The Eagle's Nest: Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, Given Before the University of Oxford, in Lent Term, 1872Ruskin, John
Philosophy
The Eagle's Nest: Ten Lectures on the Relation of Natural Science to Art, Given Before the University of Oxford, in Lent Term, 1872
Ruskin, John
Art and science
17. To that extent, therefore, culpably or otherwise, a kind of moria,
or folly, is always indicated by the zero of art-power. But the true
folly, or assuredly culpable folly, is in the exertion of our art power
in an evil direction. And here we need the finesse of distinction, which
I am afraid will be provoking to you. Observe, first, and simply, that
the possession of any art-power at all implies a sophia of _some_ kind.
These demon dancers, of whom I have just spoken, were earning their
bread by severe and honest labour. The skill they possessed could not
have been acquired but by great patience and resolute self-denial; and
the very power with which they were able to express, with precision,
states of evil passion, indicated that they had been brought up in a
society which, in some measure, knew evil from good, and which had,
therefore, some measure of good in the midst of it. Nay, the farther
probability is, that if you inquired into the life of these men, you
would find that this demon dance had been invented by some one of them
with a great imaginative power, and was performed by them not at all in
preference of evil, but to meet the demand of a public whose admiration
was capable of being excited only by violence of gesture, and vice of
emotion.
18. In all cases, therefore, observe, where the opportunity of learning
has been given; the existence of the art-power indicates sophia and its
absence indicates moria. That great fact I endeavoured to express to
you, two years since, in my third introductory Lecture. In the present
course I have to show you the action of the final, or higher sophia,
which directs the skill of art to the best purposes; and of the final,
or lower moria, which misdirects them to the worst. And the two points
I shall endeavour to bring before you throughout will be these:--First,
that the object of University teaching is to form your conceptions; not
to acquaint you with arts, nor sciences. It is to give you a notion of
what is meant by smith's work, for instance;--but not to make you
blacksmiths. It is to give you a notion of what is meant by medicine,
but not to make you physicians. The proper academy for blacksmiths is a
blacksmith's forge; the proper academy for physicians is an hospital.
Here you are to be taken away from the forge, out of the hospital, out
of all special and limited labour and thought, into the 'Universitas' of
labour and thought, that you may in peace, in leisure, in calm of
disinterested contemplation, be enabled to conceive rightly the laws of
nature, and the destinies of Man.
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