Dana's view of art is completely based on Comte's positivism. He believes that everything in the world, whether it is material or spiritual, has its own laws of emergence, development and evolution, and the laws of natural science are also applicable to literature and art, and the study of art is consistent with the study of natural science. Art theory is to grasp the law of art development. In addition, he also believes that the laws of the spiritual world and the material world are consistent, and his artistic philosophy tries to reveal the inherent laws of literature and art with the laws of nature. It is on the basis of this philosophy that Dana believes that the nature of material civilization and spiritual civilization depends on three factors: race, environment and times. As far as literature and art are concerned, the emergence and development of literature and art are also determined by three factors: race, environment and times. Race refers to people's innate and genetic factors. On this issue, Dana discusses art more from the perspective of physiology. In his view, the difference between human beings and animals is that human beings belong to "higher race" because people have "broad concept". Among the higher races, there are races with higher intelligence and races with lower intelligence. In short, race is an important factor in the emergence, development, prosperity and decline of art, and secondly, the environment refers more to geographical factors. Taking every plant as an example, he thinks that all kinds of arts and genres can only be produced in a special environment, and artists are also the products of the environment to some extent, and they can only create specific works in a specific environment. Finally, there are cultural factors of the times, so to understand works of art and artists, we must understand the spiritual outlook of the times to which they belong. These three factors have the same effect on literature. If we grasp these three factors, we can grasp the basic characteristics of literature.

It is reasonable for Dana to reveal the characteristics of literature and art from the perspective of sociology. The difference of these three factors really affects the difference of literature and art. The problem is not how many factors determine literature, but the positivism that Dana believes in, which restricts his understanding of artistic regularity. His emphasis on nationality, environment and times comes more from positivism, and his understanding of nationality, environment and times is obviously naturalistic. There is no doubt that the emergence and development of literature are determined by many conditions and factors. From the internal point of view, they are restricted by other factors, and Dana ignores these links, which also determines that positivism aesthetics will inevitably produce defective artistic views.