68 THE STONES OF VENICE

opposed to his intellect, and the latter to the senses;¹ whereas all the divisions of humanity are noble or brutal, immortal or mortal, according to the degree of their sanctification: and there is no part of the man which is not immortal and divine when it is once given to God, and no part of him which is not mortal by the second death,² and brutal before the first, when it is withdrawn from God. For to what shall we trust for our distinction from the beasts that perish?³ To our higher intellect?-yet are we not bidden to be wise as the serpent, and to consider the ways of the ant?⁴ Or to our affections? nay; these are more shared by the lower animals than our intelligence:-Hamlet leaps into the grave of his beloved, and leaves it,-a dog would have stayed. Humanity and immortality consist neither in reason, nor in love; not in the body, nor in the animation of the heart of it, nor in the thoughts and stirrings of the brain of it,-but in the dedication of them all to Him who will raise them up at the last day.⁵

§ 11. It is not, therefore, that the signs of his affections, which man leaves upon his work, are indeed more ennobling than the signs of his intelligence; but it is the balance of both whose expression we need, and the signs of the government of them all by Conscience; and Discretion, the Daughter of Conscience. So, then, the intelligent part of man being eminently, if not chiefly, displayed in the structure of his work, his affectionate part is to be shown in its decoration; and, that decoration may be indeed lovely, two things are needed: first, that the affections be vivid, and honestly shown; secondly, that they be fixed on the right things.

§ 12. You think, perhaps, I have put the requirements in wrong order. Logically I have; practically I have not: for it is necessary first to teach men to speak out, and say what

¹ [For this “analysis of human nature,” which is the metaphysical basis of Lord Lindsay’s Sketches of the History of Christian Art, see Ruskin’s statement and criticism in his review of that work for the Quarterly (On the Old Road, 1899, vol. i. §§ 23 seq.).]

² [Revelation xx. 14.]

³ [Psalms xlix. 12, 20.]

⁴ [Matthew x. 16; Proverbs vi. 6.]

⁵ [John vi. 40, 44, 54.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]