one or more standard Forms, which shall in all
cases serve as exemplars, is essentially false, and of impracticable
application for any true purpose of Art; secondly, that the only
approach to Science, which the subject admits, is in a few general
rules relating to Stature, and these, too, serving rather as
convenient _expedients_ than exact guides, inasmuch as, in most
cases, they allow of indefinite variations; and, thirdly, that
the only efficient Rule must be found in the Artist's mind,--in
those intuitive Powers, which are above, and beyond, both the senses
and the understanding; which, nevertheless, are so far from precluding
knowledge, as, on the contrary, to require, as their effective
condition, the widest intimacy with the things external,--without
which their very existence must remain unknown to the Artist himself.

Supposing, then, certain standard Forms to have been admitted, it may
not be amiss to take a brief view of the nature of the Being to whom
they are intended to be applied; and to consider them more especially
as auxiliaries to the Artist.

In the first place, we observe, that the purpose of Art is not to
represent any given number of men, but the Human Race; and so that the
representation shall affect us, not indeed as living to the senses,
but as true to the mind. In order to this, there must be _all_ in
the imitation (though it be but hinted) which the mind will recognize
as true to the human being: hence the first business of the Artist is
to become acquainted with his subject in all its properties. He then
naturally inquires, what is its general characteristic; and his own
consciousness informs him, that, besides an animal nature, there is
also a moral intelligence, and that they together form the man. This
important truism (we say important, for it seems to have been
not seldom overlooked) makes the foundation of all his future
observations; nor can he advance a step without continual reference
to this double nature. We find him accordingly in the daily habit of
mentally distinguishing this person from that, as a moral being, and
of assigning to each a separate character; and this not voluntarily,
but simply because he cannot avoid it. Yet, by what does he presume
to judge of strangers? He will probably answer, By their general
exterior. And what is the inference? There can be but one; namely,
that there must be--at least to him--some efficient correspondence
between the physical and the m