bizarre suggestions, and the desire to make discoveries, in-
compatibl with the philosophic temper, displays itself in idle
rearrangements and refinements of classification.

Clearness of methodic arrangement and the habit of telling
one's story plainly, together with a full recognition of the
place and import of beauty as apart from edification, from
amusement or sensuous satisfaction, from imitation, and from
mere formal decoration, have been won by the idealist
methodisers with the help of the exact æstheticians, and
will not again be lost. But from the theory of content and
expression which has thus been perfected, the content has
itself in some degree oozed away. It may be mere national
prejudice, but I believe it to be a well-grounded conviction,
which causes me to turn to England for a re-animation of the
bond between content and expression. As the true value
of German idealism in general philosophy was never under-
stood, till the genius of English naturalists had revolutionised
our conception of the organic world, so the spirit of German
æsthetic will not be appreciated until the work of its founders
shall have been renewed by the direct appreciative sense of
English art and criticism. With a very brief account of this
in the ensuing chapter I propose to conclude the present
work.

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