LEROY C. COOLEY. 21 



by a period of unmeasured length. Now, we find that 

 the most ancient legends are simply the stories of still 

 more ancient heroes, whose exploits were performed in 

 the service of organized communities ; and that many 

 of those earliest poems are hymns which constituted a 

 part of a religious ritual. 



Greek literature begins with Homer. But before this 

 beginning of what is distinctly recognized as literature, 

 the political condition of those almost prehistoric peo- 

 ples had ripened into an elementary form of organization, 

 and their religious customs into a state requiring a dis- 

 tinct religious ritual. It would therefore appear that 

 the very earliest of Greek attempts toward literature 

 were the offspring of a somewhat highly developed social 

 condition of the ancient Helenes. 



The histories of other ancient literatures, if we had 

 time to trace them, would lead us to the same conclusion 

 in regard to other peoples. 



And, then, as to the fine arts — we speak of that group 

 of them which includes architecture, sculpture and 

 painting, — we find that the very early specimens, such as 

 are to be seen in Egyptian temples, Assyrian palaces, 

 and Etruscan tombs, bear witness to the already ad- 

 vanced social development of the people who produced 

 them . 



But, clearest of all, is the illustration furnished by 

 physical science. 



Science is not prehistoric to the same degree that 

 literature and art are. And the records show more 

 clearly that its beginnings were never made, except by 

 races which had already long passed the primitive stages 

 of political and social life. 



Take astronomy, for example ; for beyond a doubt 

 astronomy covers the most ancient observations. History 

 hesitates whether to assign its origin to the Chinese, to 

 the Chaldeans, or to the Egyptians ; but it does not hesi- 



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