350 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



house of Pharaoh was to EgyjDt, that was the house of Athene to 

 Athens. 



The gods, indeed, have done almost more for the expansion of the 

 aesthetic faculty than even the kings. If the savage decorates the 

 living chief and his house, how much more must he decorate and 

 beautify the image and the house of that greater dead chief, the o-od 

 that ancestral ghost whom even the living chief dreads and vener- 

 ates exceedingly ! Hence, from the very first, while the ornaments of 

 the king and the god are the same in kind, those of the god are the 

 finest in degree. As the ghost gradually expands into the vaguer 

 grandeur of the deity, his worship is surrounded with increasing mag- 

 nificence. It is the temples of Heliopolis and Benares which naturally 

 occur to our minds when we think of Egyptian or Indian architecture. 

 It is the pyramids and mausoleums that form the initial stage of eccle- 

 siastical buildings. All the world over, the shrines of the gods are 

 the most splendid of all erections : only where faith is on the decline 

 do we find the palace or the mansion outvying the cathedral and the 

 chapel. In architecture, in sculpture, in painting, in music, the homes 

 of the gods are the highest expression of national aesthetic feeling. 

 Passing from the painted pillars of Karnak to the temples of Khorsa- 

 bad and the mosques of Agra, we find the same care everywhere be- 

 stowed upon the service of the deities. In Hellas, we have the Par- 

 thenon and the Theseum ; we have the chryselephantine statues of 

 Phidias, and the votive tablets of Praxiteles. The marbles of Penteli- 

 cus or Paros permitted the Hellenic Aphrodite to assume a graceful 

 and natixral pose, which would have been impossible with the stiff 

 granite limbs of a Pasht carved out from the quarries of Syene. At 

 Rome, we have the Cai^itoline Jove, yielding place at last to the palace 

 of the Divus Caesar and to the basilica of the Christian apostle. All 

 classical architecture, all classical sculpture, the larger pai't of classical 

 painting, and no small part of classical poetry, are directly due to the 

 influence of the old Helleno-Italian religions. And whatever little 

 information we can gather of the aesthetic status of the Hebrews is to 

 be derived from the story of the hangings and vessels of the taber- 

 nacle, and the molten sea, the pillars, the bases, the lavers, and the 

 cedar ceiling of Solomon's temple. Hebrew poetry is almost without 

 exception devotional. 



In Christian times, the connection between art and religion has 

 been even more noticeable. Our music is directly atiiliated ujDon the 

 Gregorian chant, and derives its notation from ecclesiastical usages. 

 Masses and oratorios still compose its masterpieces. Our painting has 

 come down to us from Byzantine and early Italian models, and found 

 its home during the whole mediaeval period in the great cathedrals and 

 churches of Italy, whence it spread to the palaces of the Florentine 

 Medici, of the Venetian doges, and of the Genoese merchant princes, 

 and so ultimately to northwestern Europe. The whole character of 



