# Ruskin's Preface

## Summary of the preface

Ruskin acknowledges the hostile reception to the essays he published in Cornhill Magazine and defiantly insists that this is his best work. He regrets only that his proposal for fixing wages drew attention from his chief aim, which was to redefine wealth and to show that wealth can only be acquired under certain moral conditions of society—in particular, honesty. Some say that asking for honesty is setting the bar too low, but given the current state of society, simple honest is a high enough aspiration.

Ruskin then outlines his policy recommendations to assure his readers that he is no socialist. Ruskin wants to see government-run vocational training schools for the young and unemployed, and he wants homes established for the old and destitute.

▲

# «The main objective of my four essays (Sec 1)

## Sec 1 #1

### Ruskin footnote 1—A new footnote for the second edition (1877)

#### In this new footnote Ruskin tells us that the only change he is making in the second edition is to expand upon a footnote that appears later in this preface. (This is Ruskin's 4th footnote in Section 2 #5).

An addition is made to the note in the Fourteenth page of the preface of this book which, being the most precious, in its essential contents, of all that I have ever written, I reprint word for word and page for page, after that addition, and make as accessible as I can, to all.

## Sec 1 #2–#3

### The need for a logical definition of wealth

Ruskin is not at all interested helping Mill or other orthodox political economists achieve a more logical or precise definition of wealth. Ruskin's much more radical goal is to supplant their definition with a Humanistic and moral definition of wealth that is more in accord with the Classical authors he sites. For example, Xenophon (in Oeconomicus, I ) states that a flute is property only to the man who has the skill to play it and that money is property only to the man who can use it to live well. This soon becomes clearer when Ruskin states that the second object of the essays was to demonstrate that the acquisition of wealth is only possible under certain moral conditions of society.

## Sec 1 #3

### Ruskin footnote 2—when teaching is impossible

Which? for where investigation is necessary, teaching is impossible.

### Ruskin footnote 3—quote from Mill about defining wealth

Principles of Political Economy. by J. S. Mill. Preliminary remarks, p. 2.

### «My secondary objective (Sec 2)

## Sec 2

### About honesty as a goal for society

That Ruskin is asking only for common honesty seems to reflect a deep pessimism about British society. Throughout Unto This Last he asks for, indeed demands, much more than honesty. Consider, for example, that he requires that merchants be willing to make large sacrifices for the well-being of their employees.

## Sec 2 #5

### Ruskin footnote 4—This is the footnote Ruskin expanded in 1877

#### This quotation from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations supports Ruskin's comment that we must have faith that people behave honestly for ethical reasons, and not simply because they are afraid to lose their cusomers. By “corporation,” Smith means Medieval trade guilds.
In 1877, Ruskin adds a paragraph fiercely condemning Adam Smith's cynical statement. Then to oppose this cynicism, Ruskin quotes an inscription he found in the Church of Saint Giacomo di Rialto in Venice. Finally, Ruskin tells us (using a reference to his Sesame and Lilies) he believes that the strong language in this expanded footnote is appropriate and not stylistic exaggeration.

“The effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is not that of his corporation, but of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds, and corrects his negligence.” (Wealth of Nations, Book I. chap, 10.)

Note to the Second Edition. —The only addition I will make to the words of this book shall be a very earnest request to any Christian reader to think within himself what an entirely damned state of soul any human creature must have got into, who could read with acceptance such a sentence as this: much more, write it; and to oppose to it, the first commercial words of Venice, discovered by me in her first church:—

—Around this temple, let the Merchant‘s law be just, his weights true, and his contracts guileless.

If any of my present readers think that my language in this note is either intemperate, or unbecoming, I will beg them to read with attention the Eighteenth paragraph of Sesame and Lilies; and to be assured that I never, myself, now use, in writing, any word which is not, in my deliberate judgment, the fittest for the occasion.

VENICE,

Sunday, 18th March, 1877.

### «My policy recommendations are (Sec 3)

## Sec 3 #1

### “lest the reader be alarmed”

Although Ruskin is politically ultra-conservative and has a hierarchical, anti-democratic vision of the organization of society, he recognizes that his demand for social justice can be interpreted as something akin to socialist thought. Here he seeks to prevent this interpretation.

## Sec 3 #2–#5

### Ruskin's proposals for social programs

In general Ruskin does not look much to government (or to philanthropy) for improving the lives of the poor or for achieving social justice. Instead, he wants to see a broad and deep moral transformation of society. But in these passages Ruskin does propose government programs for high-quality public education (especially vocational education) for youths, vocational training for out-of-work adults, and provision for people in their old age. In different ways and to differing degrees we do have programs answering many of these needs. For example, we have social security rather than old-age homes. Of the ideas Ruskin proposes here, the only that has been least put into practice is government-run factories and work shops produced goods of exemplary quality in direct competition with the private sector.

### Ruskin footnote 5—on education and crime

It will probably be inquired by near-sighted persons, out of what funds such schools could be supported. The expedient modes of direct provision for them I will examine hereafter; indirectly, they would be far more than self-supporting. The economy in crime alone, (quite one of the most costly articles of luxury in the modern European market), which such schools would induce, would suffice to support them ten times over. Their economy of labour would be pure gain, and that too large to be presently calculable.

## Sec 3 #4

### “being found objecting to work”

Ruskin has no sympathy for people who are lazy.

## Sec 3 #5

### Ruskin footnote 6—“de publico est elatus”

He was buried at the public's expense.

## Sec 3 #6

### “what can be . . .immediately . . . and finally accomplished”

Ruskin usually speaks from a stance of surety, not hesitancy. But he ends the passage on a euphoric note of optimism.