1769. It follows, as a common principle from the above, that the moral artist should universalize with various regard to the individual and generality, according to the various relations of moral art, to particular morals, politics, and religion.

1770. To individualize in morals, is to be grossly narrow and selfish: the infant does so in grasping everything as its own; but no sooner does he concede and generalize in such respect, than he expands, and departs proportionably out of his gross self; and, finally, it is in universalizing that he becomes equitable: whereon are founded the just notions analytically of property, right, and all ethics, terminating in the identification of self with all being, in unity with God.

1771. It arises, in the next place, according to a just analogy, as a moral principle, that any predominance of fine art, in the practices and performances of moral art, is as illegitimate and out of place, as decoration is in material art, or as the prevalence of the material and moral are in fine art.

1772. If the mind regard fine feelings excited by music, painting, or poetry, or accomplishments, modes, or polished manners, as moral good, the purpose of moral art will be thereby vitiated, if it regard public shows, parade, and ostentation, as political ends, true policy or political art will become corrupted, and if the Temple of religion, the work of the Architect, aided by all the decorations and allurements of fine art, and dedicated to

Divinity, be itself Idolized as Holy and Divine, the proper object of religion will be lost sight of, its end reversed, God dishonoured, and man degraded. Nevertheless, all these arts may be employed with moral advantage, but in subservience only, as means to true moral, political, and religious ends.

1773. Nor is there any total repugnance among these arts; but decoration must never infringe utility in material art; nor the material and moral overlay sentiment in fine art; nor, above all, should the latter be substituted for conscience in moral art: for the utility of the first, the fine sentiment of the second, and the Divine consciousness of the last, have each its appropriate satisfaction, which cannot be substituted either for either, but they become perverted.

1774. And, in this view, the genera of art may be distinguished as Arts of Utility, Arts of Sentiment, and Arts of Conscience: the determinative of the first being motion; that of the second, emotion; and that of the last, motive.

SECTION VII.

1775. As NATURE is the performance of All-perfect mind, that art will be the nearest to perfection which approaches nearest in principle to the method of nature; and as all art and pur

pose presuppose design, so only are rational beings capable of art.

1776. The instinctive operations of some animals, inasmuch as they are uniform in design, and uniformly those of their species in all times, are presuppositive of one only Designer: they are, therefore, the operations of the Supreme mind in nature, called instinct, and not the art of animal

reason.

1777. From the same source is derived the art of man, more immediately through intellect, by participation of the universal reason; and hence it is that nature is the true school of art: whence it arises, also, that the representations of art by art are inferior to the representations of nature.

1778. Accordingly, pictures representing fine architecture, or other beautiful works of art or fashion, however original or well-executed, resemble copies, and are less effective and less. esteemed than the wild, rustic, and picturesque objects of nature, thus represented; because, in the former, we see art at second hand, through the medium of fiction, and a step lower, whereby the object, the art, and the artist, become in a manner degraded.

1779. Since Nature is the work of the Universal Being, God, it is Theurgy in a proper sense, and is the perfect art of perfect science,—the production of Omnipotence directed by Omniscience, with a design to all good; and since man is part

of nature, nature is the only source of human science and art, and art is capable of doing that only which exists discoverably in nature: science, practice, and imitation of nature are therefore the true means of art.

1780. From the deficiency or insufficiency of art and science, as compared with nature, it arises as a universal maxim, or principle of good taste and practice in art, more especially in fine art, that all they do should be, or appear, natural. Whence, conversely, affectation or artificialness, and display of science, and whatever is false or extravagant, are to be shunned as violations of taste and refinement, which are the moral of art; and hence, also, according to a well-approved maxim, it is the perfection of art to disguise art and artifice in every work: these principles are also conformable to the decorum of nature, in clothing and concealing her means for the sake of her end, and belong, therefore, to the decorum of art.

1781. It is obvious, also, that as science refers to the mind, so art refers to the body; and that as thought or energy of mind is the principal and proper source of discovery and improvement in the one, so is practice or personal energy in the other: yet as art tends either towards the ethical or the physical, it varies in relation and dependence upon thought, on the one hand, and practice on the other.

1782. As in the physical department of nature

and science particulars are principal, as generals are in the esthetical, and universals in the ethical, so we have seen that these relations prevail, in like manner, in the corresponding departments of art; whence the material artist particularizes, the sensible artist generalizes, and the moral artist universalizes; and hence the physical artist practises according to recipes, or particular and fixed formulæ, the esthetical artist practises upon general rules in fine art, and the ethical, or moral artist, upon universal precepts or principles; not exclusively, indeed, in either, for we have seen that some reference to, or participation of, each of these, is essential to the being, progress, and perfection of every art, and there is inherent in every complete work a principle of unity, generality, and particularity.

1783. Not only do the principles of art, briefly and imperfectly delivered in these sections, belong to the course and practice of nature, from which they are strictly deducible, but they are also confirmed by the most eminent and successful practice in each of the prime departments of art.

1784. In physical and material art, no people have surpassed the British; and in no country have they been practised with such particularity, mathematical precision, simplicity, and sufficiency of principle. In sensible and fine art, no people have equalled the antient Greeks, who carried them to transcendent excellence, upon principles of general