17 OCTOBER 1914, Page 22

One of the most difficult tasks for the student of

aesthetics is to explain the causes of the pleasure which we take in certain aspects of art and nature. Mr. E. F. Carritt has made a very creditable attempt to tackle this problem in his Theory of Beauty (Methuen and Co., 6s. net), which criticizes various solutions, from Plato to Croce, and reaches the tentative conclusion " that all beauty is the expression of what may be generally called emotion, and that all such expression is beautiful."