volumes of the
_The Stones of Venice_ give a history of the Venetians and of their
Gothic architecture. He aims to show that the beauty of such buildings
as St. Mark's Cathedral and the Doges' Palace is due to the virtue and
patriotism of the people, the nobility of the designers, and the joy
of the individual workmen, whose chisels made the very stones of
Venice tell beautiful stories.

The most important of his many other writings on art is the volume
entitled _Lectures on Art, Delivered before the University of Oxford,
1870_. In his famous _Inaugural_ of this series, he thus states what
he considers the central truth of his teaching: "The art of any
country is the exponent of its social and political virtues."

Social Works.--By turning from the criticism of art to consider the
cause of humanity, Ruskin shows the influence of the ethical and
social forces of the age. In middle life he was overwhelmed with the
amount of human misery and he determined to do his best to relieve it.
He wrote:--

"I simply cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor do
anything else that I like, and the very light of the morning sky,
when there is any--which is seldom, nowadays, near London--has
become hateful to me, because of the misery that I know of, and see
signs of, where I know it not, which no imagination can interpret
too bitterly."[9]

After 1860 his main efforts with both pen and purse were devoted to
improving the condition of his fellow men. His attempts to provide a
remedy led him to write _Unto this Last_ (1860), his first and most
complete work on political economy, _Munera Pulveris_ (1863), _Time
and Tide by Weare and Tyne_ (1868), _Fors Clavigera_ (1871-1884),
which is a long series of letters to workingmen, and a number of other
works, that also present his views on social questions.

He abhorred the old political economy, which he defined as "the
professed and organized pursuit of money." Instead of considering
merely the question of the production and distribution of articles,
his interest lay in the causes necessary to produce healthy, happy
workmen. It seemed to him that the manufacture "of souls" ought to be
"exceedingly lucrative." This statement and his maxim, "There is no
wealth but life," were called "unscientific." In his fine book of
essays, entitled _Sesame and Lilies_ (1864), he actually had printed
in red those pathetic pages describing how an old cobbler and his son
worked night