346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



but the rule is far from being general, and the development of the 

 arts does not always correspond with the mental and social devel- 

 opment of nations. While there are peoples to which works of 

 art are the most important manifestation of their genius, there 

 are others high in the scale of civilization with which art has 

 only played a secondary part. If we were obliged to write the 

 history of the civilization of each people, and could take one ele- 

 ment, that element would vary from one people to another. It 

 would be arts for one, political or military institutions, or indus- 

 tries, by which others would be known best. This fact will ac- 

 count for the arts having suffered very unequal transformations 

 in passing from some peoples to others. 



The Egyptians and the Romans, among ancient nations, pre- 

 sent characteristic examples of inequality in the development of 

 the different elements of their civilization, and even of the differ- 

 ent branches of which each of these elements is composed. 



The Egyptians were weak in their literary efforts, and their 

 paintings were mediocre, but in sculpture and architecture they 

 produced masterpieces which the Greeks were able to excel dur- 

 ing only a short period of their history. 



The Romans were not in want of teachers or of models, for 

 they had the Egyptians and the Greeks, but they never succeeded 

 in creating an art characteristic of themselves ; no people per- 

 haps ever betrayed less originality in their productions in this 

 field. But they raised the other elements of civilization to the 

 highest point. Their military organization assured them the 

 domination of the world ; their political and judicial institutions 

 are still patterns for us ; and their literature inspired the centu- 

 ries that followed them. 



The Greeks, who manifested the highest superiority in the 

 most diverse branches, may likewise be cited to prove the want 

 of parallelism between the development of the various elements 

 of civilization. Their literature was already brilliant in the Ho- 

 meric epoch ; but modern discoveries in archaeology show that in 

 the same period their sculptures were grossly barbaric, and were 

 simply crude imitations of Egyptian and Assyrian work. 



The Hindus most pointedly illustrate this inequality of devel- 

 ment. Few peoples have equaled them in architecture ; in phi- 

 losophy their speculations go to a depth to which European 

 thought has only recently arrived ; in literature they produced 

 admirable works, even though they fell short of those of the 

 Greeks and Latins. But they were mediocre and far below the 

 Greeks in statuary, and were nullities in the domain of scientific 

 and historical knowledge, while they betray an absence of precis- 

 ion which we meet in equal degree among no other people. 



There are, further, races which, without ever having occupied 



