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Perceiving Art then, in its broadest aspect, to mean something more than necessity demands from primitive man, we have to look to his sense of vision, and its correspondence with his brain, as the especial medium through which he experiences that class of enjoyment which we are in the habit of referring to as derivable from the Fine Arts.

Architecture, as I have already observed, stands first in order of the Fine Arts, and is compounded of man's endeavour to provide himself shelter by rude structure, and that inherent love of ornament which leads him to add to his bare structure something more—which, making it more comfortable, makes it at the same time more beautiful.

It is at this stage of culture that the perception of nature's ever teeming beauties seems to dawn upon the individual. The leaves, and flowers, and wattling, plaited and twisted and overgrown with creepers, that make shade and coolness about the simplest hut, afford materials of decorative grace and beauty; but the very evanescence of such ornamental features, leads man to endeavour to surround himself in his habitation, with beauty in some more permanent form. Hence rude carving of wood and stone, and an attempt to realise by human means, some imitation of the natural forms with which creation has stamped on matter, abundant evidences, which he who runs may read, of Divine origination.

When many combine to create for common use, what in the earliest stages of society each savage made for himself alone, a great stride towards a social system has obviously been made. Such association is the parent of polity, and in polity is to be recognised the nursery of the Fine Arts. The moment man works for the delight of others as well as for his own, he exhibits to the world the commencement of a manifestation of Fine Art, destined to be transmitted, encouraged, corrected, and ultimately carried on traditionally by his fellows. Hence starts that cumulative movement, which,