594 RACE AND CIVILIZATION. 



the flamboyant architecture of France, we realize how innate is the 

 love of style, and how similar expressions will blossom out again from 

 the same people. Even later we see the hideous C-curves, which are 

 neither foliage nor geometry, to be identical on late Celtic bronze, on 

 Louis XV carving's, and even descending by imitation into modern furni- 

 ture. Such long descent of one style through great changes of history 

 is not only characteristic of Celtic art, but is seen equally in Italy. 

 The heavy, stiff, straight-haired, staring faces of the Constantine age 

 are generally looked on as being a mere degradation of the imported 

 Greek art; but they are really a native revival, returning to old Italian 

 ideals, so soon as Creek influence waned. In the Vatican is an infant 

 Hercules of thorough Constantinian type, yet bearing an Etruscan 

 inscription, proving the early date of such work. Farther East the 

 long persistent styles of Egypt, of Babylonia, of India, of China, which 

 outlived all changes of government and history, show the same vitality 

 of art. We must recognize, therefore, a principle of '-racial taste," 

 which belongs to each people as much as their language, which may be 

 borrowed like languages from one race by another, but which survives 

 changes and long eclipses even more than language. Such a means of 

 research deserves more systematic study than it has yet received. 



But if we are to make any wide comparisons and generalizations, a 

 free study of material is essential, and the means of amassing and 

 comparing work of every age is the first requisite. This first requisite 

 is unhappily not to be found in England. The conception of collecting 

 material for the study of man's history has as yet little root, and strug- 

 gles to find a footing between the rival conceptions of the history of 

 art and the life of modern man. The primary difficulty is the character 

 of the museum accommodation at present provided. This is all of an 

 elaborate and expensive nature, in palatial buildings and on highly 

 valued sites. To house the great mass of objects of either ancient or 

 modern peoples in such a costly manner is impracticable, and hence, at 

 present, nothing is preserved but what is beautiful, strange, or rare. 

 In short, our only subjects of study are the exceptional and not the 

 usual products of races. The evil traditions of a " collection of curiosi- 

 ties" still brood over our materials, and until we face the fact that for 

 study the common things are generally more important than the rare 

 ones, anthropology must remain much as chemistry would if we were 

 restricted to the study of pretty colors and sweet scents. 



Until we have an anthropological storehouse on a great scale we can 

 not hope to preserve those materials which are now continually being- 

 lost to study for lack of reasonable accommodation. Such a storehouse 

 should be on the cheapest ground near London, built in the simplest 

 weather-tight fashion, and capable of indefinite expansion without 

 rearrangement or alteration of existing parts. Tt should contain no 

 baits for burglars, all valuable objects being locked up in the security 

 of the British Museum, to which such a storehouse would form a 



