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Barlow, in his Mathematical Dictionary, Art. Earth, says the weight of a body at the equator is to the weight of the same body at the poles as 1 : 1.100569. This assumes that n=1 and 37. Whatever may be said respecting the probability of the correctness of this assumption, or of any of the others which have been named, I am not aware that any attempt has been made to determine whether they are correct or not by actual experiment.

With regard to the modes of testing which have been discussed, Sir John Herschel says, speaking of the contrivance already cited, "Whether the process above described could ever be so far perfected and refined as to become a substitute for the use of the pendulum, must depend on the degree of pursuance and uniformity of action of springs, on the constancy or variability of the effect of temperature on their elastic forces, on the possibility of transporting them absolutely unaltered from place to place, &c. The great advantage, however, which such an apparatus and mode of observation would possess in point of convenience, cheapness, portability, and expedition, over the present laborious, tedious, and expensive process, render the attempt well worth making."

The figure of the earth still forms an interesting problem in physical astronomy: nor is it less desirable to ascertain how nearly the results of theory agree with the real state of things. The actual comparison of the weight of a body in different latitudes would appear to afford an additional test on each of these points. My object has been simply to call the attention of competent parties to the subject, and to attempt to facilitate their labours should they be induced to undertake the task.

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ON SCIENCE AND ART AS A BRANCH OF

NATIONAL EDUCATION.

BY E. VIVIAN, M.A.

(President of the Torquay School of Science and Art.)

As President of one of the Government schools of science and art in this neighbourhood, I am desirous of inviting attention to this very important branch of national education, especially in the county of Devon; but before doing so, I would offer a few remarks on the real nature and objects of art, founded upon the address of our late President.

"I agree with Mr. Mill," said Sir J. D. Coleridge, "that 'science, art, and letters are all essential contributaries to a complete education.' They depend on and assist each other, so that to the perfection of either (at least in idea) the presence of the other two, to some extent and degree, is necessary and essential. It appears, indeed, a truism to say of science that it is engaged in the pursuit of truth, and that truth is its main object. Now this is true of art, but with a difference; for truth in art is something different from truth in science. Artistic truth is not mere external truth, truth only of representation. Mere imitation, however dexterous, so dexterous as even to be deceptive, is not art; nay, I am bold to say, though it sounds paradoxical to say so, has nothing to do with art. No one ever walked up to a portrait by Titian, by Rembrandt, by Sir Joshua, and mistook it for a living man. Many have mistaken the figure of Cobbett at Madame Tussaud's waxwork for an actual human being. No one was ever deceived by the flowers or the fruit of Van Huysum, or Müller, or William Hunt; every one has, I suppose, in his time been deceived by skilful waxwork or painted stone ware of these things. Yet who calls waxwork art? or who, save the most childish, derives the smallest mental pleasure from it? It has been suggested, I believe by Coleridge, that where there is no attempt at deceptive imitation, every approach to likeness gives an intellectual pleasure; but that where the imita

tion is actually deceptive, every dissimilitude when it is discovered excites disgust. I do not pretend to assert that this is the philosophy of it; but the fact, in painting, undoubtedly is so. Truth in art, therefore, is truth of thought and truth of expression. It is ideal truth, not actual. And this ideal truth has, as it seems to me, been lost sight of, and the real value of art has been in consequence much lowered in pursuit of minute imitation of external forms." He attributes much of this to photography, and severely criticises Mr. Holman Hunt's "The Light of the World," and "Our Lord in the Temple." "I suppose," he adds, "a picture should, if possible, affect the mind as the reality which it depicts would affect it if the reality could be seen. Now who in the presence of The Light of the World' would have eyes for the jewels on His lanthorn, or the moonlight on the ivy leaves behind Him? Who that saw our blessed Lord in the Temple' would have patience or heart to trace the illuminations on the rolls of the manuscript, or the patterns on the phylacteries of the doctors? There is not a great man who has not repudiated imitation, and aimed at, and often realized, that higher and nobler truth, which is to be gained only by sacrifice of detail, and, if you will, by convention."

The principles to which I take exception in these otherwise admirable remarks are the unqualified condemnation of the realistic, as displayed in two pictures of widely different character, and the approval of "convention" as a medium of artistic expression. The true objection to "The Light of the World," I would rather suggest, is, that the original idea is faulty. If it were conceivable that our Lord would ever have appeared in that wonderful satin dress, and carried a jewelled lanthorn, every minute detail would have been as essential as the urim and thummim in the vestments of the typical High Priest. There is an utter confusion between the real and the ideal. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," is in the spirit-on the heart. To give a policeman the features of the effigies smaragdine incisa of the Saviour, is to mistake similarity for identity, allegory for fact. The details in this instance are not merely superfluous, but false. "Our Lord in the Temple," on the contrary, is a historical scene; and if "a picture should, if possible, affect the mind as the reality which it depicts would affect it," and if "a literal transcript, a photograph of our Lord on the Mount, or among the doctors, would be beyond all price," we have here the nearest practicable approach to it. Modern books and

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