Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 42.djvu/762

 740 is like the original, but not in all respects, even from an exterior and visual point of view, the same as the original.

It remains now to show that the grouping offered here observes the genetic principle, and arranges the fine arts in the order of their natural sequence and evolution. Véron denies that this is possible, but this conclusion can not be maintained. It is true that we have not in our possession the earliest products of art, so as to be able to prove that any order which we may assign is the actual order of development, but we have the means of showing that the order we have indicated is highly natural and probable. As regards the two main divisions, it is clear that the arts of movement would precede the arts of form, for the arts of movement—dancing, music, and poetry—may all be practiced by man without external aids or instruments of any kind, while this is impossible for the arts of form, architecture, sculpture, and painting. We might also cite, in confirmation of this view, the facts derived from the comparative study of man, which show that the arts of movement are practiced among peoples who have no arts of form, or possess these in a less perfect state of advancement than those of the first group. As regards the particular arts embraced in the general scheme, the dance seems to be the most primitive of all, because it is a simple rhythm of the bodily movements, which requires nothing else than free limbs and a tendency to bring unused muscles into exercise. The rhythm of bodily motion is naturally accompanied by vocal rhythm, which is rudimentary music, and when to this articulate words are added, poetry has begun, although in a very elementary way. As soon as the place where the dance is held begins to be decorated, the building art blossoms into a primitive architecture. When masks are used to represent deities or absent men, or representative figures of these are set up as objects of worship or reverence in the dance, sculpture has its beginning. When such effigies are imitated on a flat surface, by applying the pigments first used upon the bodies of the dancers and then on the graven images, painting as a fine art has its humble origin. Thus, we perceive, there is a natural sequence in the advent of the several arts.

It is idle to speculate upon the question as to when the fine arts had their origin. As Véron says: "Art came before thought itself. Before he ever attempted to understand or explain the conditions of the world in which he lived, man, open to pleasure through his eyes and ears, sought in combinations of forms, sounds, movements, shadow, and light, for certain special enjoyments. Traces of these early aspirations are extant in the recently discovered works of a time when his intellectual activity must have been confined within a very narrow scope. . . . When as yet he possessed neither laws nor social institutions, even then he had