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184 THE LEADER. JNo. 309, Saturda y ,
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POPIJLAB SCIENCE. Orr's Circle of the Sc...
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Mgdebn Painters. Modern Painters. Vol. T...
bis exquisite powers of expression . We thank him for this , and we also thank trim heartily for sustaining the cause of direct thoug ht and honest sense * against-the modem German school of philosophy with its " subjective , " and ** objective , " its weary fulness of words , and its utter emptiness of meaning . To give , however , anything like a satisfactory account , in detail , of the various subjects treated of in this volume , is impossible within the limits of a single notice . We beg our readers to go at once to the book . Notone of them but will get good from it—not one of them but will rise from it with the highest opinion of the abilities of the man who has written it , even in the passages where he may most shock their prejudices and ways of thought . We have referred already to the wealth of noble ideas scattered , throughout these pages , and to the rare beauty , power , and eloquence of the language in which they are clothed . Here is a specimen passage , on true greatness in the painter ; which ( ought to be read and remembered everywhere . —
We cannot say that a painter ia great because he paints boldly , or paints delicately ; because he generalises or particularises ; because he loves detail , or because heVHsdains it- He is great if , by any of these means , he has laid open noble truths , or aroused noble emotions . It does not matter whether he paint the petal of a rose , or the chasms of a precipice , so that Love and Admiration attend him as he labours , and -wait for ever upon his work . It does not matter whether lie toil for months upon afew & nches of his canvas , or cover a palace front with colour in a day , so only that it be with a solemn purpose that he has filled his heart with patience , or urged his hand to haste . And ib does not matter whether he seek for bis subjects among peasants or nobles , among the heroic or the simple , in courts or in fields , so only that Re behold all things with a thirst for beauty , and a haired of meanness and vice . There are , indeed , certain
methods ot representation which are usually adopted by the most active minds , and certain characters of subject usually delighted in by the noblest hearts ; but itis quite possible ^ ¦ qvit e easy , to adopt the manner oi painting ; without sharing ihoiactivity of mind , arid to imitate tbe choice of subject without possessing the nobility . of . spirit ; while , on the other hand , itis altogether impossible to foretell on what strange objects the strength of a great man will sometimes be concentrated , or by what strange means he ; will sometimes express himself . So that true criticism of art never can consist in the inere application ; of rules ; it can bagust only -when It is founded on quick sympathy with the innumerable instincts and changeful efforts of human nature , chastened and guided by unchanging love of all things that God has created to be beautiful , and pronounced to be good . .
Here is smother paragraph , admirable for its far-sighted truths 6 n the interesting and difficult subject of the instinct- for' colour amone savaee ¦ nations ' : — ¦ . . ¦ ¦ : ' •¦ , ; ; ' '' .. •¦ . ^ ^ ,- ~ - r' ¦ ' \ ' ¦ ' . _^^ ^ *^^? ° n ibr ihej ^ v & zt Singular , but very palpable truthy that the j } ninese , W Ja ^ a ^ gsttmxeitsemi-civilised nations , can colour better than w ; % ^ JMjMWfifo shawl and China vaserare stilly in invention of colour , 1 W ^ te W ^ % ^ s : It is their glorious ignorance of all rules -that does it ; the ^ ^^^ f ^& mie mstincts have play , and do their work—instincts so subtle , that -S U ^ Kwifc warping or compression breaks or blunts them ; and the moment we beguji teaching people . any rulesabout colour , and make them do this or that , we
crush , the instinct generally for ever ; Hence , hitherto , it has been an actual necessity , in order to obtain power of colouring , that a nation should be halfsavage ; ' everybody , could colour in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ; but we were ruled and legalised into grey in the fifteenth— -only a little salt simplicity of their sea niatures at Venice still keeping their precious , shell-fishy purpleness and power ; and now that is gone ; and nobody can colour anywhere , except the Hinddos and Chinese : but that heed not be so , and will not be so long ; foi * in a little wMle , people , tvill find out their mistake , and give up talking about mliesaVofcolouiv and then everybody will colour again , as easily a 3 they now talk . ' '¦ ¦ : ¦ ' : . l ¦' . ' ¦• • ¦ ¦ . ¦ ' '
- And to end with , let us give a passage on " Grass , " which for purity and beauty of thought and language has been surpassed by no writer—equalled but by very few , living or dead , in England ., or out of it : — Consider what we ovre merely to the meadow grass , to the covering of the dark ground by that glorious enamel , by the companies of those soft , and countless and peaceful spears . The fields ! Follow but forth for a little time the thoughts of all that we ought to recognise in those words . All spring and summer is in tbem ^^ e wa ) ks , by ., sfte , nt , scented pathsj-rrrthe rests in . noonday heat .- —the ! iov 9 * i S ?** , W . 9 Mi ^ b . e , ppwe > . ' of all shepherd life and meditation—the life » f
Sf ^ ^ - >^? mT . OK ^; g » $ » 6 . ^ emerald streaks , and filling iu soft blue Shadows , where else it ^ ould have struck upon the dark mould , or scorching dUBt ,- ^ pa ^ tures beside the ; , pacing brooks , —soft banks and knolls of lowly hills — -thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of lifted sea , —crisp lawns all dim with early dew , oi-arilooth in evening warmth of barred sunshine dinted fey happy feety and Boftenidgf in their fall the Bounu of loving voices : all these are summedin those simple words ; and these are not all . We may nob measure to the full the depth of this heavenly gift , in our own land ; though still , as we think pfcifc longer , the infinite , of , that meadow sweetness , Shakspere ' s peculiar iov yould qpen on us more and more , yet we have it but in port . Gd out ? a > f ^ % ^' P - < We , ainong the . meadows that elope from the shores pt the Svs : ws lakes to the roqts . of their lower mountains . T ^ ala min « i ^ « , sm .
