into such of their detailed consequences as have led to the formation
of rules of conduct, and brings together from parts of the field of
Science most remote from one another, the truths relating to the
production of the different and heterogeneous causes necessary to each
effect which the exigencies of practical life require to be
produced."--(Mill's _Logic_, vol. ii. pp. 542-549).
The whole discussion may be summed up thus. Science consists in knowing,
Art consists in doing. What I must do in order to know, is Art
subservient to Science: what I must know in order to do, is Science
subservient to Art.
Art, then, is defined by two broad distinctions: first, its popular
distinction from Nature; and next, its practical and theoretic
distinction from Science. Both of these distinctions are observed in the
terms of our definition given above. Within the proper limits of this
definition, the conception of Art, and the use of the word for it, have
undergone sundry variations. These variations correspond to certain
vicissitudes or developments in the order of historical facts and in
society. The requirements of society, stimulating the ingenuity of its
individual members, have led to the invention of arts and groups of
arts, constantly progressing, with the progress of civilization, in
number, in complexity, and in resource. The religious imagination of
early societies, who find themselves in possession of such an art or
group of arts, forgets the history of the invention, and assigns it to
the inspiration or special grace of some god or hero. So the Greeks
assigned the arts of agriculture to Triptolemus, those of spinning and
navigation to Athena, and of music to Apollo. At one stage of
civilization one art or group of arts is held in higher esteem, another
at another. In societies, like most of those of the ancient world, where
slaves were employed in domestic service, and upon the handicrafts
supplying the immediate utilities of life--food, shelter and
clothing--these constituted a group of servile arts. The arts of
husbandry or agriculture, on the other hand, have alternately been
regarded as servile and as honourable according as their exercise has
been in the hands of a subject class, as under feudal institutions, or,
as under the Roman republic, of free cultivators. Under feudal
institutions, or in a society in a state of permanent war, the allied
arts of war and of government have been held the only honourable class.
In commercial states, like the republics of Italy, the arts of gain, or
of production (other than agricultural) and distribution, have made good
their title to equal estimation and greater power beside the art of
captains. But among peaceful arts, industries or trades, some have
always been held to be of higher and others of lower rank; the higher
rank being assigned to those that required larger operations, higher
training, or more thoughtful conduct, and yielded ampler returns--the
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