STIMULI TO IMITATION 243 



past generation fashion has changed the behaviour 

 of society by discouraging the use of alcoholic 

 drinks. It has accomplished what legislation 

 could hardly have attempted. 



In cases where innovations appeal to strong 

 elemental impulses, or to the feelings of pleasure 

 and pain, they may gain currency without the 

 assistance of reverence or sympathy. Such 

 institutions as polygamy and slavery need no 

 endorsement but such as is given by human 

 passion. We may believe that the use of intoxi- 

 cants spread very rapidly. Trade appeals to the 

 acquisitive impulse, and international commerce 

 is of more ancient date than is commonly sup- 

 posed. Twenty centuries before the commence- 

 ment of our era merchants were tracking their 

 way through the forests of Germany to bring 

 amber from the Baltic to the Mediterranean ; and 

 the traffic in Cornish tin dates from almost as 

 remote an antiquity. Indeed, the farther we 

 look back into history the more surprise do we 

 experience at finding that in days which we picture 

 as barbarous, there was peaceful communication 

 between lands that are separated by the breadth 

 of continents. In the spread of culture from one 

 nation to another, trade may have been less 

 effective than war, but may justly be compared 

 to it. If a people is richly endowed with aesthetic 

 impulses, artistic craftsmanship may develop with- 

 out artificial encouragement. During an epoch 

 which is incalculably remote the cave dwellers of 

 the Dordogne valley attained very remarkable 

 skill in sketching from life ; and long before Rome 

 or Athens were founded even before Europe had 

 learnt the use of iron there were centres of 

 handicraft manufacture in Germany and Scan- 

 dinavia, at which stone and bronze were fashioned 

 into arms and decorations with originality of 



