Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/698

636 last two offences penal servitude is limited to seven years. Setting fire to mines is visited with the full measure of penalty, and in the case of the attempt, the penal servitude is limited to fourteen years. Setting fire, or attempting to set fire to ships is punishable by the full penalties already enumerated. Setting fire to her Majesty s vessels of war is a felony punishable by death. In Scotland the offence, equivalent to arson in England, is known by the more expressive name of wilful fire-raising. The later statutes cited above do not apply to Scotland, where the crime is punishable capitally by old consuetudi nary law. The public prosecutor has the privilege, as in other such cases, of declining to demand capital punishment, and invariably does so.  ART, in the most extended and most popular sense of the word, means everything which we distinguish from Nature. Art and Nature are the two most comprehensive genera of which the human mind has formed the concep tion. Under the genus Nature, or the genus Art, we include all the phenomena of the universe. But as our conception of Nature is indeterminate and variable, so in some degree is our conception of Art. Nor does such ambiguity arise only because some modes of thought refer a greater number of the phenomena of the universe to the genus Nature, and others a greater number to the genus Art. It arises also because we do not strictly limit the one genus by the other. The range of the phenomena to which we point when we say Art, is never very exactly determined by the range of the other phenomena which at the same time we tacitly refer to the order of Nature. Everybody understands the general meaning of a phrase like Pope s &quot; Blest with each grace of nature and of art.&quot; In such phrases we intend to designate familiarly as Nature all which exists independently of our study, forethought, and exertion in other words, those phenomena in our selves or the world which we do not originate but find ; and we intend to designate familiarly ag Art, all which we do not find but originate or in other words, the pheno mena which we do add by study, forethought, and exertion to those existing independently of us. But we do not use these designations consistently. Sometimes we draw an arbitrary line in the action of individuals and societies, and say, Here Nature ends and Art begins such a law, such a practice, such an industry even, is natural, and such another is artificial ; calling those natural which happen spontaneously and without much reflection, and the others artificial. But this line different observers draw at different places. Sometimes we adopt views which waive the distinction altogether. One such view is that wherein all phenomena are regarded as equally natural, and the idea of Nature is extended so as to include &quot; all the powers existing in either the outer or the inner world, and everything which exists by means of those powers.&quot; In this view Art becomes a part of Nature. It is illustrated in the familiar passage of Shakspeare, where Polixenes reminds Perdita that— &quot;Nature is made tetter by no mean, But nature makes that mean : GO, over that art Which, you say, adds to nature, is an art That nature makes.&quot;. . . there is an art Which doth mend nature, change it, rather, &quot;but The art itself is nature.&quot; A posthumous essay of Mr John Stuart Mill contains a full philosophical exposition and defence of this mode of regarding the relations of Nature and Art. Defining Nature as above, and again as a &quot; collective name for all facts, actual and possible,&quot; that writer proceeds to say that such a definition—

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Another mode of thought, in some sort complementary to the last, is based on the analogy which the operations of forces external to a man bear to the operations of man himself. Study, forethought, and exertion are assigned to Nature, and her operations are called operations of Art. This view was familiar to ancient systems of philosophy, and especially to that of the Stoics. According to the report of Cicero, Nature as conceived by Zeno was a fire, and at the same time a voluntary agent having the power or art of creating things with regularity and design (naturam esse ignem artificiosum ad gignendum progre- dientem via). To this fire not merely creative force and systematic action were ascribed, but actual personality. Nature was &quot; non artificiosa solum, sed plane artifex.&quot; &quot; That which in the works of human art is done by hands, is done with much greater art by Nature, that is, by a fire which exercises an art and is the teacher of other arts.&quot; This conception of Nature as an all-generating fire, and at the same time as a personal artist both teaching and including in her own activity all the human arts, on the one hand may be said, with Polixenes and Mr Mill, to merge Art in Nature ; but on the other hand it finds the essence of Nature in the resemblance of her operations to those of Art. &quot;It is the proprium of art,&quot; according to the same system, &quot; to create and beget,&quot; and the reasoning proceeds Nature creates and begets, therefore Nature is an artist or Demiurgus. But these modes of thought by which Art is included under Nature, or Nature identified with Art, or both at once, are exceptional. In ordinary use the two concep tions, each of them somewhat vague and inexact, are anti thetical. Their antithesis was what Dr Johnson had chiefly in his mind when he defined Art as &quot; the power of doing something which is not taught by Nature or by instinct.&quot; But this definition is insufficient, because the abstract word Art, whether used of all arts at once or of one at a time, is a name not only for the power of doing something, but for the exercise of the power ; and not only for the exercise of the power, but for the rules according to which it is exer cised; and not only for the rules, but for the result. Paint ing, for instance, is an art, and the idea includes not only the power to paint, but the act of painting ; and not only the act, but the laws for performing the act rightly and 