embarrassed. But, if the book is properly read, not as a dogmatic
text-book but as a first attempt, made by a man of astounding genius,
to build up in the region of creative art a rational order like that
which he established in logic, rhetoric, ethics, politics, physics,
psychology, and almost every department of knowledge that existed in
his day, then the uncertainties become rather a help than a
discouragement. The.g.ve us occasion to think and use our
imagination. They make us, to the best of our powers, try really to
follow and criticize closely the bold gropings of an extraordinary
thinker; and it is in this process, and not in any mere collection of
dogmatic results, that we shall find the true value and beauty of the
_Poetics_.

The book is of permanent value as a mere intellectual achievement; as
a store of information about Greek literature; and as an original or
first-hand statement of what we may call the classical view of
artistic criticism. It does not regard poetry as a matter of
unanalysed inspiration; it makes no concession to personal whims or
fashion or _ennui_. It tries by rational methods to find out what is
good in art and what makes it good, accepting the belief that there is
just as truly a good way, and many bad ways, in poetry as in morals or
in playing billiards. This is no place to try to sum up its main
conclusions. But it is characteristic of the classical view that
Aristotle lays his greatest stress, first, on the need for Unity in
the work of art, the need that each part should subserve the whole,
while irrelevancies, however brilliant in themselves, should be cast
away; and next, on the demand that great art must have for its subject
the great way of living. These judgements have often been
misunderstood, but the truth in them is profound and goes near to the
heart of things.