37-1 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



in the terms of his art. The designer must be able to think in tones, 

 measures, and shapes precisely as the composer of music thinks in the 

 sounds of voices and of instruments. The measure of liis ability as a 

 designer is then revealed in his power to think of many things in single 

 ideas, and to express in single ideas many things. At first a somewhat 

 painful effort has to be made to bring the composition of tones and meas- 

 ures and shapes into the lawful relationship of a single idea ; but, by 

 degrees, the designer comes to think of his tones, measures, and shapes in 

 lawful forms only. He is then a master, and he will follow the sugges- 

 tions of his imagination as it leads him into the world of tone-, measure-, 

 and shape-ideas. This world must be as wonderful as the world of 

 musical sounds. We know something of that in the revelations which 

 the great composers of music have given us in their compositions. Of 

 the possibilities of Pure Design, we can only guess what they may be. 

 Then, when it comes to Design in Representation, and we have in addition 

 the lawful composition of tones, measures, and shapes, the expi'ession of 

 visual knowledge in the form of true ideas, we rise to still higher possi- 

 bilities in the connection and relationship of Beauty with Truth, As we 

 rise above the accidents of vision or of memory to the knowledge of things 

 seen in their ideas or ideals, we discover that our knowledge of nature or 

 life is a knowledge of Nature's consistency, of her balances, her rhythms, 

 her harmonies, her order, her incomparable beauty. In other words, as 

 science rises from particulars to what is general and universal, as she rises 

 to the understanding of principles and laws, causes and sequences, she 

 comes to a conception of nature as pure design. The statement of sci- 

 entific truth becomes an illustration of pure design, and art and science 

 become one. " At last the vision is revealed to him of a single science, 

 which is the science of beauty everywhere." (Plato, Symposium, § 210.) 



