420 Mr. Henry Irving [Feb. 1, 



and it was clue to acting that they did so, for had there been no 

 stage there had been no drama, for the efforts of their poets had 

 been made in some other form and manifested in some other way. 

 As I make a claim, I should like to justify it ; and I shall therefore 

 try to show from accepted sources that acting is in all ways and 

 under all conditions within the bounds set down as the bounds of 

 art ; that it satisfies all conditions given ; and that it has aims, pur- 

 poses and objects in common with all the arts already classified. It 

 would at the first seem that the single logical axiom " the whole is 

 greater than its part " would be sufficient to prove to comm >n satis- 

 faction that systematic effort of a complex kind, which embraced 

 all the less complex efforts already classified as arts, would be of ne- 

 cessity itself, an art. Let me, however, begin at the very beginning, 

 and step by step prove that argument whose conclusions I venture 

 to recommend to you — the place of acting amongst the cosmic arts. 



Dr. Johnson, who certainly did not limit his definitions for the 

 purposes of disputation, but made them as liberal and all-embracing 

 as possible — and who had himself no high reverence for the play- 

 house, when he rather characteristically said to David Garrick, 

 " Punch, sir, has no feelings " — defined " Art " as '* the power of 

 doing something not taught by nature and instinct " ; that is, nature 

 and instinct give power and can suggest, but art must teach how 

 the power is to be used. Dr. Johnson also quotes South : " Properly, 

 an habitual knowledge of certain rules and maxims by which a man 

 is governed and directed in his actions." The philologists define the 

 word as we have it as coming through the Latin from the Greek. 

 In this language the root word means " to join " or " to fit " ; so 

 that broadly, the artist, in the original meaning of the word, comes 

 under the definition of a skilled workman. Surely it is not too 

 much to ask for the actor that he be placed within this category. 



As the world progressed in power and knowledge, and as life 

 became more complex, work became differentiated, and the termi- 

 nology became enlarged ; there became degrees in the skill required 

 for the doing of work of many kinds, and there came a diminutive 

 to the word " artist " to meet the want — the " artisan " — the artist- 

 labourer rather than the fine-artist. Thus, by common consent, the 

 term Artist became the distinctive right of those workers who 

 wrought in the higher branches of their various crafts and callings. 

 In our day, with its myriad manifestations of work, we have names 

 for all grades generally applied — from the " hand " who works 

 mechanically on the farm, on shipboard, or in the mill, to the 

 "artist" who still maintains his position as the exponent of the 

 highest organised effort — in fact, of what we call the " fine " arts. And 

 it is to this category that I venture to affirm that acting belongs. 



And here, before we consider what is the " differentia " or essen- 

 tial condition of a work of fine art, let me point out that art in any 

 of its phases does not deal with the original conception or creation 

 of ideas. The Gyeek language, whence we derived the word, had a 



