ARTICLES 425 



The historian, Gibbon, 1 mentions two remarkable facts 

 which tend to show that the clinate of Europe in Roman 

 Imperial times was much colder tjian it is now. The Rhine 

 and the Danube were frequently [rozen over and capable of 

 supporting the most enormous wdghts, a thing unparalleled 

 in modern times. In the time oi Caesar, the reindeer, now 

 confined to the area around the Poles, was a native of the 

 Hercynian forest which then covered a great part of Germany 

 and Poland. To quote Mr. Huntington : " Apparently the 

 climate of the earth is subject to pulsations of very diverse 

 degrees of intensity and of varying length. The Glacial 

 Period as a whole represents the hrgest type of pulsation ; 

 upon it are superposed the great pulsations known as glacial 

 epochs, each with a length measured probably in tens of thou- 

 sands of years ; their steady progress is in turn interrupted by 

 smaller changes of climate such as these of which evidence has 

 been found during historic times in Qntral Asia ; and, finally, 

 the climate of the world pulsates in cydes of thirty-six years." 



In spite of the undoubted influence of climate, it would 

 seem that the growth and decay of siccessive civilisations is 

 in great part a biological phenomenon analogous to the age- 

 cycles referred to above, although the matter is evidently far 

 too complex to allow one to generalise with safety. 



According to Prof. Flinders Petrie, 2 as quoted by Spurrell, 3 

 11 there have been eight distinct periods of civilisation in 

 Europe, from the earliest dawn of civilisation in Egypt, the 

 duration of each period tending to be longer than its prede- 

 cessor ; and the intervals are marked by an inrush of barbarian 

 races and an interlude of destruction and admixture of blood." 

 Prof. Petrie founds his analysis of civilisation on sculpture, on 

 the grounds that sculpture is available over so long a period 

 and is so easily presented to the mind. In the sculpture of 

 every period can be seen the same sequence of growth and 

 decay. The archaic stage, in spite of crudity, is invariably 

 marked by boldness and vigour. Next, the treatment loses 

 its archaic character and becomes more free, the details being 

 more skilfully subordinated to the whole. From this point 

 the period of highest achievement is soon reached : all traces 

 of archaism have disappeared, inspiration is still powerful, 

 and workmanship wellnigh, sometimes entirely, perfect. After 

 this the treatment tends to become over-elaborate, the inspira- 

 tion is lost, and a period of unintelligent copying ensues, fol- 

 lowed by one of degradation and ultimate decay. 



1 Gibbon, E., Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. I. 



2 Flinders Petrie, W. M., The Revolutions of Civilisation. (London : Harper, 

 1912.) 



3 Spurrell, H. G. F., Modem Man and His Forerunners. (London : Bell, 1918.) 

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