of Social Science in the autumn of 1858; and printed in the Transactions
of the Society for that year, pp. 311-16._)

153. I will not attempt in this paper to enter into any general
consideration of the possible influence of art on the masses of the
people. The inquiry is one of great complexity, involved with that into
the uses and dangers of luxury; nor have we as yet data enough to
justify us in conjecturing how far the practice of art may be compatible
with rude or mechanical employments. But the question, however
difficult, lies in the same light as that of the uses of reading or
writing; for drawing, so far as it is possible to the multitude, is
mainly to be considered as a means of obtaining and communicating
knowledge. He who can accurately represent the form of an object, and
match its colour, has unquestionably a power of notation and
description greater in most instances than that of words; and this
science of notation ought to be simply regarded as that which is
concerned with the record of form, just as arithmetic is concerned with
the record of number. Of course abuses and dangers attend the
acquirement of every power. We have all of us probably known persons
who, without being able to read or write, discharged the important
duties of life wisely and faithfully; as we have also without doubt
known others able to read and write whose reading did little good to
themselves and whose writing little good to any one else. But we do not
therefore doubt the expediency of acquiring those arts, neither ought we
to doubt the expediency of acquiring the art of drawing, if we admit
that it may indeed become practically useful.

154. Nor should we long hesitate in admitting this, it we were not in
the habit of considering instruction in the arts chiefly as a means of
promoting what we call "taste" or dilettanteism, and other habits of
mind which in their more modern developments in Europe have certainly
not been advantageous to nations, or indicative of worthiness in them.
Nevertheless, true taste, or the instantaneous preference of the noble
thing to the ignoble, is a necessary accompaniment of high worthiness in
nations or men; only it is not to be acquired by seeking it as our chief
object, since the first question, alike for man and for multitude, is
not at all what they are to like, but what they are to do; and
fortunately so, since true taste, so far as it depends on original
instinct, is not equally commun