We shall try to be realistic, as it would be vain to attempt to detach art from the influences of nature; for art borrows its principal elements from the impressions of natural phenomena. We shall be historical, and point out the progressive development of art; and, lastly, we shall endeavour to be critical. Speculative philosophy has its merits in art. Esthetical criticism suggests new ideas, and new ideas engender new forms. We shall endeavour to adopt from each of the three schools what is best. Our age is an age of eclecticism in art. We must, however, try to prepare for a period of original vitality, which can only be done by avoiding one-sidedness and heedless originality. We shall try to suggest and to excite in our readers new thoughts. As music speaks in sounds, poetry in words, so art in forms; but music, poetry, and art are subject to certain rules, without which harmony would become dissonance, poetry an inflated prose, and art a tasteless entity, of which quaintness will be the only distinguishing attribute. What we call our sense of beauty is based on those laws which make the existence of the universe possible. The Greeks used for beauty in art the same word, as for order, or the perfect arrangement of the universe. The word κόσμος {kosmos} (from which we have ‘cosmetic,’ any beautifying application) may teach us how we should look upon works of art, which ought to be a reflection of the general laws ruling nature. Two forces guide our material and intellectual life. We possess two means of acquiring knowledge and of practising art: reason and experience. Impressions from without are the everlasting source of all our conceptions. Hunger and thirst drive us to seek nourishment, to become fishers, hunters, herdsmen, or agriculturists. Cold and heat force us to seek a shelter, to construct wigwams, huts, dwellings on piles, cottages, houses, palaces, and temples. Though order and harmony prevail in the outer world, every atom of the universe is endowed with an unconscious will or life of its own. Atoms seek atoms according to inherent laws, or fly from or annihilate one another. The whole process of life around us appears to be one never-ending struggle. Apparently there rules only the law of chance and might; what cannot conquer is conquered.