This brings me to the subject of higher æstheticism, the only true worship of the beautiful, that which does not regard only the perceptions of the senses, but admits the consideration of the moral and the humane. Such a doctrine finds its fullest development in the works of Mr. Ruskin, a teacher whom we Food Reformers, in common with all who strive after a purer life, must revere above all living writers. The superiority of his teaching to that of the æsthetic school in general is due to the fact that he has not thought it necessary to divorce morality from art, but has shown that the consideration of morality is inseparable from true art, as also from true political economy, and indeed from any true science whatever. But alas! “non omnia possumus omes ;” and it must be confessed that, on the subject of humanity, Mr. Ruskin's teaching is not quite self-consistent ; while his utterances on the subject of Vegetarianism show that he has never really given it his serious attention, though in the last number of Fors Clavigera[1] he seems inclined to reconsider the question. Of all great writers Mr. Ruskin is the one from whom
- ↑ May, 1883