the tal | er gentmnp and , ijhe white narcissus , the grass grows deep and free ,: and as j . , fo ^^ ., ^ S ™^ . ntain patH > i ^ ^ arching boughs all veiled and dun with blossom , —paths that for ever droop and rifle over the green banks and f ounds sweeping down m soented " undulation , steep to the blue water , studded here and there witli new-mown heaps , filling / all the air vvith . Winter swedtness — 16 ofcMup _ towards the higher hills , where the waves of ovwlosting green roll Wlentlyxnto their long inleta among the shadows of the pines ; and' wo mav perhaps , at last knov * the meaning of those quiet words of the 147 th Psalm <« He j naketh grass to grow-upon the mountains ^ ' There are also several lessons symbolically connected with this subject which we must not allow to escape us . Observe , the peculiar chnraotors of the cross wnioh . adapt it especially for the service of man , are its apparent humility and . te & SK ,. * i ^ Utmh > l W * wemg owated only for lowest servicol-ap-M its ouoertulness
S 3 sl ^ VT " - ™ " «» «» > ««"* rea upon , , in that it seems to 3 &? aW klftds of Vlolenco ftn <* Buffering . You roll it , and it iaatrongor the 2 £ ? 5 rtF *?* ** ' awd ifc multiplies its uhoota , aa if it woro grateful : you Sfa Mf ^ > ^ ° , ! 8 end 8 UP rioher Perfumo- Spring cornea , and it rojoioea at » J ^ ll ^ 'r ^ ^ ™« S ° « wo of flowers , —v / aviug in soft SSJ ® Sffll ! Sr ! : ^ inter ^ ° ' and thou Sh { t wiU « ° t mooklla follow MSt { ev ^^«^ ' ltwUnotp i f ftndl ^ ' lwdtum oolourloBB or loafftioHt ? * ™ " »& W ^ wayp g r . and is only the brighter « nd gayer for tho hoar-Wo had npOi « . t w , two on which to dispute with Mr . Ruskin- especially in
relation to * a passage in which he classifies painters ( Chapter III . Section V ) on a principle , as it seems to us , of the most lamentably mistaken sort . But after reading these last glorious sentences over again , we cannot find it in our hearts to dispute with the man who wrote them . We began this brief and imperfect notice in a friendly rather than a critical spirit—so let us end it . Mr . Ruskin has helped us to find a new joy in all our field-walks for the future . Let others part disputatiously with him , we will part admiringl y and gratefully .
184 The Leader. Jno. 309, Saturda Y ,
184 THE LEADER . JNo . 309 , Saturda y ,
Popijlab Science. Orr's Circle Of The Sc...
