fluences. The knowledge which stimulated the mind of Europe, and rendered some social or religious change necessary, was altogether secular, not religious, Pagan in part, not Christian, if not unchristian. The discoveries, the inventions, the study of classical antiquity, the cultivation of poetry and of art, all these spoke to the mind and taste, without improving the religious life or introducing new moral influences. They gave new power over opinion and in society to an inex perienced laity, while a deterioration of the morals of both clergy and laity was going on. The effect, of course, was not religious cravings, but religious indifference and scepticism, which were most marked in Italy where the new light was greatest. The danger was, that men unused to habits of religious thoughtfulness, with exaggerated views of the superiority of Pagan civilization, without any reverence for the clerical order, would become half-pagans themselves, would outgrow religion.

In a "bedenken," or opinion give to the Elector John of Saxony, in 1529,* Luther says that the evils having become intolerable, and the clergy despised, a violent change, or set of changes, would have had place if his doctrine had not been preached. Without doubt, says he, religion would have disappeared, and Christians have turned into mere Epicureans.

Such a revolution or reform could not have originated in Italy. There the mass of dead matter would have fermented, and no new life have succeeded the decay. The church had too much sway; there was little earnestness anywhere beyond the influence of the zealous, ascetic, demagogical Savonarola; the professors in the Universities had none of the martyr spirit; the princes cared nothing for reform. Doubtless many of them would have had no great dislike to a permanent breach with the papacy, which was despised for its corruptions and weaknesses, and was dreaded on account of its political interferences, but to true reform of doctrine and life they could have had no leaning. There was in Italy no self-reform

* See Gieseler's Church History, Vol. III., of the German original at the beinning.

atory power, because there was no depth of Christian life. In the more simple, honest, believing German race alone was selfreform-that glorious power of Christianity in the world to quicken men into a new life from heaven-possible.

5. In the end, the spirit engendered by the revival of letters was a great blessing to the world. The earlier form of humanism, with its peculiar faults which have been pointed out, grew obsolete, and gave place to the spirit of learning. This spirit, especially in the north of Europe, so far from being a foe to religion, was one of its important props. For, through the revived study of the classics, the old world, in which Christianity arose, was brought into connection with the new, which Christianity had helped to form; and thus truer, wider, wiser views could be taken of the evidences of religion, and of its relations to mankind and to history. Nor was it a small gain that now the documents of religion could be better understood, and its doctrines be drawn from the pure original well by more disciplined habits of interpretation. Moreover, the old civilization contained treasures of permanent value which the world could not spare, which the world will never be able nor willing to spare. These were taken up into the stream of life, and proved true aids to the progress of a culture which is gathering in one the beauty and the truth of all the ages.

ARTICLE II-PRINCIPLES OF ART.

ART, like Poetry, hardly admits of being precisely defined, because it is a complex truth. Of the more general term Art, we have, however, many definitions, both new and old. Art occupied a large space in the ancient world, and was treated by classic writers with subtlety and depth; it entered into all their conceptions of education and life. One of these ancient definitions was the following: "Art is a power working its effects by method." In this is presented to us the idea of a certain result, brought about by the use of certain prearranged means employed by an intelligent agent. It is the effect of no accidental, unintelligent, or unconscious power. Cicero confirms this when he says, in the De Oratore, "Art lies in things which are-Art lies in things thoroughly understood and fully known."

Among modern definitions of the general term Art, the first and most approved is that of Lord Bacon: "Art is a proper disposal of the things of nature by human thought and experience, so as to answer the several purposes of mankind; in which sense Art stands opposed to Nature." By this, Nature is supposed to furnish the material, which an intelligent and skillful Art rightly perceives, handles, and arranges―(äpsiv, to join or fit together, from which the word "Art" comes)— for its own ends. Hazlitt's definition is also good and generally accepted-"Art is principally used for a system of rules, serving to facilitate in the performance of certain actions; in which it stands opposed to Science, or a system of speculative principles." A more philosophical definition than either, perhaps, is this, that Art comprises "a system of means to an end forming one united whole;" for true Art seeks to reach and embody some one definite purpose or idea to combine all the scattered elements of that idea in one, making a perfect whole. Thus the Art of authorship is that system of rules and principles, in following which the

author can most fitly produce in words the perfect conception of the work which he had already formed in his own mind.

