Many people today adopt an instinctively derogatory attitude to reason. It is not, they say, a free activity of the mind, reaching conclusions under no compulsion save that of the evidence; it is the tool of instinct and the handmaid of desire. They are skeptical also in their attitude towards values. Beauty, they hold, is not an intrinsic quality of things; it is merely the compliment which we bestow upon the objects which have been fortunate enough to give us pleasure. One man's pleasure is as good as another's, and all the art criticism in the world is only an elaborate series of variations upon the theme: 'This is what I happen to like.' As with art, so with morals. To act rightly is merely to act in a way of which other people approve

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