests, which if joined
with it, would have kept it alive instead. Moreover, the understanding
of art may increase the appreciation of particular works of art. For
the analysis and constant attention to the subtler details demanded
by theory may bring to notice aspects of a work of art which do not
exist for an unthinking appreciation. As a rule, the appreciations of
the average man are very inadequate to the total possibilities offered,
extending only to the more obvious features. Often enough besides,
through a mere lack of understanding of the purpose of art in general
and of the more special aims of the particular arts, people expect to
find what cannot be given, and hence are prejudiced against what they
might otherwise enjoy. The following pages will afford, I hope, abundant
illustrations of this truth.

Finally, aesthetic theory may have a favorable influence upon the
creation of art. Not that the student of aesthetics can prescribe to
the artist what he shall or shall not do; for the latter can obey, for
better or worse, only the inner imperative of his native genius. Yet,
inevitably, the man of genius receives direction and cultivation from
the aesthetic sentiment of the time into which he is born and grown;
even when he reacts against it, he nevertheless feels its influence;
a sound conception of the nature and purpose of art may save him from
many mistakes. The French classical tradition in sculpture and painting,
which is not merely academic, having become a part of public taste,