Milton, and above all of Shakespeare (I do not pretend to exhaust the list even of the first-rate minds), are prodigious. How remote, and yet how grand, the simile describing the descent of Apollo from Olympus: he came like night.' The identifying faculty, be it never so strong, would hardly suffice to bring together things so widely different, but for some previous preparation, serving to approximate the nature of the two things in the first instance, as we have already had occasion to remark of some of the scientific discoveries. Night itself had to be first personified to a certain extent, thereby reducing the immense disparity between the closing day and the march of a living personage down the mountain slopes. Apollo was, besides, the god of the sun. THE FINE ARTS IN GENERAL. 44. The observations now made respecting Poetry apply with some modification to the Fine Arts generally. In the Arts we may trace out a scale or arrangement, beginning at the most intellectual and ending with those that have this quality in the lowest degree. At one end of the scale, we find distinct examples of the purely intellectual law of similarity; at the other end, scarcely a trace of this operation appears in the form that we have been accustomed to. Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Decoration, and Design, are all conversant with some of the higher intellectual elements: Poetry with speech and the pictorial as represented by speech, the others with visual forms and appearances of various kinds. In storing up and on fit occasions reproducing the materials of those arts, the associating forces of Contiguity and Similarity are extensively brought into play. As to Contiguity, this is obvious enough; as regards Similarity, it may be easily shown. A painter in composing a picture must, in the last resort, choose the component parts, according to their artistic keeping with one another but in recalling from the past a number of objects, in order to try their effect, he will be greatly assisted by a powerful identifying faculty. We may suppose him to have THE INTELLECTUAL FINE ARTS. 535 in his mind some one plan of a background, which background, however, although containing the main features, does not satisfy his artistic sense. By the attraction of likeness, this part, unsuitable in itself, may recall others resembling and yet greatly differing, and in the array brought up by a powerful intellect, working upon a large foregone experience, some one may be presented answering the requirements of the picture. There may be nothing artistic in the suggestion of the different views; nevertheless, it is only an artist that can make the proper choice. As in poetry, so in painting, in sculpture, in architecture, decoration, and design, there may be a rich intellectual storage and reproduction of the material, apart from the æsthetic feeling; although, by this feeling, the artist must be guided in the use that he makes of the suggestions of the intellect. In all the Arts, examples may be found of rich profusion of unselected matter; the artist mistaking a strong recollection and revival of natural scenery and pictorial elements in general for the artistic harmonizing of the material; still in the departments we are now discussing, no one can attain the highest greatness without some intellectual source of suggestions over and above his artistic faculty. The intervention of high intellect in Art seems to have reached a climax in Michael Angelo; and the limits of human nature forbid us to suppose, that he could at the same time exert the power of delicately adjusting the parts of his compositions, so as to yield the graces and charms that constitute the true distinction, the essence, of Art. 45. When we pass to the second class of Arts, we find intellect dying away and giving place to the genuine artistic stimulus in its purity. Music is the most conspicuous member of the group, and might be taken as representing the whole the others are, spoken music or Eloquence, Dramatic action and Pantomime, the graces of personal Demeanour and display, and the Dance. In these Arts, the suggestions of intellectual similarity can hardly be said to occur. Undoubtedly, we may by similarity, as already said, identify a common : character in different airs and harmonies; and, through the presence of any one, others may be recalled to the mind of a composer, and may serve him as hints and aids in a new composition. In such circumstances, I can conceive the operation of a vigorous identifying faculty as enlarging a musician's resources, or as making more readily available to him the examples that have previously impressed themselves on his mind. But this process of imitating and compiling does not fairly exemplify the workings of artistic creativeness. The author of a truly original melody relies upon no such intellectual assistance. By the spontaneous gushings of his mind he flows out into song, and by the guidance of a delicate sense he tunes himself to melody. Other men may imitate and combine such primitive originals in a variety of compositions, but the knowing ear can always detect the work of compilation. Intellect may originate Science, but not Art. There is also the case of strictly imitative music, as when Haydn, in the 'Creation,' tries