foot are hewn off and cast into the fire; the moment this part of the
man stands forth with its solemn "Behold, it is I," then the work
becomes art indeed, perfect in honor, priceless in value, boundless in
power.
§ VII. Yet observe, I do not mean to speak of the body and soul as
separable. The man is made up of both: they are to be raised and
glorified together, and all art is an expression of the one, by and
through the other. All that I would insist upon is, the necessity of the
whole man being in his work; the body _must_ be in it. Hands and habits
must be in it, whether we will or not; but the nobler part of the man
may often not be in it. And that nobler part acts principally in love,
reverence, and admiration, together with those conditions of thought
which arise out of them. For we usually fall into much error by
considering the intellectual powers as having dignity in themselves, and
separable from the heart; whereas the truth is, that the intellect
becomes noble and ignoble according to the food we give it, and the kind
of subjects with which it is conversant. It is not the reasoning power
which, of itself, is noble, but the reasoning power occupied with its
proper objects. Half of the mistakes of metaphysicians have arisen from
their not observing this; namely, that the intellect, going through the
same processes, is yet mean or noble according to the matter it deals
with, and wastes itself away in mere rotatory motion, if it be set to
grind straws and dust. If we reason only respecting words, or lines, or
any trifling and finite things, the reason becomes a contemptible
faculty; but reason employed on holy and infinite things, becomes
herself holy and infinite. So that, by work of the soul, I mean the
reader always to understand the work of the entire immortal creature,
proceeding from a quick, perceptive, and eager heart, perfected by the
intellect, and finally dealt with by the hands, under the direct
guidance of these higher powers.
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