In lace-making the skill of the artist is required only for the production of the first example. Every succeeding copy is made by mere labour: each copy may be considered as an _individual_, and will cost the same amount of time. In sculpture the three first processes are quite analogous to those in lace-making. But the fourth process requires the taste and judgment of the artist. It is this which causes it to retain its rank amongst the fine arts, whilst lace-making must still be classed amongst the industrial. Here we may observe the strong analogy which unites these very different processes. If we continue the examination we shall find other resemblances, and by contrasting sculpture with lace made by machinery, we shall see in the very nature of their production, the wide interval which separates the industrial from the fine arts. In the making both of lace and of statues, the remuneration to the artists can only be reduced by producing a larger number of them through more extended education. The expense of the raw material is small in both. The expense of labour in lace-making is very large, and it is perhaps considerable also in sculpture. The discovery of more convenient localities yielding marble, may make some diminution in its cost; and the improved manufacture of thread may slightly reduce the price of lace. A reduction in the price of labour may to a very moderate extent reduce the cost of the raw material of both. But it is evident that any _very great_ reduction is not to be expected. Let us now contrast this possible reduction with the past history of some industrial art. The plain lace made at Nottingham, called patent net, will supply us with a good example. In the year 1813 that lace was sold in the piece at the rate of 21_s._ a-yard. At the present time lace of the same kind, but of a better quality, is sold under the same circumstances at 3_d._ per yard. Thus, in less than forty years the price of the industrial produce has diminished to one eighty-fourth part of its original price. § The fine arts, already possessing a building and an exhibition of their own, which usually opens on the same day as that proposed for the opening of the Palace of Industry, it seems difficult at first to imagine why the limited space disposable within the latter edifice should be occupied by any portion of a subject exclusively belonging to the fine arts. Yet it has been decided that Sculpture shall be admitted but Painting rejected.[7] Supposing both departments of art to be equally excluded, there would still be a propriety, and even almost a necessity to admit some examples of each. New tools used by the sculptor, suppose for preparing the block, might require an example of their mode of application; whilst the effects produced on the surface of the marble by other tools, could only be shown by comparative specimens.