THE HELIX OF HISTORY 29 



Can we extract a meaning from all the ceaseless turmoil 

 and striving, and success and failure, of these thousands of 

 years? Can we see any regular structure behind it all? 

 Can we learn any general principles that may formulate 

 the past, or be projected on the mists of the future? . . . 

 Hitherto the comparatively brief outlook of Western his- 

 tory has given us only the great age of classical civilization 

 before modern times. We have been in the position of a 

 child that remembers only a single summer before that 

 which he enjoys. To such an one the cold, dark, miserable 

 winter that has intervened seems a needless and inexplic- 

 able interruption of a happier order— of a summer which 

 should never cease. Only a few years ago a writer of repute 

 deplored the mysterious fall of the Roman Empire, which 

 in his view ought to have been always prosperous, and 

 never have fallen to the barbarians. He was the child who 

 could not understand the Tvinter. From what we now 

 know, it is evident, even on the most superficial view% that 

 civilization is an intermittent phenomenon. 



Thus throughout history Petrie finds that cycles of civili- 

 zation have succeeded each other. In each cycle, the phases 

 are marked by similar characteristics which may be detected 

 by studying the products of the period. Each cycle has its 

 period of preparation, shown essentially in art as archaism; 

 then a period of maturity; and, finally, a period of decline 

 and decadence, to be follow^ed by the archaic period of the 

 next cycle. Petrie uses the simile of summer and winter for 

 the growth and fall of civilization and points out that this 

 analogy of the Great Year w^as familiar to the ancients. Petrie 

 uses as the most valuable index of the cyclic change the de- 

 velopment of sculpture, largely because it is more permanent 

 than other products of handicraft. He points out, however, 

 that sculpture "is only one, and not the most important, of 

 the many subjects that might be compared throughout the 

 various ages." [But] "it is available over so long a period in 

 so many countries." He adds to sculpture in his survey some 

 discussion of painting, music, mechanics, wealth, and even 

 political developments. It is remarkable that he lays little 

 stress on the development of technology. 



