THE ESSENCE OF THE FINE ARTS. 



tance of art-culturc, that it should lean most to those mechanical, commemal, and 

 sciences, Avhich have mainly contributed to our national importance. 



But true o-i-eatncss in a people must arise from the cultivation of all the faculties of the 

 mind. It takes both " the beautiful and the useful to form a man;" the mind, like the 

 body, must grow in all directions; — the moral, intellectual and imaginative faculties being 

 alike developed. We must cultivate the entire man, and bring ourselves in contact with 

 the universe in every possible point; and not only endeavor to expand our own natures, 

 but introduce the principle into every system of education: so that all may enjoy, not a 

 partial, but as far as practicable, a complete and universal culture. 



It appears probable that a much greater uniformity in education existed among the clas- 

 sic ancients, when we consider how equal was their encouragement of the different branches 

 of intellectual pursuit. In Gi-eece we perceive that not only literature, philosophy and science, 

 but the fine arts were carried to the highest point of perfection. This, the multitude of 

 exquisite monuments of art still existing, fully attests. The brilliant period from Homer 

 to Alexander was characterised by this uniform mental pursuit. Learning and literary 

 composition — every species of jihilosophy — eloquence — the art of war — are known to have 

 arrived at the highest degree of perfection, and yet were not in advance of sculpture and 

 architecture; illustrated at this time by the chisel of Phidias. In fine, the whole circle 

 of arts and sciences may be said to have disputed for pre-eminence with each other. We 

 may apply the same remark to the Romans in the reigns of Augustus and Adrian. At 

 the same time, the art they cultivated was not fine art only. The aqueducts, bridges and 

 cloacaj of the latter people have been the models of the grandest works of a similar nature 

 in modern Europe. 



On the relative importance of art, — its rank among the various branches of human pur- 

 suit, I will content mj-self by quoting a celebrated living writer: — " There are two ave- 

 nues from the little passions and drear calamities of earth, both lead towards Heaven and 

 away from Hell — art and science ; but art is more godlike than science ; science discov- 

 ers, — art creates. The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to the 

 universe. The poet can call a universe from the atom. The chemist may heal with his 

 drugs the infirmities of the human form : the painter or sculptor fixes into everlasting 

 youth, forms divine, which no disease can ravage, and no years impair." 



Schiller, in his philosophical and a?sthetic letters, insists upon the necessity of aesthetic 

 as a preparation and foundation for moral culture, and considers that until we are so de- 

 veloped, we cannot be morally free, and, by consequence, not responsible, as the will has 

 no sphere in which to operate. And Sir Joshua Reynolds, even in his day, considered an 

 establishment for such culture as a subordinate school of morality. He contended that it 

 was necessary to the happiness of mankind and security of society, that the mind should 

 be elevated to the idea of general beauty, as a mean of giving it its proper superioritj^ over 

 the common scenes and temptations of life. 



The Platonists looked upon the cultivation of the understanding, by the study of science, 

 as no less necessary than the practice of virtue, to qualify a human soul for the enjoyment 

 of a future state; and Plato himself has called mathematical demonstrations the 

 cathartics of the soul, as being the most proper means to free it from error, and give it a 

 relish for truth. May not, I would ask, a cultivation of the sense of beauty be deemed a 

 more appropriate means to this end ? Real works of art should be the most intimate 

 companions of the soul : the man to whom they are mute, to Avhom they reveal nothing, 

 earn little of a moral or spiritual nature from books, and must have but faint notions 

 connection with external nature, — of his relation to the universe. 



