ation or
drapery. Their likeness to anything does not affect their nobleness.
They are magnificent forms, and that is all we need care to know of
them, in order to say whether the workman is a good or bad sculptor.

Sec. XLIII. Now the noblest art is an exact unison of the abstract
value, with the imitative power, of forms and colors. It is the noblest
composition, used to express the noblest facts. But the human mind
cannot in general unite the two perfections: it either pursues the fact
to the neglect of the composition, or pursues the composition to the
neglect of the fact.

Sec. XLIV. And it is intended by the Deity that it _should_ do this; the
best art is not always wanted. Facts are often wanted without art, as in
a geological diagram; and art often without facts, as in a Turkey
carpet. And most men have been made capable of giving either one or the
other, but not both; only one or two, the very highest, can give both.

Observe then. Men are universally divided, as respects their artistical
qualifications, into three great classes; a right, a left, and a centre.
On the right side are the men of facts, on the left the men of
design,[61] in the centre the men of both.

The three classes of course pass into each other by imperceptible
gradations. The men of facts are hardly ever altogether without powers
of design; the men of design are always in some measure cognizant of
facts; and as each class possesses more or less of the powers of the
opposite one, it approaches to the character of the central class. Few
men, even in that central rank, are so exactly throned on the summit of
the crest that they cannot be perceived to incline in the least one way
or the other, embracing both horizons with their glance. Now each of
these classes has, as I above said, a healthy function in the world, and
correlative diseases or unhealthy functions; and, when the work of
either of them is seen in its morbid condition, we are apt to find fault
with the class of workmen, instead of finding fault only with the
particular abuse which has perverted their action.

Sec. XLV. Let us first take an instance of the healthy action of the three
classes on a simple subject, so as fully to understand the distinction
between them, and then we shall more easily examine the corruptions to
which they are liable. Fig. 1 in Plate VI. is a spray of vine with a
bough of cherry-tree, which I have outlined from nature as accurately as
I could, without