the demands of the one, or to answer the doubts of the other.  Then the wholeness of the people is lost; all kinds of hypocrisies and oppositions of science develope themselves; their faith is questioned on one side, and compromised with on the other; wealth commonly increases at the same period to a destructive extent; luxury follows; and the ruin of the nation is then certain:  while the arts, all this time, are simply, as I said at first, the exponents of each phase of its moral state, and no more control it in its political career than the gleam of the firefly guides its oscillation.  It is true that their most splendid results are usually obtained in the swiftness of the power which is hurrying to the precipice; but to lay the charge of the catastrophe to the art by which it is illumined, is to find a cause for the cataract in the hues of its iris.  It is true that the colossal vices belonging to periods of great national wealth (for wealth, you will find, is the real root of all evil)[186] can turn every good gift and skill of nature or of man to evil purpose.  If, in such times, fair pictures have been misused, how much more fair realities?  And if Miranda is immoral to Caliban is that Miranda’s fault?

  [183] As Slade Professor, Ruskin held a three years’ appointment at
  Oxford.

  [184] This story comes from Pliny, Natural History, 35. 36; the
  two rival painters alternately showing their skill by the drawing
  of lines of increasing fineness.

[185] This story comes from Vasari’s Lives of the Painters.  See Blashfield and Hopkins’s ed. vol. 1, p. 61.  Giotto was asked by a messenger of the Pope for a specimen of his work, and sent a perfect circle, drawn free hand.

  [186] Timothy vi, 10.

THE RELATION OF ART TO USE

Our subject of inquiry to-day, you will remember, is the mode in which fine art is founded upon, or may contribute to, the practical requirements of human life.

Its offices in this respect are mainly twofold:  it gives Form to knowledge, and Grace to utility; that is to say, it makes permanently visible to us things which otherwise could neither be described by our science, nor retained by our memory; and it gives delightfulness and worth to the implements of daily use, and materials of dress, furniture and lodging.  In the first of these offices it gives precision and charm to truth; in the second it gives precision and charm to service.  For, the moment we make anything useful thoroughly, it is a law of nature that we shall be pleased with ourselves, and with the thing we have made; and become desirous therefore to adorn or complete it, in some dainty way, with finer art expressive of our pleasure.

And the point I wish chiefly to bring before you today is this close and healthy connection of the fine arts with material use; but I must first try briefly to put in clear light the function of art in giving Form to truth.