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Excerpt from The Monthly Packet of Evening Readings for Members of the English Church, Vol. 1: Parts I. To Vi. January-June, 1881
Modem Painters is by far the earliest of these three works, and it is possible that the Sermon might not have been written without it. At all events, it will be seen, as we pursue our comparison and collation of their argument, how powerfully, how variously, with what many sided iteration and illustration, Professor Ruskin has set before his reader the contemplative faculty of man, and its object the mental habit of those who, as matter of fact, do rejoice in God's works - who are really made glad by the operations of His hand. Let us attempt a summary, to begin with, of the united argument before us. If it be allowed any importance at all, then the analysis of beauty, with the production of things beautiful, becomes not only a harmless employ ment of time, but a duty of some gravity.
Dr. Mozley says, virtually: When he who is against us in this matter has done all he can to explain away the believer's argument from design or utility, he finds himself confronted by this extra effect of beauty, which is evidently a result from design in some cases, and probably in all, and of which no materialist scheme gives, or can give, any account whatever. The belief in a Living God appealing by reason to the reason He has put in man, does account for it; the believer has a hypothesis which will carry the facts, and there is no other.
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