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The first and obvious reason man may, naturally and at once, give for such cultivation, is the sense of delight it yields him. His sense of beauty is one of his first feelings of pleasure. To admire is to enjoy. To enjoy is almost always to long to imitate or create; firstly for himself, and secondly in such wise that his fellows may share his delight. To make a work of art lasting is to perpetuate delight; to cause delight is to win honour; and hence probably sprang artistic emulation, and the desire (through the practice of Fine Art in some higher shape than that in which it had hitherto been practised) to be regarded as a benefactor to mankind, through the enlargement of the circle of permanent human enjoyment.

A second reason why Fine Art should be studied is to be found in that spirit of gentleness and refinement which follows as a sequence of its cultivation. The poets in all ages, I need scarcely remind you, have looked upon the practitioners of the Arts as fashioners of good manners; and wherever in history men have exhibited gentleness in their relations to one another, and especially to women, it has been in periods corresponding with their creation of the highest types of human art. Where exceptions exist, and where the artist in his person fails to display gentleness and refinement, we may be sure that something has gone wrong either in the physical or mental constitution of the individual, and that he is to be regarded as an illustration of an abnormal type.

A third reason why art should be studied is to be found in the fact, that it is in the work of creation, so far as his limited means enable him to create, that man is permitted to most closely approximate to the attributes of Divinity. As Byron says,—