aE VERDICT OFHISTORY. 117 
battle of Austerlitz and the rule of the Hundred Days 
were no more evolved from the French Revolution as by 
intrinsic necessity than the burning of Moscow and the 
Russian snows which turned to naught the campaign of 
fora. sCAs ee Graebner,) 
According to the theory we would expect that in 
the various departments of art, perfection would be a 
late blossom, burgeoning forth only after ages of feeble 
experiment and attempt. But what are the facts? As 
we study the history of any art,—be it literature or any 
department of literature; be it architecture, sculpture, 
the domestic arts, or even the art of war,—we find the 
highest culmination either at points which specifically 
exclude the idea of a development or, indeed, perfection 
shines forth in the very beginning, all subsequent art be- 
ing decay and apostasy from that primal perfection. 
In epic poetry, the greatest work does not stand at the 
end of a long period of development, but the first and 
oldest is the greatest. Nothing has ever been produced 
to equal the Iliad and Odyssey, written 900 B. C. We 
have epics that will always hold a prominent place in lit- 
erature, Virgil's Aeneid, Milton’s Paradise Lost, but 
neither these nor the many flights attempted into epic 
poetry before or since will be seriously considered as 
rivalling the rhapsodies of Homer. 
The first novel ever written, Cervantes’ Don Quijote, 
remains one of the greatest. 
The oldest dramatists, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sopho- 
cles, have never been surpassed. 
And so in every department of art, the earliest stage 
of development seems to be the very most perfect. Pyra- 
mid building was a pastime of the earliest Pharaos; the 
later did not attempt to rival these structures with any 
of their own. No finer jewelry can be produced to-day 
than the gold ornaments found in the oldest tombs of 
