mental power, he will be embittered, and led into dishonest tricks,
and end by being rude.

The only safe rule, therefore, is that which Aristotle mentions in the
last chapter of his _Topica_: not to dispute with the first person you
meet, but only with those of your acquaintance of whom you know that
they possess sufficient intelligence and self-respect not to advance
absurdities; to appeal to reason and not to authority, and to listen
to reason and yield to it; and, finally, to cherish truth, to be
willing to accept reason even from an opponent, and to be just enough
to bear being proved to be in the wrong, should truth lie with him.
From this it follows that scarcely one man in a hundred is worth your
disputing with him. You may let the remainder say what they please,
for every one is at liberty to be a fool--_desipere est jus gentium_.
Remember what Voltaire says: _La paix vaut encore mieux que la
verite_. Remember also an Arabian proverb which tells us that _on the
tree of silence there hangs its fruit, which is peace_.

ON THE COMPARATIVE PLACE OF INTEREST AND BEAUTY IN WORKS OF ART.

In the productions of poetic genius, especially of the epic and
dramatic kind, there is, apart from Beauty, another quality which is
attractive: I mean Interest.

The beauty of a work of art consists in the fact that it holds up a
clear mirror to certain _ideas_ inherent in the world in general; the
beauty of a work of poetic art in particular is that it renders the
ideas inherent in mankind, and thereby leads it to a knowledge
of these ideas. The means which poetry uses for this end are
the exhibition of significant characters and the invention of
circumstances which will bring about significant situations, giving
occasion to the characters to unfold their peculiarities and show what
is in them; so that by some such representation a clearer and fuller
knowledge of the many-sided idea of humanity may be attained. Beauty,
however, in its general aspect, is the inseparable characteristic
of the idea when it has become known. In other words, everything is
beautiful in which an idea is revealed; for to be beautiful means no
more than clearly to express an idea.

Thus we perceive that beauty is always an affair of _knowledge_, and
that it appeals to _the knowing subject_, and not to _the will_;
nay, it is a fact that the apprehension of beauty on the part of the
subject involves a complete suppression of the will.

On the