“Critical power…tends to make an intellectual situation of which the creative power can profitably avail itself. It tends to establish an order of ideas, if not absolutely true, yet true by comparison with that which it displaces; to make the best ideas prevail.”

—  Matthew Arnold

The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)

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Matthew Arnold166
English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector… 1822–1888

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