This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...her graves; but no other sky than the Pisan sky holds such a place as this. The world--nature--is full of unanswerable questions. It was a courageous enterprise to answer one of them in this book--a great enterprise, a great defeat. To small minds, and to the vulgar, the desire to reply to those perpetual questions is ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1900 Excerpt: ...her graves; but no other sky than the Pisan sky holds such a place as this. The world--nature--is full of unanswerable questions. It was a courageous enterprise to answer one of them in this book--a great enterprise, a great defeat. To small minds, and to the vulgar, the desire to reply to those perpetual questions is a matter of daily habit. They have no doubt as to two paths, or as to the destination of each, or the cause of its inclining. But here, for once, is a great mind condemning itself to the disaster of judgment and decision, in its divine good faith. It is hardly credible that the intellectual martyrdom of the enterprise of writing The Two Paths should have been hailed with the laughter of the untroubled. So, nevertheless, it has been. Tragedy is not, says Hegel, in the conflict of right with wrong, but in the conflict of right with right. Ruskin was nobly reluctant to confess such a strife, or to be the spectator of such a battle. Hence he must declare two paths. But his own labour of the mind, his book, is, in the sense of Hegel, tragic. For a far better quality of splendid English than the descriptive passage above quoted, I would cite this from the lecture that urges upon architects their great vocation as sculptors: "Is there anything within range of sight, or conception, which may not be of use to you?. Whatever may be conceived of Divine, or beheld of Human, may be dared or adopted by you; throughout the kingdom of animal life, no creature is so vast, or so minute, that you cannot deal with it, or bring it into service; the lion and the crocodile will couch about your shafts; the moth and bee will sun themselves upon your flowers; for you, the fawn will leap; for you, the snail will be slow; for you, the dove smooth her bosom, and the...
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