THE elegant arts, as well as the useful, are founded in experience, but from the difference of their nature, there arises a considerable difference, both in their origin and their growth. Necessity, the mother of invention, drives men, in the earliest state of society, to the study and cultivation of the useful arts; it is always leisure and abundance which lead men to seek gratifications no way conducive to the preservation either of the individual or of the species. The elegant arts, therefore, are doubtless to be considered as the younger sisters. The progress of the former towards perfection is, however, much slower than that of the latter. Indeed, with regard to the first, it is impossible to say, as to several arts, what is the perfection of the art, since we are incapable of perceiv ing how far the united discernment and industry of men, properly applied, may yet carry them.

For

some centuries backwards, the men of every age have made great and unexpected improvements on the labours of their predecessors. And it is very probable that the subsequent age will produce discoveries and acquisitions, which we of this age are as little capable of foreseeing, as those who preceded us in the last century were capable of conjecturing the progress that would be made in the present. The case is not enThese, though later in

tirely similar in the fine arts.

their appearing, are more rapid in their advancement.

There may, indeed, be in these a degree of perfection. beyond what we have experienced; but we have some conception of the very utmost to which it can proceed. For instance, where resemblance is the object, as in a picture or in a statue, a perfect conformity to its archetype is a thing at least conceivable. In like manner, the utmost pleasure of which the imagination is susceptible by a poetical narrative or exhibition, is a thing, in my judgment, not inconceivable. We Britons, for example, do, by immense degrees, excel the ancient Greeks in the arts of navigation and ship-building; and how much further we may still excel them in these, by means of discoveries and improvements yet to be made, it would be the greatest presumption in any man to say. But as it requires not a prophetic spirit to discover, it implies no presumption to affirm, that we shall never excel them so far in poetry and eloquence, if ever in these respects we come to equal them. The same thing might probably be affirmed with regard to painting, sculpture, and music, if we had here as ample a fund of materials for forming a comparison.

BUT let it be observed, that the remarks now made regard only the advancement of the arts themselves; for though the useful are of slower growth than the other, and their utmost perfection cannot always be

so easily ascertained, yet the acquisition of any one of them by a learner, in the perfection which it has reached at the time, is a much easier matter than the acquisition of any of the elegant arts;-besides, that the latter require much more of a certain happy combination in the original frame of spirit, commonly called genius, than is necessary in the other.

.

LET it be observed further, that as the gratification of taste is the immediate object of the fine arts, their effect is in a manner instantaneous, and the quality of any new production in these is immediately judged by every body; for all have in them some rudiments of taste, though in some they are improved by a good, in others corrupted by a bad education, and in others almost supressed by a total want of education. In the useful arts, on the contrary, as more time and experience are requisite for discovering the means by which our accommodation is effected, so it generally requires examination, time, and trial, that we may be satisfied of the fitness of the work for the end proposed. In these we are not near so apt to consider ourselves as judges, unless we be either arttists, or accustomed to employ and examine the works of artists in that particular profession.

I MENTIONED Some arts that have their fundament

al principles in the abstract sciences of geometry and arithmetic, and some in the doctrine of gravitation and motion. There are others, as the medical and chirurgical arts, which require a still broader foundation of science in anatomy, the animal œconomy, natural history, diseases, and remedies.-Those arts, which, like poetry, are purely to be ranked among the elegant, as their end is attained by an accommodation to some internal taste, so the springs by which alone they can be regulated, must be sought for in the nature of the human mind, and more especially in the principles of the imagination. It is also in the human mind that we must investigate the source of some of the useful arts. Logic, whose end is the discovery of truth, is founded in the doctrine of the understanding; and ethics, (under which may be comprehended economics, politics, and jurisprudence) are founded in that of the will.

THIS was the idea of Lord Verulam *, perhaps the most comprehensive genius in philosophy that has appeared in modern times. But these are not the only

* Doctrina circa intellectum, atque illa altera circa voluntatem hominis, in natalibus suis tanquam gemellæ sunt. Etenim illuminationis puritas et arbitrii libertas simul inceperunt, simul corruerunt. Neque datur in universitate rerum tam intima sympathia quam illa Veri et Boni. Venimus jam ad doctrinam circa usum VOL. I.

arts which have their foundation in the science of hu

man nature.

Grammar too, in its general principles,

has a close connexion with the understanding, and the theory of the association of ideas.

BUT there is no art whatever that hath so close a connection with all the faculties and powers of the mind, as Eloquence or the art of Speaking, in the extensive sense in which I employ the term. For, in the first place, that it ought to be ranked among the polite or fine arts, is manifest from this, that in all its exertions, with little or no exception, (as will appear afterwards) it requires the aid of the imagination. Thereby it not only pleases, but by pleasing commands attention, rouses the passions, and often at last subdues the most stubborn resolution. It is also a useful art. This is certainly the case, if the power of speech be a useful faculty, as it professedly teaches us how to employ that faculty with the greatest probability of success. Further, if the logical art, and the ethical, be useful, eloquence is useful, as it instructs us how these arts must be applied for the conviction and the per

et objecta facultatum animæ humanæ. que nctissimas, et consensu receptas;

Illa duas habet partes easLogicam et Ethicam.

Logica de intellectu et ratione; Ethica de voluntate, appetitu, et affectibus, disserit. Altera decreta, altera actiones progignit. De Aug. Sci. 1. v. c. I.