and _produces_, instead of what he _interprets_ or _exhibits_,
--there art has an influence of the most fatal kind on brain and heart,
and it issues, if long so pursued, in the _destruction both of intellectual
power_ and _moral principal_; whereas art, devoted humbly and self-
forgetfully to the clear statement and record of the facts of the universe,
is always helpful and beneficent to mankind, full of comfort, strength,
and salvation.

Now, when you were once well assured of this, you might logically infer
another thing, namely, that when Art was occupied in the function in
which she was serviceable, she would herself be strengthened by the
service, and when she was doing what Providence without doubt intended
her to do, she would gain in vitality and dignity just as she advanced
in usefulness. On the other hand, you might gather, that when her
agency was distorted to the deception or degradation of mankind, she
would herself be equally misled and degraded--that she would be checked
in advance, or precipitated in decline.

And this is the truth also; and holding this clue you will easily and
justly interpret the phenomena of history. So long as Art is steady in
the contemplation and exhibition of natural facts, so long she herself
lives and grows; and in her own life and growth partly implies, partly
secures, that of the nation in the midst of which she is practised. But
a time has always hitherto come, in which, having thus reached a
singular perfection, she begins to contemplate that perfection, and to
imitate it, and deduce rules and forms from it; and thus to forget her
duty and ministry as the interpreter and discoverer of Truth. And in
the very instant when this diversion of her purpose and forgetfulness
of her function take place--forgetfulness generally coincident with her
apparent perfection--in that instant, I say, begins her actual