The two words Art and Scholasticism, set down thus side by side, look at first sight somewhat oddly paired. A little book with this title, which is useful out of all proportion to its size, shows that Scholastic philosophy offers a very sound and far-reaching theory of art, and for anyone interested in such questions will well repay careful reading. And who is not so interested? Who but has thought and talked more or less vaguely, and perhaps all the more ardently, about Art for Art’s sake, about the antagonism of Art and Morality, or the identification of Art with Morality, or the dissociation of Art from Morality? At least, after assimilating this statement of the scholastic notion of Art, vagueness will be out of the question ; and when arguments arise they will spring from the very root of the matter, from first principles and metaphysical presuppositions.

Chapters I to V give a detailed analysis of ideas and words ; the rest of the book is a series of deductions from and a synthesis of the clear notions so obtained. If we may for a moment compare artistic production to some marvellous machine, the parts are taken asunder before our eyes and cleaned of dust and cobwebs ; when they are put together again we have the joy of understanding their functions and following their interplay.