ABSTRACT
An acquaintance which will allow us to stand away from the works, at one remove from a possible direct emotional response which they might evoke. In other words: the critical knowledge and the critical methods can be taught and learnt, taste can be trained and purified, but aesthetic sensitivity, even a certain elementary modicum of the taste must be innate. The first, the stricture on the objects of aesthetic contemplation, can again be divided into two: the stricture on moral grounds which denies the aesthetic merit of the object contemplation and its value for the contemplative activity. The second admits the aesthetic merit and value of the object but thinks the moral consequences and implications of its contemplation of greater importance to the spectator than the joys. Amateurs and dilettantes are probably full of inspiration, but inspiration without ability is nothing.
