THE TECHNOLOGIST. [May 1, 1864, 



438 ON GRANITE AND ITS USES. 



to be, that the money- value of an object is the true criterion of its worth 

 to the world. A diamond is worth much gold, and therefore to be 

 esteemed. It is also a good thing for cutting glass with, and indis- 

 pensable to window-makers, but it may be left to fantastic Orientals to 

 call it a Mountain of Light. Now, it is not to be denied that there is 

 in our clay a disposition among ourselves and the other active nations of 

 the world to encourage utilitarianism as a thing most deserving en- 

 couragement, and that, though this may not be done in the spirit of 

 depreciating other things worthy of being fostered, these suffer by its 

 exaltation. But who is to blame for this ? Not the utilitarian, I think ! 

 It is assumed in the argument against liim, that the world in former 

 ages paid sufficient attention to utilitarianism, but that now it is paying 

 too much. But this is begging the entire question in dispute ; for when 

 was the world too industrial, and when did the fine arts gain by men 

 being idle and miserable 1 The utilitarian does no more than declare 

 that bread for the hungry, water for the thirsty, clothing for the naked, 

 and homes for the houseless can be furnished to all, if men will but 

 wisely use their faculties, and conquer that physical world which was 

 given them to conquer. If it be desirable, as assuredly it is, that after 

 being fed, and clothed, aud housed, they should cultivate their imagi- 

 nations, let the poet and his brother artists look to that. Hungry, 

 thirsty, ragged wretches are not the audiences who weep over Tennyson's 

 "Maud," or crowd to hear Jenny Lind sing, or make pilgrimages to 

 London to visit the picture galleries. To feed, to clothe, to house the 

 needy, are surely not acts which involve any invasion of their imagi- 

 nations. If the poet, and the painter, and the sculptor, and the 

 musician, will go before and go beside, and follow after the utilitarian, 

 they will find him in no case an enemy, and in most cases a friend ; and 

 if they will not do their work, they should not complain that it is left 

 undone. 



In reality, the question whether iitilitarianism shall or shall not 

 prevail against non-utilitarian fine art, depends upon a matter beyond 

 human control, name])', whether there shall be more great artists or 

 groat utilitarians given to the world within a particular epoch. Let a 

 Shskespere be born, and he will make his nation imaginative, and keep 

 it so for centuries after his death. Let a Bacon be born, and he will 

 make his nation utilitarian, and keep it so for centuries after his death. 

 Let both adorn the same epoch, and that epoch will reflect the spirit of 

 both, as the last two hundred years have done. And so long as a 

 Shakspere and a Bacon, a Milton and a Newton, a James Watt and a 

 Walter Scott, a Davy and a Byron, a John Herschel and a Thomas 

 Campbell, a Faraday and a Tennyson, are given us together, the world 

 will find no difficulty in being at the same time utilitarian and poetical. 

 If it shall ever please Providence to send us no poets, then we must 

 grow unpoetical, and the faster the better. And if it shall ever idease 

 Pravidence to send us no utilitarians, then we must at least grow non- 



