Arnold holds the view that the creative faculty is better and higher than critical faculty. But the issue is not so simple as it appears to be on the surface. The fact is that creative faculty and critical faculty are interdependent on each other. One cannot exist without the other. It is true that creative power 'is the highest function of man; it is proved to be so by man's finding in it his true happiness.' Great poetry has the power 'to please, to move, to elevate'. Critical literature subsists on creative literature. Creative literature is the foundation upon which critical literature is built, Arnold further says that 'for the creation of a mater-work of literature two powers must concur, the power of the man and the power of the moment'.
This brings us to the other side of the issue. Who creates 'the power of the moment'? It is the critic. No man, however gifted, can produce a great literary work without a proper intellectual atmosphere around him. This proper atmosphere for the creation of a great creative work is prepared by the critic. It is the basic and most important function of the critic to make 'a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world, and thus to establish a current of fresh and true ideas'. The creative artist is enabled to produce his great works in the background and with the aid of this atmosphere which Arnold calls 'the power of the moment'. A such the creative and the critical faculties are complementary to each other, neither is better or higher than the other.
