It may seem strange that a person should be charged with reviewing a work of his own, yet it is no rare occurrence; for if some authors — especially those given over to artistic composition — are unable to criticize what they write, either because they have not practiced the art of criticism or because they have no wish to, the authors of scholarly studies, having turned their subject over back to front and spent years in studying it, can point to the weak spots in what they have written and explain what they meant to reinforce and to press home in presenting it, in a way that neither the superficial reader nor the hasty critic can attain.

The book consists of two dis-tinct parts: the first, general stud-ies in what is called aesthetic — or "esthetic" — criticism; the second, the application of the principles of this inquiry to the criticism we find among the critics of the Arabs.

"Art" is one of those vague terms among the educated as among the common people. So too the word "beauty." In the book there is an attempt to define each of the two terms, as follows:

Art — and we mean here fine art — appears to us under at least six forms: poetry, music, painting, dance, sculpture, and architecture. All these arts, despite their differences, admit of a single definition: they are the work of man and the product of his mind, and the human element in them makes them nearer to the soul than the models of nature. A work of art must be marked by the quality of individuality and originality for its maker to be called an artist. This means distinguishing between the musician who creates melodies and the performer who transmits them: the first is an artist, the second an imitator or a craftsman. Likewise one distinguishes between the creator or originator of fashions and the tailor who makes them; between the poet and the versifier;

between the inventor of the forms of the dance and the amateur or professional dancer; between the sculptor who creates carved figures and the other who copies from him. Creation in art is an essential condition, and on this basis we say that art is free, personal expression — that is, bound by no rule or model. The second condition is that the work of art be a source of

pleasure, delight, and contentment to whoever views and savors it, quite apart from its practical usefulness. A piece of music, for instance, has an intrinsic aesthetic value separate from its practical use in setting an army on the march or opening a ceremony.

Having attempted to define art, it becomes easy for us to define beauty, for the first is one of the manifestations of the second. The beautiful is whatever pleases the beholder or the listener or the person of taste, without prior rule or ulterior purpose. And every person of some culture can perceive the beautiful, since it has no fixed

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