Excerpt from Lectures on Art: The Philosophy of Art; The Ideal of Art Such a system seems to possess many advan tages. Among others, it tends to emancipate the student of art, as well as the amateur, from met aphysical and visionary theories growing out of false theories and traditional misconceptions he is not misled by an exclusive adherence to partie ular schools, masters, or epochs. It also tends to render criticism less capricious, and therefore less injurious dictating no conventional standard of judgment, it promotes a spirit of charity to wards all works. As there is no attempt to do more than explain art according to natural laws, the reader must judge whether, like all systems assuming to bring order out of confusion, this one fulfills its mission. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.