from THE KENYON REVIEW, AUTUMN 1950
When I was asked by letter to contribute to the symposium from Peking, my first impulse was to say that I didn’t believe in having any Credo; a critic ought to trust his own nose, like the hunting dog, and if he lets any kind of theory or principle distract him from that, he is not doing his work. This does seem to me the deepest truth about the matter; but the bottom, as Mr. T. S. Eliot remarked, is a great way down. There is the same position about a moral or ethical theory; however firm your belief in it, and however definite its ruling on a particular case, you still have to see whether your feelings can be brought to accept the results in that case. If they can’t, well, you may be wrong, but if it gets too bad, you have to give up the theory. All the same, there is clearly a need for such theories; for one thing, without a tolerable supply of handy generalizations you can’t stretch your mind to see all round a particular case. And the theory alters the feelings no less than the feelings alter the theory.
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