Morelli may be called the Darwin of art criticism, for he was the first to set himself resolutely against the haphazard or "inspiration" theory of genius, and to prove that art follows certain fixed laws of evolution, from which the individual artist can no more escape than the individual animal can escape from its genus and species. He traced with the minute care and exquisite observation of a Darwin the derivation of one artist from another, the gradual modification of his forms, and the "survivals" of past inheritance. But it must be remembered that it took him a lifetime of study, as it took Darwin, and his method, like Darwin's, leads in unskilled hands to the wildest and most absurd conclusions.