198 THE STONES OF VENICE

till within the last fifty years, the nature of the ground we tread on, of the air we breathe, and of the light by which we see, were not so much as conjecturally conceived by us; that the duration of the globe, and the races of animal life by which it was inhabited, are just beginning to be apprehended; and that the scope of the magnificent science which has revealed them is as yet so little received by the public mind, that presumption and ignorance are still permitted to raise their voices against it unrebuked; that perfect veracity in the representation of general nature by art has never been attempted until the present day, and has in the present day been resisted with all the energy of the popular voice; * that the simplest problems of social science are yet so little understood, as that doctrines of liberty and equality can be openly preached,¹ and so successfully as to affect² the whole body of the civilised world with apparently incurable disease; that the first principles of commerce were acknowledged by the English Parliament only a few months ago, in its free trade measures,³ and are still so little understood by the million, that no nation dares to abolish its custom-houses; † that the simplest principles of policy are still not so much as stated, far less received, and that civilised nations persist in the belief that the subtlety and dishonesty which they know to be

* In the works of Turner and the Pre-Raphaelites.

† Observe, I speak of these various principles as self-evident, only under the present circumstances of the world, not as if they had always been so; and I call them now self-evident, not merely because they seem so to myself, but because they are felt to be so likewise by all the men in whom I place most trust. But granting that they are not so, then their very disputability proves the state of infancy above alleged, as characteristic of the world. For I do not suppose that any Christian reader will doubt the first great truth, that whatever facts or laws are important to mankind, God has made ascertainable by mankind; and that as the decision of all these questions is of vital importance to the race, that decision must have been long ago arrived at, unless they were still in a state of childhood.

¹ [Compare Vol. VIII. p. 248.]

² [“Affect” in all editions; but the MS. has “infect.”]

³ [This was written in 1852-1853, the Repeal of the Corn Laws enacted in 1846 having come into force in 1849. In Unto this Last, § 53, Ruskin refers to this passage and confirms it, adding, “I do not admit even the idea of reciprocity.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]