[Sidenote: Underlying idea in all his works.]
The governing idea of Ruskin's first published work, _Modern Painters,
Volume I_, was a moral idea. The book was dedicated to the principle
that that art is greatest which deals with the greatest number of
greatest ideas,--those, we learn presently, which reveal divine
truth; the office of the painter, we are told,[6] is the same as that
of the preacher, for "the duty of both is to take for each discourse
one essential truth." As if recalling this argument that the painter
is a preacher, Carlyle described _The Stones of Venice_ as a "sermon
in stones." In the idea that all art, when we have taken due account
of technique and training, springs from a moral character, we find the
unifying principle of Ruskin's strangely diversified work. The very
title _The Seven Lamps of Architecture_, with its chapters headed
"Sacrifice," "Obedience," etc., is a sufficient illustration of
Ruskin's identification of moral principles with aesthetic principles.
A glance at the following pages of this book will show how Ruskin is
for ever halting himself to demand the moral significance of some fair
landscape, gorgeous painting, heaven-aspiring cathedral. In "Mountain
Glory," for example, he refers to the mountains as "kindly in simple
lessons to the workman," and inquires later at what times mankind has
offered worship in these mountain churches; of the English cathedral
he says, "Weigh the influence of those dark towers on all who have
passed through the lonely square at their feet for centuries";[7] of
St.
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