48 EVOLUTIONARY PRINCIPLES 



on Europe for well-nigh two centuries until, indeed, fresh 

 energies arose, which are conducting us, we hope, to some new 

 avatar of art upon a different basis. 



VIII 



It is hardly necessary to adduce further illustrations from 

 the wide fields of ordinary culture. Everyone can set to 

 himself the problem of deciding how far Greek architecture, 

 Italian Romantic poetry, Mediaeval painted glass, Italian 

 sculpture, the saga of the Niblungs, the chivalrous epic 

 centring in Arthur, and many other distinct species which 

 might be mentioned, do or do not corroborate the views I 

 have maintained. 



It might be objected that nothing is gained in clearness 

 of insight and precision of method by thus treating criticism 

 from an evolutionary point of view, while dangerous analogies 

 are suggested when we fall into the habit of regarding pro- 

 ducts of the human mind as subordinate to the same laws 

 of development as living organisms. You prove nothing, it 

 may be urged, by dwelling upon the stages in Greek sculp- 

 ture, beyond the old familiar truth, that this art was closely 

 connected with the religious and spiritual life of the Greek 

 race. Its emasculation after the age of Pheidias was due to 

 the relaxation of the national temper; its realistic leanings 

 at a later period are explained by the fact that tyrants 

 instead of free states then became the patrons of art. I 

 answer, that no one is more convinced than I am of the 

 intimate connection between all art and the spirit of the race 

 which has produced it, but that this does not invalidate the 

 conclusions at which I have arrived. A type of art, once 

 started, must, according to my view, fulfil itself, and bring to 

 light the structure which its germ contained potentially. As 

 this structure is progressively evolved, it becomes impossible 

 to return upon the past. No individual man of genius in the 

 age of Scopas could produce work of Pheidian quality, albeit 

 his brain throbbed with the pulse of Marathonian patriotism. 

 Originality has to be displayed by eliciting what is still left 



