Page:A History of Art in Chaldæa & Assyria Vol 2.djvu/413

 CHAPTER V.. COMPARISON BETWEEN EGYPT AND CHALD/EA. In the ages that rolled away before the commencement of the period that we call antiquity, the eastern world saw the birth of three great civilizations ; the civilization of Egypt, the civilization of Chaldasa, and the civilization of China. All three are primitive in character. So far at least as we can judge, no other form of civilized life had preceded them in those countries ; the past had left no examples to guide them on their way. In the valleys of the Nile, the Euphrates, and the Yang-tse-kiang, three natural theatres in which all was prepared for the work to be performed upon their stages, man emerged from barbarism much sooner than he did in any other part of Asia or Africa ; he there formed organized societies whose beginnings are lost in so impenetrable a past that we have no little difficulty in deciding on which hearth the flame of civilized life was first kindled. Although these civilizations had each a physiognomy of its own, they had, nevertheless, more than one common feature. It would take too long to notice all the resemblances, but we may point out two by which the historian can hardly fail to be im- pressed as soon as the idea of making a comparison suggests itself to his mind. All three nations learnt to write, and to write in ideographic characters. These characters are by no means alike in Egypt, Chaldaea, and China. In each case they began by representing the thing whose idea they wished to convey, and with time they reduced and simplified the images thus created until they had a certain number of conventional forms. This work of simplification did not always proceed on the same lines. The direction it took and the final result were greatly affected by the materials