Dr Whewell's Inaugural Lecture. 3 



originals from which are taken the derivative terms which I 

 have just been compelled to use : in the Textures of soft wool, 

 or fine linen, or glossy silk, where the fancy disports itself in 

 wreaths of visible flowers ; in the Machinery mighty as the 

 thunderbolt to rend the oak, or light as the breath of air 

 which carries the flower-dust to its appointed place ; in the 

 Images which express to the eye beauty and dignity, as the 

 poet's verse does to the mind ; so that it is difficult to say 

 whether Homer or Phidias be more truly a poet. That 

 mighty building, then, along the aisles of which we have 

 wandered day after day in past months, full as it was of the 

 works of man, contained also the works of many who were 

 truly makers ; — who stamped upon matter, and the combina- 

 tions of matter, that significance and efficacy which makes it 

 a true exponent of the inward activity of man. The objects 

 there, the symbols, instruments, and manifestations of beauty 

 and power, were utterances, — articulate utterances of the 

 human mind, no less than if they had been audible words 

 and melodious sentences. There were expressed in the 

 ranks of that great display many beautiful and many power- 

 ful thoughts of gifted men of our own and of other lands. 

 The Crystal Palace was the cabinet in which were contained 

 a vast multitude of compositions — not of words, but of things, 

 which we who wandered along its corridors and galleries 

 might con, day by day, so as to possess ourselves, in some mea- 

 sure and according to our ability, of their meaning, power, 

 and spirit. And now, that season of the perusal of such a 

 collection of works being past ; those days of wonderment at 

 the creations of such a poetry being gone by ; the office of 

 reading and enjoying being over ; the time for criticism seems 

 to have arrived. We must now consider what it is that we 

 have admired, and why ; must try to analyse the works which 

 we have thus gazed upon, and to discover the principles of 

 their excellence. As the Critic of literary art endeavours to 

 discern the laws of man's nature by which he can produce 

 that which is beautiful and powerful, operating through the 

 medium of language, so the Critic of such art as we have had 

 here presented to us — of material art, as we may term it — 

 endeavours to discern the laws of material nature ; to learn 



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