206 ASSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY 



But let it be still more carefully kept in knowledge, 

 that this mechanical element is only the servant of 

 the fine art as such, and that the fine art, in its own 

 proper nature, is not even hinted at in the mechani- 

 cal. The sculptor must be a deft draughtsman and 

 modeller ; but draughtsmanship and modelling are 

 not sculpture. The painter must be a draughtsman 

 and colourist ; but drawing and colouring are not 

 painting. The composer must be a master of melody 

 and counterpoint ; but melody and harmony are not 

 an oratorio or a symphony. The poet must be mas- 

 ter of rhythm, metre, and all the resources of rheto- 

 ric ; but rhythm, metre, and all the arts of rhetoric 

 are infinitely short of the soul of poetry. No, noth- 

 ing short of the creative principle of imagination gives 

 the fine arts their specific quality — the principle that 

 creates for the sake of creating, for the sake of giving 

 free course to that imagination which is not only an 

 essential but the guiding factor in the supersensible 

 being of man, and which not only founds for him the 

 world of religion and of science, as well as that of art, 

 but is the constructive and developing principle of 

 the universe itself. 



So then, to get to a specific canon of poetry, we 

 must settle the grouping of the fine arts, and find 

 how they are really differentiated from each other. 

 There are generally recognised a standard five, — 

 architecture, sculpture, painting, music, and poetry. 



