Character of Wedgwood 293 



firmness and fulness with which he perceived the true 

 law of what we may call Industrial Art, or, in other 

 words, of the application of the higher Art to Industry ; 

 the law which teaches us to aim first at giving to every 

 object the greatest possible degree of fitness and con- 

 venience for its purpose, and next of making it the 

 vehicle of the highest degree of Beauty which, com- 

 patibly with that fitness and convenience, it will bear ; 

 which does not, I need hardly say, substitute the 

 secondary for the primary end, but which recognises, 

 as part of the business of production, the studies to 

 harmonise the two. To have a strong grasp of this 

 principle, and to work it out to its results in the details 

 of a vast and varied manufacture, is a praise, high 

 enough for any man, at any time, and in any place. 

 But it was higher and more peculiar, as I think, in the 

 case of Wedgwood, than in almost any other case it 

 could be. For that truth of Art, which he saw so 

 clearly, and which lies at the root of excellence, was 

 one of which England, his country, has not usually 

 had a perception at all corresponding in strength and 

 fulness with her other rare endowments. She has long 

 taken a lead among the nations of Europe for the 

 cheapness of her manufactures ; not so for their beauty. 

 And if the day shall ever come, when she shall be as 

 eminent in true taste, as she now is in economy of 

 production, my belief is that that result will probably 

 be clue to no other single man in so great a degree 

 as to Wedgwood." 



