SECT. III.] KNOWLEDGE AND ART. 377 



honesty, as they believe they fulfil every duty by their prayers 

 and ceremonies (Burckhardt) . l 



Art usually attaches itself to religion, by supplying the re- 

 quisites of worship sensibly to represent the religious ideas. 

 The creations of plastic art and poetry frequently give a type 

 to religious notions. This applies both to the forms of indi- 

 vidual gods and to the traditions attached to them. It 

 is in this way that gradually a series of less varied mytho- 

 logical persons and legends issue from the original mass 

 of superstition. At the same time, the first attempts at 

 plastic delineations, as we find among rude nations, are used 

 as communications of remarkable events, to which is allied 

 the development of picture writing. Despite these import- 

 ant contributions of art to the progress of culture, we do 

 not consider them as the chief causes which determine civiliza- 

 tion as a whole. However great the influence of the arts may 

 be on the forms of life which a high civilization presents, 

 they must, in the inferior stages of development, be rather 

 considered as the products than as the springs of culture, and 

 are hardly capable of effecting the elevation of a people ; be- 

 cause the really beautiful can neither be produced nor enjoyed 

 by rude nations, and since the formation of taste becomes only 

 important for the masses in proportion as the sense for the 

 beautiful is already developed. 



On the other hand, the progress of knowledge must be 

 considered as the second principal cause to which civiliza- 

 tion owes its development and duration. Its effects in this 

 direction are so great that it cannot possibly be over-esti- 

 mated ; for knowledge penetrates all the ramifications of life 

 and makes them dependent on itself, so that the intellectual 

 development of a people is the standard of its civilization. 



To what a degree the material welfare of a people depends 

 on its intellectual development lies on the surface. Surrounded 

 by abundance and favoured by nature, we see many peoples 



1 Among those authors who have by experience acquired a knowledge of 

 life in Mohammedan countries, D'Escayrac may be mentioned as an eloquent 

 eulogist of the Mohammedan religion (" Die Afr. Wueste und das Land der 

 Schwarzen"). An impartial review of the lights and shadows of Islamism 

 will be found ill " Zeitschrift f. d. Kunde des Morgenlandes," iii, p. 352. 



