CIIAPTEK Y. 



BIOGRAPHER, HISTORIAN, AND MAN OF LETTERS. 



682. How, in their rudimentary forms, the several arts 

 which express feelings and thoughts by actions, sounds, and 

 words, as well as the professors of such arts, originated 

 together in a mingled state, we have seen in the last two 

 chapters. Continuing the analysis, we have now to observe 

 how there simultaneously arose, in the same undiff erentiated 

 germ, the rudiments of certain other products, and of those 

 devoted to the production of them. The primitive orator, 

 poet, and musician, was at the same time the primitive 

 biographer, historian, and man of letters. The hero s deeds 

 constituted the common subject-matter; and, taking this 

 or that form, the celebration of them became, now the ora 

 tion, now the song, now the recited poem, now that personal 

 history which constitutes a biography, now that larger his 

 tory which associates the doings of one with the doings of 

 many, and now that variously developed comment on men s 

 doings and the course of things which constitutes literature. 



Before setting out to observe the facts which illustrate 

 afresh this simultaneous genesis, let us note that in the 

 nature of things there could not be any other root for these 

 diverse growths; and that this root is deeply implanted in 

 human nature. If we go back to a group of savages sitting 

 round a camp-fire, and ask what of necessity are their ordi 

 nary subjects of conversation, we find that there is nothing 



for them to talk about save their own doings and the doings 



235 



