THE LAW OF EVOLUTION CONTINUED. 389 



§ 137. The Arts, industrial and aesthetic, supply illus- 

 trations perhaps still more striking. Flint implements of 

 the kind recently found in certain of the later geologic de- 

 posits, show the extreme want of precision in men's first 

 handiworks. Though a great advance on these is seen in 

 the tools and weapons of existing savage tribes, yet an inex- 

 actness in forms and fittings distinguishes such tools and 

 weapons from those of civilized races. In a smaller degree, 

 the productions of the less-advanced nations are character- 

 ized by like defects. A Chinese junk, with all its con- 

 tained furniture and appliances, nowhere presents a line 

 that is quite straight, a uniform curve, or a true sur- 

 face. Xor do the utensils and machines of our 

 ancestors fail to exhibit a similar inferiority to our own. 

 An antique chair, an old fireplace, a lock of the last century, 

 or almost any article of household use that has been pre- 

 served for a few generations, proves by contrast how greatly 

 the industrial products of our time excel those of the past in 

 their accuracy. Since planing machines have been invent- 

 ed, it has become possible to produce absolutely straight 

 lines, and surfaces so truly level as to be air-tight when ap- 

 plied to each other. While in the dividing-engine of 

 Troughton, in the micrometer of Whitworth, and in micro- 

 scopes that show fifty thousand divisions to the inch, we have 

 an exactness as far exceeding that reached in the works of 

 our great-grandfathers, as theirs exceeded that of the abo- 

 riginal celt-makers. 



In the Fine Arts there has been a parallel progress. 

 From the rudely-carved and painted idols of savages, 

 through the early sculptures characterized by limbs with- 

 out muscular detail, wooden-looking drapery, and faces de- 

 void of individuality, up to the later studies of the Greeks 

 or some of those now produced, the increased accuracy of 

 representation is conspicuous. Compare the mural paint- 

 ings of the Egyptians with the paintings of mediaeval 

 Europe, or these with modern paintings, and the more 



