The common avoidance of all discussion of the wider social and moral aspects of the arts by people of steady judgment and strong heads is a misfortune, for it leaves the field free for folly, and cramps the scope of good critics unduly. So loath have they been to be thought at large with the wild asses that they have virtually shut themselves up in a paddock. If the competent are to refrain because of the antics of the unqualified, an evil and a loss which are neither temporary nor trivial increase continually. It is as though medical men were all to retire because of the impudence of quacks. For the critic is as closely occupied with the health of the mind as the doctor with the health of the body. In a different way, it is true, and with a wider and subtler definition of health, by which the healthiest mind is that capable of securing the greatest amount of value.
The critic cannot possibly avoid using some ideas about value. His whole occupation is an application and exercise of his ideas on the subject, and an avoidance of moral preoccupations on his part can only be either an abdication or a rejection under the title of ‘morality’ of what he considers to be mistaken or dishonest ideas and methods. The term has a dubious odour, it has been handled by many objectionable as well as admirable people, and we may agree to avoid it. But the errors exemplified by censorship exploits are too common, and misconceptions as to the nature of value too easy to fall into and too widespread, for useful criticism to remain without a general theory and an explicit set of principles.
What is needed is a defensible position for those who believe that the arts are of value. Only a general theory of value which will show the place and function of the arts in the whole system of values will provide such a stronghold. At the same time we need weapons with which to repel and overthrow misconceptions. With the increase of population the problem presented by the gulf between what is preferred by the majority and what is accepted as excellent by the most qualified opinion has become infinitely more serious and appears likely to become threatening in the near future. For many reasons standards are much more in need of defence than they used to be. It is perhaps premature to envisage a collapse of values, a transvaluation by which popular taste replaces trained discrimination. Yet commercialism has done stranger things: we have not yet fathomed the more sinister potentialities of the cinema and the loud-speaker, and there is some evidence, uncertain and slight no doubt, that such things as ‘best-sellers’ (compare Tarzan with She), magazine verses, mantelpiece pottery, Academy pictures, Music Hall songs, County Council buildings, War Memorials . . . are decreasing in merit. Notable exceptions, in which the multitude are better advised than the experts, of course occur sometimes, but not often.
To bridge the gulf, to bring the level of popular appreciation nearer to the consensus of best qualified opinion, and to defend this opinion against damaging attacks (Tolstoy’s is a typical example), a much clearer account than has yet been produced, of why this opinion is right, is essential. These attacks are dangerous, because they appeal to a natural instinct, hatred of ‘superior persons’. The expert in-matters of taste is in an awkward position when he differs from the majority. He is forced to say in effect, “I am better than you. My taste is more refined, my nature more cultured, you will do well to become more like me than you are.” It is not his fault that he has to be so arrogant. He may, and usually does, disguise the fact as far as possible, but his claim to be heard as an expert depends upon the truth of these assumptions. He ought then to be ready with reasons of a clear and convincing kind as to why his preferences are worth attention, and until these reasons are forthcoming, the accusations that he is a charlatan and a prig are embarrassing. He may indeed point to years of preoccupation with his subject, he may remark like the wiseacre Longinus, sixteen hundred years ago, “The judgment of literature is the final outcome of much endeavour,” but with him are many Professors to prove that years of endeavour may lead to nothing very remarkable in the end.
To habilitate the critic, to defend accepted standards against Tolstoyan attacks, to narrow the interval between these standards and popular taste, to protect the arts against the crude moralities of Puritans and perverts, a general theory of value, which will not leave the statement “This is good, that bad,” either vague or arbitrary, must be provided. There is no alternative open. Nor is it such an excursus from the inquiry into the nature of the arts as may be supposed. For if a well-grounded theory of value is a necessity for criticism, it is no less true that an understanding of what happens in the arts is needed for the theory. The two problems “What is good?” and “What are the arts?” reflect light upon one another. Neither in fact can be fully answered without the other.
To the unravelling of the first we may now proceed.
CHAPTER VI
Value as an Ultimate Idea
Some lovely glorious nothing I did see.—Aire and Angels.
It has always been found far more easy to divide experiences[*] into good and bad, valuable and the reverse, than to discover what we are doing when we make the division. The history of opinions as to what constitutes value, as to why and when anything is rightly called good, shows a bewildering variety. But in modern times the controversy narrows itself down to two questions. The first of these is whether the difference between experiences which are valuable and those which are not can be fully described in psychological terms; whether some additional distinctive ‘ethical’ or ‘moral’ idea of a non-psychological nature is or is not required. The second question concerns the exact psychological analysis needed in order to explain value if no further ‘ethical’ idea is shown to be necessary.
The first question will not detain us long. It has been ably maintained[*] and widely accepted that when we say that an experience is good we are simply saying that it is endowed with a certain ethical property or attribute not to be reduced to any psychological properties or attributes such as being desired or approved, and that no further elucidation of this special ethical property by way of analysis is possible. ‘Good’ on this view is in no way a shorthand term for some more explicit account. The things which are good, it is held, are just good, possess a property which can be recognised by immediate intuition, and here, since good is unanalysable, the matter must rest. All that the study of value can do is to point out the things which possess this property, classify them, and remove certain confusions between ends which are good in themselves and means which are only called good, because they are instrumental in the attainment of intrinsically good ends. Usually those who maintain this view also hold that the only things which are good for their own sakes and not merely as a means are certain conscious experiences, for example, knowledge, admiring contemplation of beauty, and feelings of affection and veneration under some circumstances. Other things, such as mountains, books, railways, courageous actions, are good instrumentally because, and in so far as, they cause or make possible states of mind which are valuable intrinsically. Thus the occurrence of states of mind which are recognised as good is regarded as an isolated fact of experience, not capable of being accounted for, or linked up with the rest of human peculiarities as a product of development in the way made familiar by the biological sciences.