Conflict between Aesthetic and Ethical tendencies

[Oscar Wilde and Sri Aurobindo in a conversation on the blog, about art, aesthetics, ethics and utility. All Art is Quite Useless": What a Wild(e) Idea! Beloo Mehra

A new post in the series - Satyam Shivam Sundaram A series featuring inspiring words from various sources, words that...]

[Wilde added this Preface to the book, along with several other changes, after the first, 1890 edition of the book was highly criticized. He used it to "address the criticism and defend the novel's reputation." The collection of statements in this Preface also "serves as an indicator of the way in which [he] intends the novel to be read." 

But the main reason why I became fascinated by this Preface is this: It serves as an excellent illustration of what Sri Aurobindo refers to as the conflict between Aesthetic and Ethical tendencies of the human mind. In his major work on social philosophy, The Human Cycle, he writes:]