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AN ANALYSIS OF THE 



The final forms resulting from a series of variants starting with the primals we 

 term ultimates. By divergence of vaidants from the primal stock (one to the letter 

 type, and the other to the realistic) we must have to every primal two ultimate forms. 



By a radical is meant that figure which preserves the essential lines of a natural 

 series of variants. It is best seen in forms leading to an ideographic system. The difii- 

 culty of distinguishing a primal from the equally naked and unsuggestive letter-ulti- 

 mate is apparent, and without aid from another source is often impossible. 



Radicals will necessarily vary according to the method of execution. The parts 

 Avhich are produced with the greatest ease ai'e naturally those which persist in the 

 jjrocess of reducing a complex form to its simplest expression. In drawing, stress will 

 be laid on the lines ; in moulding, the lines will be subordinated to the general figure, 

 as shaped by the figures. The picture radicals will thus difier from fictile radicals, as 

 also will architectural and numismatic radicals. ISTeither should it be forgotten that 

 to the females of many tribes has the work been allotted of ornamenting the pottery^ 

 and other articles, while the recording of exploits, etc., has been reserved to the males. 



In presenting a number of variants from a few types of life we propose the follow- 

 ing method : 



A radical will be taken, which has been developed thi ough many variations from, 

 a primal form. The time required to have accomplished this is, in every instance, 

 unknown. We must assume from what we see in the art of savages that in figure-mak- 

 ing, as in everything else of man's creation, there has been an ever-active though gradual 

 process of evolution at work ; and that in the primals of an art series this has but 

 begun. JSTeither can we form any idea from contemplating the ultimate expressions 

 of forms belonging to old and cultured races what their crude primals may have been. 

 Such imperfections of the art-record compel us to take the radical as it is presented 

 and trace from this the most pj'obable ultimate rather than to take the ultimate and 

 trace it back to its radical. 



Let us accept A to be a primal, and B an ultimate, and C a radical. We cannot 



B 



A 



conceive the Egyptian lion at B, to have sprung at once into a realistic ultimate, 

 but rather that it has been evolved from the unknown primal at A. And we infer 

 that C is a letter-type abridgment of B, a descent from the completeness of the 



