9 
people of those European cities in which the most approved 
specimens of painting and statuary are now common and have 
been for centuries, are believed to be not more refined and 
chaste, honest and enlightened than those who live far from the 
influence of such beauties. Consideration of the native in¬ 
habitants of Rome, Naples, Florence, Paris in this connection, 
leads one to question whether living amidst the very best re¬ 
sults of fine-art culture, decorating churches or displayed in 
vast galleries freely accessible to the populace, is not unpro- 
pitious to the development of true manhood and virtue in vul¬ 
gar and ignorant people. The influence of pictures and statues 
upon beholders is entirely emotional and sentimental in cha¬ 
racter, sometimes kindling only sensual ideas which are not 
always as evanescent in effect as “ the lascivious pleasings of a 
lute.” But who is prepared to demonstrate that the fine arts, 
excepting architecture, are in any degree essential to the pro¬ 
gress of the human mind, or that they have contributed in an 
important degree to originate and bring to the use of society 
any one of those comforts, conveniences, or luxuries which 
belong to the existing condition of civilization? To what 
famous picture or noted statue, modern or ancient, can be 
fairly ascribed, partly or wholly, the origin of anything as 
useful as the lucifer match, gas illumination, photography, the 
electric telegraph, the railroad, the steamship, the microscope, 
the telescope, all of which have resulted exclusively from the 
cultivation of the natural sciences? Painting and sculpture are 
only modes of written language employed to describe things 
and express thoughts, and, when deftly used by skilful hands, 
are as eloquent in awakening sentiment and emotion, giving 
pleasure or pain, as the speech of the orator or the poet’s song. 
Yet this kind of language is no more prolific of useful dis¬ 
coveries than any other mode of talking, or other means of 
communicating ideas. 
The fine arts are vast sources of pleasure and amusement, 
and will be more alluring and popular than the natural sciences 
and attract more numerous and munificent patrons, until it 
becomes as easy to perceive the beauties of God’s laws as the 
beauties of expression of human thoughts in colors on canvas, 
