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
69. And, without discussing the use of the word by different writers, I
will tell you that the dearest and safest idea of the mental state
itself is to be gained from the representations of it by the words of
ancient Christian religion, and even from what you may think its
superstitions. Without any discussion also as to the personal existence
or traditional character of evil spirits, you will find it a practical
fact, that external temptations and inevitable trials of temper, have
power against you which your health and virtue depend on your resisting;
that, if not resisted, the evil energy of them will pass into your own
heart, φρήν, or μῆνις; and that the ordinary and vulgarized phrase "the
Devil, or betraying Spirit, is _in him_" is the most scientifically
accurate which you can apply to any person so influenced. You will find
also that, in the compass of literature, the casting out of, or
cleansing from, such a state is best symbolized for you by the image of
one who had been wandering wild and naked _among tombs_, sitting still,
clothed, and in his right mind, and that in whatever literal or
figurative sense you receive the Biblical statement of what followed,
this is absolutely certain, that the herd of swine hastening to their
destruction, in perfect sympathy with each other's fury, is the most
accurate symbol ever given, in literature, of consummate human ἀφροσύνη.
* * * * *
(The conditions of insanity,[E] delighting in scenes of death, which
affect at the present time the arts of revolutionary Europe, were
illustrated in the sequel of this lecture: but I neither choose to take
any permanent notice of the examples I referred to, nor to publish any
part of what I said, until I can enter more perfectly into the analysis
of the elements of evil passion which always distorted and polluted even
the highest arts of Greek and Christian loyal religion; and now occupy
in deadly entireness, the chambers of imagination, devastated, and left
desolate of joy, by impiety, and disobedience.
In relation to the gloom of gray colour characteristic especially of the
modern French revolutionary school, I entered into some examination of
the conditions of real temperance and reserve in colour, showing that it
consisted not in refusing colour, but in governing it; and that the most
pure and bright colours might be thus perfectly governed, while the most
dull were probably also the most violent and intemperate. But it would
be useless to print this part of the lecture without the
colour-illustrations used.
Passing to the consideration of intemperance and immodesty in the choice
even of landscape subjects, I referred thus for contrast, to the
quietude of Turner's "Greta and Tees.")
[E] I use this word always meaning it to be understood literally,
and in its full force.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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