nd the other unavoidable, in one directed against
particular opinions. Nor are either of any necessary detriment to its
availableness as a foundation for more careful and extended survey, in
so far as its province was confined to the assertion of obvious and
visible facts, the verification of which could in no degree be dependent
either on the care with which they might be classed, or the temper in
which they were regarded. Not so with respect to the investigation now
before us, which, being not of things outward, and sensibly
demonstrable, but of the value and meaning of mental impressions, must
be entered upon with a modesty and cautiousness proportioned to the
difficulty of determining the likeness, or community of such
impressions, as they are received by different men, and with seriousness
proportioned to the importance of rightly regarding those faculties over
which we have moral power, and therefore in relation to which we
assuredly incur a moral responsibility. There is not the thing left to
the choice of man to do or not to do, but there is some sort of degree
of duty involved in his determination; and by how much the more,
therefore, our subject becomes embarrassed by the cross influences of
variously admitted passion, administered discipline, or encouraged
affection, upon the minds of men, by so much the more it becomes matter
of weight and import to observe by what laws we should be guided, and of
what responsibilities regardful, in all that we admit, administer, or
encourage.

Sec. 2. And of what importance considered.

Nor indeed have I ever, even in the preceding sections, spoken with
levity, though sometimes perhaps with rashness. I have never treated the
subject as other than demanding heedful and serious examination, and
taking high place among those which justify as they reward our utmost
ardor and earnestness of pursuit. That it justifies them must be my
present task to prove; that it demands them has never been doubted. Art,
properly so called, is no recreation; it cannot be learned at spare
moments, nor pursued when we have nothing better to do. It is no
handiwork for drawing-room tables; no relief of the ennui of boudoirs;
it must be understood and undertaken seriously or not at all. To advance
it men's lives must be given, and to receive it their hearts. "Le
peintre Rubens s'amuse a etre ambassadeur," said one with whom, but for
his own words, we might have thought that effort had been absorbe