THE HELIX OF HISTORY 



35 



that individual historians dishke and misunderstand, but 

 there are also no decadences. Thus Colling^vood argues that 

 the cyclical view of history is a function of the limitation of 

 historical knowledge. History appears to consist of discon- 

 nected episodes, but, if we had more knowledge, we should 





mm 



V/RCO 



mx 



ins 



Figure 3. The Stele of Bellicia. (From Petrie's The Revolutions of 

 Civilization, published by Peter Smith, New York, 1941.) 



see that the episodes were connected; and he feels that Petrie 

 sees the structure of history as imposed by the historian view- 

 ing the scene and not inherent in the facts. 



This view does not seem to accord ^vith the real situation. 

 Petrie's cycles are not based on the view of beauty adopted 

 by the onlooker; they are based largely on a technical matter, 

 the skill sho^vn in execution. A critic misfht endorse the 

 scribblings of a child or the primitive work of a Negro in the 

 forest as representing a degree of beauty which entitled them 

 to be considered excellent art, but there is no doubt that the 



