ONSISTENCIES IN SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS'S
DISCOURSES

The two chief points which Sir Joshua aims at in his _Discourses_ are to
show that excellence in the Fine Arts is the result of pains and study
rather than of genius, and that all beauty, grace, and grandeur are to
be found, not in actual nature, but in an idea existing in the mind.
On both these points he appears to have fallen into considerable
inconsistencies or very great latitude of expression, so as to make it
difficult to know what conclusion to draw from his various reasonings.
I shall attempt little more in this Essay than to bring together several
passages that, from their contradictory import, seem to imply some
radical defect in Sir Joshua's theory, and a doubt as to the possibility
of placing an implicit reliance on his authority.

To begin with the first of these subjects, the question of original
genius. In the Second Discourse, 'On the Method of Study,' Sir Joshua
observes towards the end:

'There is one precept, however, in which I shall only be opposed by the
vain, the ignorant, and the idle. I am not afraid that I shall repeat it
too often. You must have no dependence on your own genius. If you have
great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate
abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. Nothing is denied to
well-directed labour; nothing is to be obtained without it. Not to enter
into metaphysical discussions on the nature or essence of genius, I
will venture to assert that assiduity unabated by difficulty, and a
disposition eagerly directed to the object of its pursuit, will
produce effects similar to those which some call the result of _natural
powers.'_

The only tendency of the maxim here laid down seems to be to lure
those students on with the hopes of excellence who have no chance of
succeeding, and to deter those who have from relying on the only prop
and source of real excellence--the strong bent and impulse of their
natural powers. Industry alone can only produce mediocrity; but
mediocrity in art is not worth the trouble of industry. Genius, great
natural powers, will give industry and ardour in the pursuit of their
proper object, but not if you divert them from that object into
the trammels of common-place mechanical labour. By this method you
neutralise all distinction of character--make a pedant of the blockhead
and a drudge of the man of genius. What, for instance, would have been
the effect of persuading