Such, then, was the state of art as connected with science twelve years ago. But although the causes which then placed science and the fine arts at variance have since been gradually diminishing, yet they are still far from being removed. In proof of this I may refer to what took place at the annual distribution of the prizes to the students attending our Scottish Metropolitan School of Design, in 1854, the pupils in which amount to upwards of two hundred. The meeting on that occasion included, besides the pupils, a numerous and highly respectable assemblage of artists and men of science. The chairman, a Professor in our University, and editor of one of the most voluminous works on art, science, and literature ever produced in this country, after extolling the general progress of the pupils, so far as evinced by the drawings exhibited on the occasion, drew the attention of the meeting to a discovery made by the head master of the architectural and ornamental department of the school, viz.—That the ground-plan of the Parthenon at Athens had been constructed by the application of the _mysterious_ ovoid or _Vesica Piscis_ of the middle ages, subdivided by the _mythic_ numbers 3 and 7, and their intermediate odd number 5. Now, it may be remarked, that the figure thus referred to is not an ovoid, neither is it in any way of a mysterious nature, being produced simply by two equal circles cutting each other in their centres. Neither can it be shewn that the numbers 3 and 7 are in any way more mythic than other numbers. In fact, the terms _mysterious_ and _mythic_ so applied, can only be regarded as a remnant of an ancient terminology, calculated to obscure the simplicity of scientific truth, and when used by those employed to teach—for doubtless the chairman only gave the description he received—must tend to retard the connexion of that truth with the arts of design. I shall now give a specimen of the manner in which a knowledge of the philosophy of the fine arts is at present inculcated upon the public mind generally. In the same metropolis there has likewise existed for upwards of ten years a Philosophical Institution of great importance and utility, whose members amount to nearly three thousand, embracing a large proportion of the higher classes of society, both in respect to talent and wealth. At the close of the session of this Institution, in 1854, a learned and eloquent philologus, who occasionally lectures upon beauty, was appointed to deliver the closing address, and touching upon the subject of the beautiful, he thus concluded—