o such work only that
the ideal was to be extended. 'Nor,' continues the Lecturer, 'do I stop
at deeds to be done in such unison. I demand in the name of art--and
here is especially the note and distinction of Modern Art as I conceive
it--I demand in the name of art, that Science itself, that knowledge,
shall enter upon a new phase, and itself become, in the mind of man,
the imaginative _Re-presentment_ of the universe without, an analytical
knowledge of which has hitherto been its one sole and supreme aim.'

Again, in another matter, bearing upon the aims of the Society & of the
movement, I must, albeit reluctantly, dissent from the view taken of it
by my friend Mr. Morris. It will help, perhaps, to clear up the
situation.

In an article 'On the revival of Handicraft' published in the
'Fortnightly' in 1888, the year of the first Arts and Crafts
Exhibition, an article interesting and stimulating as are all the
writings of Mr. Morris, there is, amid so much that is admirable, a
statement which would sweep away the whole of modern life, & render the
achievement of its distinctive ideal an impossible dream--a
consummation devoutly to be wished! we can indeed imagine Mr. Morris to
exclaim.

'As a condition of life,' Mr. Morris says, 'production by machinery is
wholly an evil.'

But surely this is altogether questionable. Surely things there are,
the production of which by machinery may be wholly right, things which,
moreover, when so produced may be wholly right also, and in their
rightness even works of art.

Great works of art are useful works, greatly done. In the same article
Mr. Morris, deprecating, as I would do, the exclusive production of
Beauty for Beauty's sake, goes on to say, as I would wish to say: 'In
the great times of art, conscious effort was used to produce great
works for the glory of the city, the triumph of the Church, the
exaltation of the citizens, the quickening of the devotion of the
faithful: even in the higher art, the record of history, the
instruction of men alive or to live hereafter, was the aim rather than
beauty.'

But if in the great times of art, great works were the aims of great
art rather than beauty, why to-day should not great works still be the
aim of great art rather than beauty? Is to-day wanting in great works
waiting to be done in the great way, which is the way of art? or is it
that to-day all great works are machinery only, and so an evil,
incapable of artistic treatme