III. NATURALISM VI. THE NATURE OF GOTHIC 217

of the composition, or pursues the composition to the neglect of the fact.

§ 44. And it is intended by the Deity that it should do this: the best art is not always wanted. Facts are often wanted without art, as in a geological diagram; and art often without facts, as in a Turkey carpet. And most men have been made capable of giving either one or the other, but not both; only one or two, the very highest, can give both.

Observe then. Men are universally divided, as respects their artistical qualifications, into three great classes; a right, a left, and a centre. On the right side are the men of facts, on the left the men of design,* in the centre the men of both.¹

The three classes of course pass into each other by imperceptible gradations. The men of facts are hardly ever altogether without powers of design; the men of design are always in some measure cognizant of facts; and as each class possesses more or less of the powers of the opposite one, it approaches to the character of the central class. Few men, even in that central rank, are so exactly throned on the summit of the crest that they cannot be perceived to incline in the least one way or the other, embracing both horizons with their glance. Now each of these classes has, as I above said, a healthy function in the world, and correlative diseases or unhealthy functions; and, when the work of either of them is seen in its morbid condition, we are apt to find fault with the class of workmen, instead of finding fault only with the particular abuse which has perverted their action.

§ 45. Let us first take an instance of the healthy action

* Design is used in this place as expressive of the power to arrange lines and colours nobly. By facts, I mean facts perceived by the eye and mind, not facts accumulated by knowledge. See the chapter on Roman Renaissance (Vol.III. Chap. II.) for this distinction [§§ 6 seq., “Pride of Science”].

¹ [With the distinction here drawn compare The Two Paths, Lecture i. (“Conventional Art”).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]