158 Beginnings of Porcelain 



but a primitive cart-wheel turning on its axle. The invention pre- 

 supposes the existence of the wheel adapted to transportation, and 

 in all the great civilizations in which, as stated above, the potter's 

 wheel is found, we indeed meet also the wheeled cart. We further 

 observe, that, wherever the potter's wheel occurs and the wheeled 

 cart does not occur, the former was introduced from a higher culture- 

 zone: for instance, in Japan, to which the conception of the cart is 

 foreign, and which received the potter's wheel from Korea; or among 

 the Tibetans, who have no wheeled vehicles, and in the midst of whom 

 the potter's wheel is only handled by Chinese. 1 Again, the wheeled 

 cart is conspicuously absent in all those culture-areas in which, as has 

 been stated, the potter's wheel is unknown. Wherever original con- 

 ditions have remained intact and undisturbed by outside currents, 

 the two implements either co-exist, or do not exist at all. Of course, 

 it must not be understood that the idea of the potter's wheel was con- 

 ceived in a haphazard manner, as though a wheel, intentionally or 

 incidentally, had been detached from a cart, its novel utilization being 

 reasoned out on speculative and technical grounds. Primitive man, 

 and man of the prehistoric past, is not a rationalistic or utilitarian 

 being, but one endowed with thoughts of highly emotional character, 

 and prompted to peculiar associations of ideas that are inspired by 

 religious sentiments. Of the theories which have been expounded in 

 regard to the primeval origin of the wheel, none as yet is wholly satis- 

 factory; but this much is assured, that it was connected with a certain 

 form of religious worship, that in its origin the chariot was utilized in 

 the cult before it was turned to practical purposes of transportation. 2 

 The symbolism and worship of the wheel in western Asia, prehistoric 

 Europe and India, is so well known that this matter does not require 

 recapitulation. A similar spirit pervades the early references to the 

 potter, his work and his wheel. In the Old Testament the potter's 

 control over the clay illustrates the sovereignty of God, who made 

 man of clay, and formed him according to his will. " O house of Israel, 

 cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the 

 clay is in the potter's hand, so are ye in my hand, saith the Lord" 

 (Jeremiah XVIII. 1-6). "Shall the thing formed say to him that 

 formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power 



1 The wheeled cart is designated in Tibetan shing rta ("wooden horse")i — a 

 word-formation which testifies to the fact that the cart is foreign to Tibetan culture. 

 In fact, carts are not employed by Tibetans. We only read in ancient records of 

 vehicles for the use of kings, presumably introduced from India^ 



2 E. Hahn, Alter der wirtschaftlichen Kultur, p. 123; and Entstehung der 

 Pflugkultur, p. 40. 



