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166 COUNTERCHECK QUARRELSOME
the editor, being a polite man, would reply,
I suppose, that his critic had misunderstood
the policy of the paper : he would not feel
that his arguments had received any very
damaging blow. In my first I chapter made
it clear my publishers accused me of becoming
repetitious about it that what I
wanted to discover was a quality common
and peculiar to all those objects I called works
of art ; I explained that by " works of art "
I meant objects that provoked in me a
peculiar emotion, called aesthetic ; and I
repeated over and over again that amongst
these objects were pictures, pots, textiles,
statues, buildings, etc. Mr. Davies's sharp
eyes have enabled him to perceive either that
my hypothesis that " significant form " is
the essential quality in a work of art leads
to the inclusion of Persian carpets amongst
works of art, or that the hypothesis that
representation
is the essence of art excludes
them : I am not sure which. Anyway, this
much is certain, either both pictures and
carpets can be works of art or they cannot.
I set out from the hypothesis that pictures
and carpets, or rather some pictures and some
carpets, are works of art ; and therefore I am
less inclined to feel crushed by Mr. Davies's
discovery that my premises follow from my
conclusions than to inquire why Mr. Davies