ESTHETIC EVOLUTION IN MAN. 353 



tains and forests and waterfalls became more easy to visit ; and in 

 the " Georffics " we see the result of the chan<?e. Yet even in the 

 " Georgics " the view of nature is still very anthropinistic, and the 

 feeling for scenery decidedly urban. What should Ave say of a poet 

 nowadays who should apostrophize the beauties of an Italian lake 

 " Fluctibus et fremitu assurgens, Benace, marino " ? Would he not 

 seem in our eyes to have missed entirely the whole spirit of the scene ? 

 The words might do for Huron or Ontario, but fancy applying them 

 to Como or Garda ! Nevertheless, the Roman mind had decidedly 

 advanced in the love of nature. The Alps were still to Juvenal mere 

 masses of snow barring the way from Gaul to Italy ; the ocean was 

 still to Tacitus a boundless waste of western waters ; but the falls of 

 Tivoli, the little fountain-head of Bandusia, the sweeping coast-line of 

 Baiffi, the beetling crags of Terraciha, the deep volcanic basin of the 

 Alban lake all these could rouse aesthetic admiration and deliarht in 

 the eyes of a Horace, a Virgil, or a Claudian. With the recession of 

 the middle ages, when men were again confined to the narrow limits 

 of towns, aesthetic feeling went back once more to the 7ia"tve anthropin- 

 ism of an earlier age ; but, since the Renaissance, the love of scenery 

 has grown perpetually, and it now probably reaches the farthest de- 

 velopment that it has ever yet attained. 



But we must never forget that the taste for scenery on a large 

 scale is confined to comparatively few races, and comparatively few 

 persons among them. Thus, to the Chinese, according to Captain 

 Gill, in spite of their high artistic skill, " the beauties of nature have 

 no charm, and in the most lovely scenery the houses are so placed that 

 no enjoyment can be derived from it." The Hindoos, " though devoted 

 to art, care but little, if at all, for landscape or natural beauty." The 

 Russians "run through Europe with their carriage- windows shut." 

 Even the Americans in many cases seem to care little for wild or 

 beautiful scenery : they are more attracted by smiling landscape gar- 

 dening, and, as it seems to us, flat or dull cultivation. I have heai'd 

 an American just arrived in Europe go into unfeigned ecstasies over 

 the fields and hedges in the flattest part of the Midlands. 



The reason for this slow development may be briefly traced. The 

 minor component elements of scenery must always have been to a 

 great extent beautiful on their own account even to children and sav- 

 ages. Thus, the same bright color which gave attractiveness to flowers 

 and gems must also have given it, though more vaguely, to the rain- 

 bow and the sunset clouds, which could not similarly be utilized for 

 purposes of ornament. Color must also always have formed an ele- 

 ment of beauty in blue sky and sea, red-sandstone cliffs, white chalk, 

 green meadows, and golden corn-fields. All these objects, however, 

 being comparatively remote from personal interest, would be little 

 regarded by the primitive mind. But, when cultivation began, the 

 care of the husbandman and the aesthetic interest aroused by his regu- 

 voL. XVIII. 23 



