326 Field Museum or Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



century; not only, he cannot get along without it, but he should even 

 make his start with a thorough knowledge of this period which is as 

 necessary to him as his daily bread. The great revival of antiquity led 

 to a unique renaissance movement in literature and art ; diligent searches 

 for ancient books, manuscripts, and antiquities resulted in a widening 

 of the horizon, in a deepening of thoughts and in a straining of intel- 

 lectual forces unparalleled in China's long history. The archaeologist 

 has every reason to look up to the deep endeavors of that epoch with 

 a feeling of particular gratitude, as without them we should probably 

 be forsaken or grope in the dark in more than one case. To the vigilant 

 wisdom of that generation we owe the preservation and tradition of 

 numerous antiquities; many others, as bronzes, and the tiles and bricks 

 of the Han period, were then brought to light and studied, and many 

 ancient types which have long perished have come down to us solely 

 in the reproductive and retrospective art of the eighteenth century.; 

 And that is exactly the point where the share of the archaeologist in the 

 harvest comes in. He finds an unusually fecund field in the K'ien-lung 

 epoch for the exercise of his wits in his particular domain. The proto4 

 types are lost, but the reproductions are there and must be utilized. 

 On the following pages, jade sonorous stones and bells, Ju-i and other 

 objects are discussed from an archaeological point of view, while we are 

 forced to refer to specimens of the K'ien-lung period, no older ones being 

 in existence. The conservative spirit of the Chinese thus becomes a 

 substantial benefactor, and a good K'ien-lung reproduction is certainly 

 better than a blank or a weak or poorly authenticated more ancient 

 "original." Where, and what is the original, after all? Of these 

 Chinese copies and copies of copies, the word of Holmes (The Autocrat 

 of the Breakfast-Table) holds good: "A thought is often original, 

 though you have uttered it a hundred times," and Emerson's saying: 

 "When Shakespeare is charged with debts to his authors, Landor 

 replies, 'Yet he was more original than his originals. He breathed 

 upon dead bodies and brought them into life.' " Thus, it is no wonder 

 that Carl Gussow of Munich could not believe Huang Hao's Red Carp 

 of 181 1 to be a copy, though expressly stated so by the artist on the 

 painting; the entire conception, he thought, was so free and independent 

 that it was bound to be an original (Hirth, Scraps from a Collector's 

 Note Book, p. 44). As everything Chinese is pervaded by an atmos- 

 phere different from our own, so also a Chinese copyist is framed of a 

 different mould; his work is creative reinvention, not purely receptive, 

 but partaking of the spirit permeating the soul of the master. There- 

 fore, we may have confidence in studying archaeology on the ground of 

 the traditionary relics of the K'ien-lung epoch. 



