est, is ordered and conditioned by a particular kind
of emotion; but whether my theory be true or false, the form remains
right. If the forms are satisfactory, the state of mind that ordained
them must have been aesthetically right. If the forms are wrong, it does
not follow that the state of mind was wrong; between the moment of
inspiration and the finished work of art there is room for many a slip.
Feeble or defective emotion is at best only one explanation of
unsatisfactory form. Therefore, when the critic comes across
satisfactory form he need not bother about the feelings of the artist;
for him to feel the aesthetic significance of the artist's forms
suffices. If the artist's state of mind be important, he may be sure
that it was right because the forms are right. But when the critic
attempts to account for the unsatisfactoriness of forms he may consider
the state of mind of the artist. He cannot be sure that because the
forms are wrong the state of mind was wrong; because right forms imply
right feeling, wrong forms do not necessarily imply wrong feeling; but
if he has got to explain the wrongness of form, here is a possibility he
cannot overlook. He will have left the firm land of aesthetics to travel
in an unstable element; in criticism one catches at any straw. There is
no harm in that, provided the critic never forgets that, whatever
ingenious theories he may put forward, they can be nothing more than
attempts to explain the one central fact--that some forms move us
aesthetically and others do not.

This discussion has brought me close to a question that is neither
aesthetic nor metaphysical but impinges on both. It is the question of
the artistic problem, and it is really a technical question. I have
suggested that the task of the artist is either to create significant
form or to express a sense of reality--whichever way you prefer to put
it. But it is certain that few artists, if any, can sit down or stand up
just to create nothing more definite than significant form, just to
express nothing more definite than a sense of reality. Artists must
canalise their emotion, they must concentrate their energies on some
definite problem. The man who sets out with the whole world before him
is unlikely to get anywhere. In that fact lies the explanation of the
absolute necessity for artistic conventions. That is why it is easier to
write good verse than good prose, why it is more difficult to write good
blank verse than