verything which (with reference to a given subject) a
painter has to ask himself whether he shall represent or not, is a
predicate. Hence in art, particular truths are usually more important
than general ones.

How is it then that anything so plain as this should be contradicted by
one of the most universally received aphorisms respecting art? A little
reflection will show us under what limitations this maxim may be true in
practice.

Sec. 5. The importance of truths of species is not owing to their
generality.

Sec. 6. All truths valuable as they are characteristic.

It is self-evident that when we are painting or describing anything,
those truths must be the most important which are most characteristic of
what is to be told or represented. Now that which is first and most
broadly characteristic of a thing, is that which distinguishes its
genus, or which makes it what it is. For instance, that which makes
drapery _be_ drapery, is not its being made of silk or worsted or flax,
for things are made of all these which are not drapery, but the ideas
peculiar to drapery; the properties which, when inherent in a thing,
make it drapery, are extension, non-elastic flexibility, unity and
comparative thinness. Everything which has these properties, a
waterfall, for instance, if united and extended, or a net of weeds over
a wall, is drapery, as much as silk or woollen stuff is. So that these
ideas separate drapery in our minds from everything else; they are
peculiarly characteristic of it, and therefore are the most important
group of ideas connected with it; and so with everything else, that
which makes the thing what it is, is the most important idea, or group
of ideas connected with the thing. But as this idea must necessarily be
common to all individuals of the species it belongs to, it is a general
idea with respect to that species; while other ideas, which are not
characteristic of the species, and are therefore in reality general, (as
black or white are terms applicable to more things than drapery,) are
yet particular with respect to that species, being predicable only of
certain individuals of it. Hence it is carelessly and falsely said, that
general ideas are more important than particular ones; carelessly and
falsely, I say, because the so-called general idea is important, not
because it is common to all the individuals of that species, but because
it separates that species from everything else. It is the
d