But this perfect end sought for in Art must be some good end, and must be sought for by good means, else it becomes nothing better than mere artifice; as if true Art really meant anything false, anything that seemed to be and was not. Thus some good men would not have Art intoduced into the sanctuary, even into the music of the sanctuary, not knowing that it is really the meretricious and the false which their hearts are opposing, and justly so; but true Art in music. would make it just what good taste and genuine devotion would have it to be. Art seeks to free nature from whatever is false, crude, and accidental, and to bring out the true and perfect idea. It is, in fact, nothing more than intelligently grasping and using the very laws and principles of nature. These things then enter into all true Art-a preconceived idea, or plan; the use of well ascertained principles; and the production of some definite result that is complete in itself, like a work of nature. The artist, by a penetrative glance into nature, seizes upon her hidden laws, controls them, and reduces them to something like regular rules or principles of action, by the guidance of which, effects worthy of being called Art, or works of Art, are produced.

This general idea of Art has had many subordinate divisions and modifications. One ancient author (Quintilian) makes three divisions or classifications of Art. 1. Theoretic-to which Astronomy would belong, as being confined to the mere understanding of the matters contained in it; simply to understand them is the only result sought for. 2. Practical-to which Oratory would belong, as being fulfilled or finished in the act itself of speaking; this is the end of the Art, to speak well. 3. Productive-to which Painting and Sculpture would belong, as being visible and permanent representations of the invisible thought, fruits that can be seen and handled. Another classification which has been made of Art, divides it into the Mechanical, the Scientific, and the Liberal. The man of liberal education, in whatever field of knowledge, was formerly

called the "artist," of which an apt instance occurs in Shakspeare's Troilus and Cressida, (1, 3). "The wise and fool, the artist and unread." But the most familiar classification of the general idea of Art, that the modern world seems finally to have settled down into, is into the Useful (which of course comes first, as men's physical wants must be first supplied) and the Fine Arts; or, as a modern author, who loves pure Anglo-Saxon, chooses to call them, the Coarse and the Fine Arts. This name, "Fine Arts," we need hardly add, owing to the influence of German writers, is made convertible into the far more dignified, appropriate, and comprehensive term of "Esthetic Arts."

Without attempting any transcendental explanation, for that is not the object of this Article, which confines itself to simple and elementary principles, we would define "Esthetics" to be that instinctive feeling or perception of what is beautiful in Nature and Art, which has its basis in the mind. itself; and the reducing of this, so far as such a subtle, mental sentiment is thus reducible, to a more clear and positive system of rules or principles, which may be said to constitute the philosophy of Art. The principal end or aim, therefore, of Esthetics, is a search after what is beautiful for its own sake, both in nature and in the productions of human genius. This frees Esthetics, or the Esthetic Arts, from the whole world of utilitarian ideas, and lifts it into a world of its own, where it exists from its inherent loveliness and nobleness.

Let us for a moment inquire into the origin of Esthetic Art, or what are some of its chief sources. Architecture seems to have sprung more directly from the idea of utility, and was first a 66 useful" and then a "fine" art; for men wished a roof over their heads before they wished to adorn it. The beautiful tradition of the still more purely æsthetical art of Painting is somewhat mythical, but is so natural that it ought to be true. The Greek maiden, about to part from her lover-going away perhaps to some fierce war to save his native state-catches and traces the simple outline of his profile shadowed upon the wall, to preserve it as a memorial of the absent Whether this old story be true or false, "the art origi

one.