Crane's theory of history is based on a certain view of what the artist does when he creates a work of art. According to him, an artist decides to give his subject matter a certain specific artistic form. In the course of achieving this, he modifies traditional materials and techniques, reveals new possibilities in the form, and seeks to enhance the specific emotional effect of the form itself (pp. 48-49). This view of art implies that the artist does not achieve his literary end in a vacuum. A consideration of inherited forms, materials, and techniques, therefore, constitutes the historical part of the historian's work. The critical part of his job consists in evaluating the artistic success of the maximum realization of the possibilities of form and the technique (P. 49). History of literature, it follows, is both a history of changes in artistic forms, materials and techniques (the trinity which underlies the artistic unity) and an autonomous criticism of art which does not stray for criteria beyond the realms of gold. An historical study of forms considers what different elements are organized in a work of art, how this organization is accomplished and what effects it produces (p. 39). It inquires into the constructive principles dictated by the form and their effect on the shaping of the material. It also analyzes how different forms are related to one another historically. An historical study of materials implies a study of the literary antecedents of the story, circumstances, characters, emotions, attitudes, conceptions, images, and intellectual argument. These elements of materials need not necessarily be influenced by previous writers alone. They could also be shaped by past or contemporary ideas. Materials should be discussed with reference to these factors. They should not be reduced to a function of religion, culture, history, society or language (p. 42). Crane admits that a good deal of work has been done on technique from the historical angle. We have considerable data on how technique was learned by writers from other writers and then further developed in response to the exigencies of new works (44). However, traditionally, techniques have been studied for their material characteristics. A Cranian historian would study them with reference to the artistic functions they serve. This kind of history. Crane points out, does not study art as a cause or a consequence of an illustration or a symptom (p.47); it is concerned with the artistic ends or forms chosen by writers, the problems they encounter in shapiiig them, and the decisions they make in solving them. But this kind of history does not, we are told, cut itself off from the insights of other schools. It simply insists that these brilliant insights and breath-taking generalizations be related to the text so that we know on what literary evidence they are based. The assumption of this programme for bistory-and-criticism-in-one is 70 Journal of Arts and Ideas