civilisation he contents.

Nothing strikes the foreigner coming to England more than our lack of
general ideas. Our art criticism is no exception; it, like our
literature and politics, is happy-go-lucky and delights in the pot-shot.
We often hear this attributed admiringly to "the sporting instinct." "If
God, in his own time, granteth me to write something further about
matters connected with painting, I will do so, in hope that this art may
not rest upon use and wont alone, but that in time it may be taught on
true and orderly principles, and may be understood to the praise of God
and the use and pleasure of all lovers of art."[6]

Our art is still worse off than our trade or our politics, for it does
not even rest upon use and wont, but is wholly in the air. Yet the
typical modern aesthete has learnt where to take cover, for, though
destitute of defence, he has not entirely lost the instinct for
self-preservation; and, when he finds the eye of reason upon him, he
immediately flies to the diversity of opinions. But Duerer follows him
even there with the perfect good faith of a man in earnest.

"Men deliberate and hold numberless differing opinions about beauty, and
they seek after it in many different ways, although ugliness is thereby
rather attained. Being then, as we are, in such a state of error, I know
not certainly what the ultimate measure of true beauty is, and cannot
describe it aright. But glad should I be to render such help as I can,
to the end that the gross deformities of our work might be and remain
pruned away and avoided, unless indeed any one prefers to bestow great
labour upon the production of deformities. We are brought back,
therefore, to the aforesaid judgment of men, which considereth one
figure beautiful at one time and another at another....