156 INTRODUCTION. 



hended as a particular, but as a something that is common and 

 universal. Seneca 1 explains this subtlety, according to Plato's 

 views, in very elegant terms : " An idea," he says, " is an 

 eternal copy of the things that have place in nature. I add 

 an explanation of this definition, that the matter may be made 

 plainer to you. I desire to take your portrait ; I have you as 

 the prototype of the picture, from which my mind takes a cer- 

 tain impression which it transfers to the canvass. The counte- 

 nance, therefore, which teaches and directs me, and from which 

 the imitation is sought, is the idea/' A little farther on he 

 proceeds : " I have but just made use of the image which a 

 painter forms in his mind, by way of illustration. Now, if he 

 would paint a likeness of Virgil, he forms an intuitive image of 

 his subject : the idea is the face of Virgil, the type of his future 

 work; and this which the artist conveys and transfers to his 

 work is the resemblance or portrait. What difference is there ? 

 you ask : the one is the pattern or prototype, the other the 

 form taken from the pattern and fixed in the work ; the artist 

 imitates the one, he creates the other. A statue has a certain 

 expression of face ; this is the Eidos, the species or representa- 

 tion ; the prototype himself has a certain expression, which the 

 statuary conceiving, transfers to his statue : this is the idea. 

 Do you desire yet another illustration of the distinction ? The 

 Eidos is in the work ; the idea without the work, and not only 

 without the work, but it even existed before the work was be- 

 gun/' For the things that have formerly been noted, and that 

 by use or wont have become firmly fixed in the mind of the 

 artist, do, in fact, constitute art and the artistic faculty ; art, 

 indeed, is the reason of the work in the mind of the artist. 

 On the same terms, therefore, as art is attained to, is all know- 

 ledge and science acquired ; for as art is a habit with reference 

 to things to be done, so is science a habit in respect of things 



1 Epist. 58. 



