208 ESSAYS LV PHILOSOPHY 



cal arts, so circumscribed by certain uses its product 

 has to serve, as to be prevented from entering un- 

 reservedly into the ideal of its theme, while it unques- 

 tionably still deals with the ideal, then we must 

 place that art at the bottom of a hierarchy in whose 

 higher grades the other arts will follow each other 

 according to their compass of creativ^e freedom. By 

 this principle, it is found that the recognised fine arts 

 form an ascending series in the order in which I 

 have already named them, — architecture, sculpture, 

 painting, music, and poetry. 



Architecture, it is very obvious, in its aim of giv- 

 ing the masses and details of a building ideal form 

 is guided and restricted both by the purposes of 

 shelter and room that the building is to serve, and 

 by the laws of constructive engineering. The two 

 unite to prevent the free action of imagination, 

 not only in regard to the proportions of the structure 

 and the mode of combining its component masses, 

 but also, though in a less degree, in regard to the 

 ornamentation of its details. A building cannot be 

 made with an isolated reference to the demands of 

 beauty. Use and stability must be secured at all 

 hazards, and the architect can only make it as beau- 

 tiful as these conditions will permit. Any other 

 method in building would be ruinous and absurd. 

 Accordingly, it has been well said that architecture 

 is not pure art, but only art struggling to get into 