to reproduce all the sounds of nature. But no good judge ever puts music of this kind high. I may here refer to what is a common subject of remark, that great musicians and actors, not to speak of opera dancers, have often a very low order of intellect, as measured by the ordinary tests. So, in the charms and graces of society, which are a species of fine art, intellect may contribute nothing. On the other hand, in assisting the less gifted temperaments to take on the charm native to the others, it may operate with good effect; for this is done by acquisition and compilation, where the intellectual forces always work to advantage. Moreover, in Art, effects can often be reduced to rule, and the comprehending and following out of rules is an affair.of the intelligence. In musical compositions, there are rules as to harmony, which any one might act upon; in elocution, much can be done by merely understanding the directions of an instructor; and, to stupidity, all such directions are nugatory. Thus it is, that in the diffusion and extension of the least intellectual of the fine arts, recourse may be ACQUISITION BY PIECING PREVIOUS ATTAINMENTS. 537 had to an instrumentality that would never suffice for their creation. It is a remarkable fact in history, that the most highly gifted people of antiquity, in all that regarded pure intelligence, had apparently no originality in music, although they could appreciate and borrow the melodies of foreign. nations, and employ these to accompany their lyric and dramatic compositions. SIMILARITY IN ACQUISITION AND MEMORY. 46. It now remains to show how the force of reinstatement by Similarity can operate in carrying forward the work of Acquisition. We have seen that the associating principle of Contiguity must needs be the groundwork of Acquisition in general; but when any new train can bring up, from the past, some nearly similar train, the labour of a separate acquirement is thereby saved; the points of difference between the new and the old, are all that is left for Contiguity to engraft on the mental system. When a workman is to be taught a new operation in his art, there will necessarily be, along with certain matters of novelty, a large amount of identity with his already acquired habits; hence, in order to conquer the operation, he will require to repeat it just as often as will suffice for fixing, by the plastic operation of Contiguity, all those original steps and combinations. A professed dancer learning a new dance, is in a very different predicament from a beginner in the art. A musician learning a new piece, actually finds that nineteen-twentieths of all the sequences to be acquired have been already formed through his previous education. A naturalist reads the description of a newly discovered animal; he possesses already, in his mind, the characters of the known animals most nearly approaching to it; and, if he merely give sufficient time and attention for the coherence of the points that are absolutely new to him, he carries away and retains the whole. The judge, in listening to a law-pleading, hears little that is absolutely new; if he keeps that little in his memory, he stores up the whole case. When we read a book on a subject already familiar to us, we can reproduce the entire work, at the expense of labour requisite to remember the additions it makes to our previous stock of knowledge. So in Fine Art; an architect, a painter, or a poet, can easily carry away with him the total impression of a building, a picture, or a poem; for, instead of being acquisitions de novo, they are merely variations of effects already engrained in the artist's recollection. To whatever extent one thing is the repetition of another, the cost of contiguous acquisition is saved. But it is necessary that the repetition or identity should be perceived; in other words, the new lesson must reinstate, by the force of Similarity, all the previous trains that in any way correspond with it. An old acquirement containing many steps in common with a lesson in hand, will be of no use unless it is recalled; should the disagreeing points be so marked, as to cloud the resemblance and stifle the identifying action, nothing is gained by the agreement. It consequently happens, that a mind, feeble as regards the restoring force of similarity, misses the help that past acquirements could often bring to bear upon present efforts; whereas a remarkable energy of recall will make everything available that contains the smallest trace of common matter. 47. To take a few examples from Science. The subjectmatter of Geometry embodies a few fundamental notions and processes. A definition, an axiom, a postulate, a proposition, whether theorem or problem, a chain of demonstration, are to the beginner things absolutely new. They must be fixed by the plastic power of Contiguity, and time and concentration must be allowed for the purpose. But, in a good head, one or two examples of each, strongly imprinted, will make all the rest easy; the method or character of the devices will be seen through and acquired, and, in every new case, the mind will fall back upon the old ones, for the common element, and concentrate attention on the points of difference solely. When, after going over a few definitions, the learner is im |