POPIJLAB SCIENCE . Orr's Circle of the Sciences : Org & nic Nature , Vols . II . and III . Houlston and Stoneman . One of the rare achievements in Literature is the exposition of a science in terms intelligible to the -uninstructedj without any sacrifice of science . Works written down to popular ignorance are common enough , and mostly proceed from writers almost as ignorant as the public they pretend to enlighten ; but works proceeding from the fulness of knowledge , and popular , because knowledge has given mastery , clear , " because mastery of the subject enables the writers to escape from technical forms , and translate into the vernacular the language used by the initiated , are necessarily rare , for such knowledge and such expository power are rare . In the course of our duty -we have repeatedly had occasion to examine and report on scientific treatises addressed to
the public , and we cannot at present recal a single example of such success as Dr . Edward Smith has achieved in the little treatise on Botany , which forms half a volume of the two named at the head of this article . We heartily recommend it as an admirable introduction to that delightful study . It is simple in arrangement , clear , systematic , sufficiently full , and yet brief . Dr . Smith is a master of the art of exposition . He sets down enough to make the student clearly understand the principles of the science , and he does not overload the memory and confuse the exposition with too many details . He writes an introduction , not an exhaustive treatise . The anatomy and physiology of plants are clearly expounded ; and many suggestive details respecting
the commercial uses of plants and their products , follow the exposition of each point . After presenting a concise yet satisfactory exposition of the structure and functions of plants , he proceeds to the classification of plants ; an , d teaches the student how to identify any plant he may meet with . Three hundred and eighty diagrams , many of them quite new , illustrate the text . We have said enough to put the reader in possession of what Dr . Smith has attempted , and how he lias executed it . We have read every word of his treatise , and . have nothing but praise to bestow on his execution .- There are , indeed , some points on which ive cannot agree with Dr . Sniith , but these belongmore to general Biology than to Botany .
Thus Dr . Smith , an . his section on the raphideS i or needle-crystals found in plants , says , " Phosphate of lime is found abundantly in the bones of the animal body , hut not in the precise form in which we observe it in" raphides . We have no instance of oxalate of lime crystals in the bodyj but they are not unfrequently met with in the urine of persons both in apparent health and in disease , so that it has been inferred that they have been introduced with the food . " MM . Robin and Verdeil , in their Traits de Chimie Anatomique , notice oxalate of lime as a constituent principle , and conceive it probable that it is formed in the animal , although its presence is always transitory , except in disease . Elsewhere , speaking of the silicious substances found in plants , Dr . Smith says , " It must be clearly understood that this substance constitutes no part
of vegetable structure ; in this he follows but the common mistake of supposing that the inorganic substances are not constituent elements of organic beings ; but surely a little reflection will suffice to show that elements which are invariably foun < 1 in an organism , and without which the organism would not he what it is , must be constituents . The bones of an animal , the skull of an animal , and the silicious coating of a grass , cannot be separated , and leave these organisms perfect . It does not affect the question to say the inorganic substances are merely depositedin the organism , and not themselves assuming any form of organisation . There they are , and are constituents , which we may compare to the deposition of untTansforrned vegetable substance in the animal body , forming an integral part of its tissue , shown to be probable in these columns three weeks ago , apropos of the Leqf-insect and caterpillar ?
A great reformation ia needed in Biology . The old ideas have been displaced b y the discoveries every year widening our conceptions ; and a new systeinatization of principles becomes necessary . Dr . Smith , for example , following the old idea , argues that "if analogies arc truly founded upon function and rot upon structure , we must admit , & c . "—If , indeed ! But to found analogies upon function would be to make havoc with all philosophy . On such a plan we might declare that the little masses of animated jelly which move by putting forth prolongations of their own substance , and retracting them again into the general mass ( the rhizopoda ) have legs , no less than the mammalia have j we must declare that the infusoria have stomachs , and the polypus arms . Tlie analogies in these eases are simply analogies of function , Wt they are quite incompetent to such determinations , as the one employed by Drf Smith in this passage : — " It ia tho fashion to state that endogens have no bark , since none is separable from the wood , and that the cuticle ia simply the hardened exposed cells of the stem , with the einds of bundles of woody
fibre intermixed . If analogies are truly founded upon function , and not upon structure , we must admit that there is a cuticle or external protective covering to ' endogenous stem ? . " Observe , the question is , Have endogenous trees any bark ? By bark a specific structure is meant ; and to prove that the structure is present , Botanists argue that tho function ' ™ present ; which ia like saying that the rhizopoda must have legs because they nave tho means of progression . It is this error of concluding the existence of an organ from the presence of a function , whioli has made comparative anntomiBts declare that those animals , in whom no nervous system can he detected , nevertheless , have tho nervous , matter in what ( hey gratuitously called a fi < diffused atnto . " No I analogies of function are nnalopica of function simply , analogies of structure are analogies of structure . If the reader should ask , how at is that inasmuch as function implies organ , tho analogy oi function may not be used to determine th « existence of an organ ? the answer is , that biologists are very loose and inaccurate in their employment of tho
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 23, 1856, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23021856/page/16/
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