THEOLOGY STOPS THE WAY. 33 



wrestles to embrace ; which is sometimes sympathy, 

 sometimes jealousy, sometimes hatred, sometimes love, 

 but which always causes the heart to flutter, and the 

 face to flush, and the mind to swell with the desire to 

 rival and surpass ; which is sometimes as the emu- 

 lative awe with which Michael Angelo surveyed the 

 Dome that yet gladdens the eyes of those who sit on 

 the height of fair Fiesole, or who wander afar off in 

 the silver Arno's vale ; which is sometimes as that 

 rapture of admiring wrath which incited the genius 

 of Byron when his great rival was pouring forth 

 masterpiece on masterpiece, with invention more 

 varied, though perhaps less lofty, and with fancy more 

 luxuriant even than his own. 



The creative period passed away, and the critical 

 age set in. Instead of working, the artists were con- 

 tent to talk. Their admiration was sterile, yet still 

 it was discerning. But the next period was lower 

 still. It was that of blind worship and indiscrimi- 

 nating awe. The past became sacred, and all that it 

 had produced, good and bad, was reverenced alike. 

 This kind of idolatry invariably springs up in that 

 interval of languor and reaction which succeeds an 

 epoch of production. In the mind-history of every 

 land there is a time when slavish imitation is incul- 

 cated as a duty, and novelty regarded as a crime. But 

 in Egypt the arts and sciences were entangled with 

 religion. The result will easily be guessed. Egypt 

 stood still, and Theology turned her into stone. 

 Conventionality was admired, then enforced. The 

 development of the mind was arrested : it was for- 

 bidden to do any new thing. 



In primitive times it is perhaps expedient that 

 rational knowledge should be united with religion, 

 o 



