300 



AN ANALYSIS OF THE 



belief that the orig-hi of the dragon is to be found in the remnants of the paleozoic world 

 "where," in the language of Thackaray, "mighty monsters floundered through the 

 ooze — and dragons darted out of the caves and waters before man was made to slay 

 them."'^'' Mr. Waterhouse Hawkins, the well-known scientific artist, entertains the be- 

 lief that the dragon is a reminiscence of an extinct reptilian shape, noticeably the 

 Pterodactylian type. We cannot agree with him in such a conclusion. The foi'm oi 

 the dragon is not a fixed one, and its varieties can better be accounted for by reference 

 to familiar models than in seeking figures among such absolute novelties. Amid all 

 the combinations making the dragon, the idea is cramped and limited. He is a mere 

 piece of of patch- work — a monster by addition — each portion, when dissected, turns 

 out to be an old accpiaiutance — here a bird-foot, there an owl's head, or a serpent's tail. 

 Indeed who could expect man to have reconstructed to such suggestive forms the im- 

 pression of a Pterodactyl, possibly received from a fossil ! Surely after the blunder of a 

 Leibnitz, we may well declare the average man of the Middle Ages, if not of an earlier 

 time, disqualified to testify on such a topic. To say that by coincidence man may 

 have invented a " fabulous creature" like unto those that have lived in the past, is to 

 make an assertion which cannot be supported. Man has never invented a single artistic 

 figure. He has analj^zed and infinitely re-arranged the integers of organic form, 

 but he has never in all his vagaries or in his groupings after truth struck out a new 

 form. • 



*Prof. E. D. Cope (Synop. of the Batracli. and Eeptilia of N. A. Trans. Philo, Soc, Phils., 1870, 182) remarks 

 that the "restored figure of Mosasaurus is not badly represented by old Pont oppidan's figxire of his sea-serpent, and that 

 in this group of reptiles wo almost realize the fictions of snake-like dragons an 1 ser.-serpents in which men have been 

 ever prone to indulge." 



Fig. 25. 



