ensation only, he may follow
without embarrassment to its close, his magnificently comprehensive
statement of the forms of probation which the heart and faculties of man
have undergone from the beginning of time. But it is far otherwise when
the theory is to be applied, in all its pseudo-organization, to the
separate departments of a particular art, and analogies the most subtle
and speculative traced between the mental character and artistical
choice or attainment of different races of men. Such analogies are
always treacherous, for the amount of expression of individual mind
which Art can convey is dependent on so many collateral circumstances,
that it even militates against the truth of any particular system of
interpretation that it should seem at first generally applicable, or its
results consistent. The passages in which such interpretation has been
attempted in the work before us, are too graceful to be regretted, nor
is their brilliant suggestiveness otherwise than pleasing and profitable
too, so long as it is received on its own grounds merely, and affects
not with its uncertainty the very matter of its foundation. But all
oscillation is communicable, and Lord Lindsay is much to be blamed for
leaving it entirely to the reader to distinguish between the
determination of his research and the activity of his fancy--between the
authority of his interpretation and the aptness of his metaphor. He who
would assert the true meaning of a symbolical art, in an age of strict
inquiry and tardy imagination, ought rather to surrender something of
the fullness which his own faith perceives, than expose the fabric of
his vision, too finely woven, to the hard handling of the materialist;
and we sincerely regret that discredit is likely to accrue to portions
of our author's well-grounded statement of real significances, once of
all men understood, because these are rashly blended with his own
accidental perceptions of disputable analogy. He perpetually associates
the present imaginative influence of Art with its ancient hieroglyphical
teaching, and mingles fancies fit only for the framework of a sonnet,
with the deciphered evidence which is to establish a serious point of
history; and this the more frequently and grossly, in the endeavor to
force every branch of his subject into illustration of the false
division of the mental attributes which we have pointed out.

27. His theory is first clearly stated in the following passage:-