IV. CONCLUSION 199

ruinous in dealings between man and man, are serviceable in dealings between multitude and multitude;¹ finally, that the scope of the Christian religion, which we have been taught for two thousand years, is still so little conceived by us, that we suppose the laws of charity and of self-sacrifice bear upon individuals in all their social relations, and yet do not bear upon nations in any of their political relations;-when, I say, we thus review the depth of simplicity in which the human race are still plunged with respect to all that it most profoundly concerns them to know, and which might, by them, with most ease have been ascertained, we can hardly determine how far back on the narrow path of human progress we ought to place the generation to which we belong, how far the swaddling clothes are unwound from us, and childish things beginning to be put away.

On the other hand, a power of obtaining veracity in the representation of material and tangible things, which, within certain limits and conditions, is unimpeachable, has now been placed in the hands of all men,* almost without labour. The foundation of every natural science is now at last firmly laid, not a day passing without some addition of buttress and pinnacle to their already magnificent fabric. Social theorems, if fiercely agitated, are therefore the more likely to be at last determined, so that they never can be matters of question more. Human life has been in some sense prolonged by the

* I intended to have given a sketch in this place (above referred to²) of the probable results of the daguerreotype and calotype within the next few years, in modifying the application of the engraver’s art, but I have not had time to complete the experiments necessary to enable me to speak with certainty. Of one thing, however, I have little doubt, that an infinite service will soon be done to a large body of our engravers; namely, the making them draughtsmen (in black and white) on paper instead of steel.

¹ [Ruskin often enforced the argument that the same laws applied to individuals and states; see, for instance, p. 261 below, where he looks forward to kingdoms becoming “well-governed households,” and similarly, A Joy for Ever, §§ 12, 13.]

² [See in the preceding volume, p. 356. For Ruskin’s interest in the daguerreotype and calotype processes, see Vol. III. pp. 169 n., 210 n. Ruskin’s prediction, it need hardly be said, has been abundantly fulfilled. On the subject of pen-drawing in connexion with photo-engraving, Mr. Joseph Pennell’s Pen Drawing and Pen Draughtsmen, 1889, may be consulted.]

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