complete, and visible existence only in the fine arts.  In FACT and THOUGHT we have the whole question of superiority decided.  Fact is merely physical record:  Thought is the application of that record to something human.  Without application, the fact is only fact, and nothing more; the application, thought, then, certainly must be superior to the record, fact.  Also in thought man gets the clearest glimpse he will ever have of soul, and sees the incorporeal make the nearest approach to the corporeal that it is possible for it to do here upon earth.  And hence, these noble acts of wisdom are—­far—­far above the mechanical arts and sciences, and are properly called fine arts, because their high and peculiar office is to refine.

Kosmon. But, certainly thought is as much exercised in deducting from physical facts the sciences and mechanical arts as ever it is in poetry, painting, or music.  The act of inventing print, or of applying steam, is quite as soul-like as the inventing of a picture, poem, or statue.

Kalon. Quite.  The chemist, poet, engineer, or painter, alike, think.  But the things upon which they exercise their several faculties are very widely unlike each other; the chemist or engineer cogitates only the physical; the poet or painter joins to the physical the human, and investigates soul—­scans the world in man added to the world without him—­takes in universal creation, its sights, sounds, aspects, and ideas.  Sophon says that the fine arts are thoughts; but I think I know a more comprehensive word; for they are something more than thoughts; they are things also; that word is NATURE—­Nature fully—­thorough nature—­the world of creation.  All that is in man, his mysteries of soul, his thoughts and emotions—­deep, wise, holy, loving, touching, and fearful,—­or in the world, beautiful, vast, ponderous, gloomy, and awful, moved with rhythmic harmonious utterance—­that is Poetry.  All that is of man—­his triumphs, glory, power, and passions; or of the world—­its sunshine and clouds, its plains, hills or valleys, its wind-swept mountains and snowy Alps, river and ocean—­silent, lonely, severe, and sublime—­mocked with living colours, hue and tone,—­that is Painting.  Man—­heroic man, his acts, emotions, loves,—­aspirative, tender, deep, and calm,—­intensified, purified, colourless,—­exhibited peculiarly and directly through his own form;_that_ is sculpture.  All the voices of nature—­of man—­his bursts of rage, pity, and fear—­his cries of joy—­his sighs of love; of the winds and the waters—­tumultuous, hurrying, surging, tremulous, or gently falling—­married to melodious numbers;_that_ is music.  And, the music of proportions—­of nature and man, and the harmony and opposition of light and shadow, set forth in the ponderous; that is Architecture.