What is important, then, is not that the critic should possess a correct abstract definition of beauty for the intellect, but a certain kind of temperament, the power of being deeply moved by the presence of beautiful objects.

Walter Pater (1839–1894), a central figure in English aestheticism, argued that art criticism should begin from refined perception rather than from rigid philosophical systems. This sentence comes from his early critical writing in the 1860s, when he was formulating an approach that treated the critic’s task as registering the distinctive “impression” a work makes on a sensitive mind. In the Victorian climate of moralized art and academic definitions of “beauty,” Pater insists that responsiveness—an educated, receptive temperament capable of being genuinely stirred by artworks—is more valuable than possessing a neat abstract theory. The remark anticipates the impressionistic method he later developed in his essays and in The Renaissance.

Pater shifts the grounds of criticism from rule-making to experience. He suggests that beauty is not best captured by a universal definition that the intellect can apply mechanically; instead, the critic’s authority rests on a cultivated capacity to feel and discriminate—an alertness to nuance, atmosphere, and form. “Temperament” here implies both sensibility and training: the critic must be open to being moved, yet also able to articulate what that movement consists in. The line encapsulates aestheticism’s emphasis on art’s immediate impact and the individuality of response, while still implying a discipline of attention that separates serious criticism from mere opinion.