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2 The Grecian Orders

been produced in a rude and defective state, and have in process of time, little by little received fromthe skill and industry of others, such additions and improvements as were necessary to give themall the perfection of which they are capable.

On the other hand it has not unfrequently happened that the arts instead of making any due ad-vancement, even lose the advantages which only a long series of years, and the unremitted assiduityof true genius could obtain, for during an age of turbulence and distress no attention is bestowedon them, abuses creep unnoticed into the practice, and with the decline and ruin of empire, thearts themselves decay and perissi : neither is this the only misfortune to which they are exposed, forsuch is the weakness of human nature, that in less calamitous times than those we have supposed,the imagination may be vitiated, all found judgment perverted, and our pursuits led out of theirproper track by the presumption of the ignorant, the plausive arguments of false reasoners, or thatpropensity with which the inconsiderate are determined to follow the ungovernable and unrestrainedcareer of a fancy animated with the rage of novelty, though fertile only in trifles and absurdities.

Such vicissitudes have happened to the art of which we are about to treat, as will appear from aview of what will be briefly offered on this subject.

The origin of Art is the lame in all nations that have cultivated it; and it is without foundationthat the honour thereof be ascribed to one particular country preferably to all others ; in all placesnecessity has proved to be the mother of invention, and every (a) people had in themselves the feedsof contrivance in their various wants. The inventions of art were only more or less ancient as thenations themselves were so, and as the adoration of the gods was introduced amongst themsooner or later: The Chaldeans and Egyptians, for example, had made much earlier than the Greeks,idols and other external forms of these imaginary beings, in order to worship them. It is the fame ofthis as of other arts and inventions : the purple dye, not to speak of others, was known and prac-tised in the east, long before the Greeks were acquainted with that secret. What is mentioned inholy writ, about carved or molten images, is likewise far more ancient than what we know ofGreece. The carved images in wood of the first ages, and those of cast metal of later times,have different names in the Hebrew tongue.

They, who to judge of the origin of a custom or of an art, and of it’s passage from one people toanother, adhere to the mere contemplation of any detached fragments which may offer certain ap-pearances of likeness ; and thus from some particular equivocal forms draw their conclusions aboutthe generality of an art, are grossly deceived. In this manner Dionysius of Halicarnaffus was inthe wrong to pretend, that the art of wrestling among the Romans was derived from the Greeks,because the drapery or scarf worn by the Roman wrestlers round their bodies, resembled that wornby the wrestlers of Greece. Art flourished in Egypt from the earliest account of time; the grea-test obelisks now at Rome are due to the Egyptians, and are dated as far back as the time of Sesostris,who lived near CCCC years before the Trojan war; they were the works of that king, and thecity of Thebes was adorned with the most magnificent buildings, while art was yet unborn inGreece.

(a) Apud cæteras quoque gentes & nonnulla Ioca, pari similique rations, casarum pcrficiuntur constitutiones. Non minusetiam Masliliæ animadvertere possumus sine tegulis subacta cum paleis terra tecta. Athenis Areopagi antiquitatis exemplar adhoc tempus luto tectum. Item in Capitolio commonefacere potest & significare mores vetustatis Romuli case in arcs secrorum,ftramentis tecta. Ita his signis, de antiquis inventionibus ædificiorum,sic ea fuisse ratiocinantes, possumus judicare. Cum autemquotidie fociendo tritiores manus ad ædificandum perfecissent, & soiertia ingenia exercerklo per consuetudinem ad artes pervenissent,turn etiam industria in animis eorum adjecta perfecit, ut qui fuerunt in his studiosiores, sebros esse fe profiterentur. Cum ergoita fuerint primo constituta, & natura non solum fen sib us ornaviffet gentes, qjuemadmodum reliquaanimalia:fedetiamcogita-tionibus & consiliis armavisset mentes, & subjecisset cætera animaliasub potestate, tune vero e fabricationibus ædificiorum gra-datim progress ad cæteras artes & disciplinas, e sera agrestique vita ad mansuetam perduxerunt humanitatem. Turn autem &instruentes animose, & prospicientes, majoribus cogitationibus ex varietate artium natis, non cases fed etiam domos fundatasex lateririis parietibus, aut e lapide structas, materiaque & tegula tectas perficere cæperunt; deinde obfervationibus studiorumevagantibus judieiis, ex incertis ad certas fymmetriarum rationes perduxerunt: postea quam animadverterunt, profufos esse partusab natura materiæ, & abUndantem copiam ad ædificationes ab ea comparatam, tractando nutciverunt, & auctam per artes or-naverunt voluptatibus ad elegantiam vitæ. Vitr. lib. II. c. x.

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