origin and history of the principal fine arts will make this evident.

Architecture is not only the most elementary of the fine arts, but it is also, so far as relics go, much the oldest. The only works of man in far distant ages that have been able to survive the ravages of time are the temples of the gods and the tombs of kings, their supposed ambassadors. The ruins of these first concrete expressions of the religious ideas and sentiments of the people are found in almost every part of the globe.

Some of the most important of these ruins are in the valley of the Nile. The solid limestone pyramids of Ghizeh are still among the most colossal works of man; that of Cheops covering an area of thirteen acres and reaching a height of four hundred and eighty feet. These royal shrines date as far back as 3500 B.C., and are in marked contrast with the abodes of the people, which were probably but one or two stories in height, and built of wood and sunburnt brick. The two great architectural caverns of surpassing magnificence at Ipsambul cut in the solid rock are the remains of temples, and so are the colossal ruins at Karnak. In Assyria, as in Egypt, the most ancient structures are temples, some of them dating back, according to our best scholars, much beyond 2000 B.C. The first great permanent structure in Jewish history was Solomon's temple, dating about 1000 B.C.

Although the beginnings of Greek architecture are veiled in obscurity, its most ancient ruins now extant are the temple at Corinth, erected about 650 B. C., and the temple at Selinus, in Sicily, of the same period. The great classic models of architecture of to-day are the temples of Zeus at Olympia and of Athene on the Acropolis, to say nothing of the Parthenon and others

of lesser note scattered here and there over Greece. The Romans were not an original people. In their early history they followed the Etruscans, to whom they owe the arch and vault. Later, Greek artists took possession of the field, and the Pantheon of Agrippa is the noblest of their works.

The oldest remains of the fine arts in China and India are temples and pagodas. In the new world the oldest as well as the best specimens of native art are the architectural ruins among the Mayas of Central America. Of these Dr. Brinton, probably the highest authority on such matters, does not hesitate to say that "there is no doubt but that the destination of most of these structures was for religious or ceremonial purposes, and not as dwellings."

When the early Christians were permitted to erect suitable places of worship for themselves, a new architecture, based upon the basilica, sprang into being. It is known as the Byzantine architecture, and it reached its culmination about the middle of the sixth century in the church at Constantinople dedicated by Justinian to the Divine Wisdom, now miscalled St. Sophia. This is "by many considered to be internally the most beautiful church ever erected" (A. D. F. Hamlin). The famous St. Mark's Cathedral at Venice, modelled after the Church of the Apostles at Constantinople long ago demolished by the Mohammedans, is another brilliant example of the Byzantine style.

As Christianity spread through western and northern Europe, another form of architecture was developed to meet its growing needs. Though varying in details according to locality, it is marked by certain common characteristics to which the name of romanesque is now applied. The Lombard churches of northern

Italy, the magnificent abbeys of the Rhenish provinces, and the cathedrals at Durham, Peterborough, and St. Albans, in England, are among the best products of this style.

Later, when enthusiasm for a still worthier expression of the religious sentiments of the age made its appearance, romanesque architecture was developed into the gothic. The thirteenth and fourteenth centuries became the cathedral era par éminence. For nothing like it has ever been seen in history, or is likely to be. The works of this period still remain the masterpieces of modern architecture,—such as the cathedrals of Amiens, of Rouen, of Rheims in France; of Milan and Assisi in Italy; of Toledo and Seville in Spain; of Strassburg and Cologne in Germany; and of Lincoln and Salisbury in England.

The gothic cathedral in its infinite diversity of details was a miniature representation of the heaven of the medieval imagination. Even hobgoblins, vampires, and other denizens of the lower world were pressed into service as waterspouts to show that devils also must contribute, however unwillingly, to the glory of the Most High. Many persons competent to have an opinion upon the subject would fully agree with Comte, a great opponent of Christianity, when he says: "The ideas and feelings of man's moral nature have never found so perfect expression in form as they found in the noble cathedrals of catholicism." The highest specimens of architecture in our own day in all lands are not theatres, or public halls, or private dwellings, but temples and churches, and it would certainly be a mark of great degeneration if such should cease to be the case in the future.

When we turn to sculpture, we find that it originated

in the same way as architecture, and has had a similar history. Its first office was to embellish and adorn the abodes of the gods. The earliest sculpture known to history is perhaps that found in the ancient temples and shrines of Egypt, and the clumsy massive strength that characterizes it is derived from the sombre stolidity of the religion that it attempts to represent. Assyrian and Babylonish sculpture has similar characteristics and for the same reason. It is formal, conventional, and symbolic, lacking in subtlety and progressive development.

But the Greeks had a decidedly different conception of their deities, and this accounts for the fact that their sculpture took on such varied and elastic forms. They thought of their gods as social beings like themselves, and lived on familiar terms with them. Everywhere before their time the gods were largely the product of superstitious fears, and the source of a multitude of malign influences that must be evaded or doggedly endured. To the Greeks these superhuman beings are most enjoyable personalities, having all the powers and attractions imaginable to man. Hence their ideals of them were their highest poetic creations, and they freely endeavored to depict them with all possible skill and grace. As another expresses it, The freedom of Homer in poetry became the freedom of Phidias in sculpture."

A Greek statue was not an idol to be valued simply for its sanctity, but a real work of art to be admired for its inherent beauty. This is why the Greeks went so imperceptibly from the divine to the human, from the gods of Olympia to the victors of the Isthmian games. They understood and felt the beautiful so keenly that wherever they found it, whether in gods, or

men, or even animals, they identified it with the divine.

Nor were they so sensuous in their sculpture as those that came after them, or so fond of the nude as is commonly supposed. To them Venus was not a symbol of voluptuousness, but the combined expression of wisdom and love. Careful students tell us that among them "fifty works in drapery were found for every nude statue." After two thousand years they still remain unrivalled for such marvellous representations of their gods and goddesses as the Zeus and Pallas by Phidias, the Venus de Medici, probably copied from Praxiteles, the Niobe group by Scopas, the Farnese Bull and the Torso of Hercules by Apollonius, not to mention such masterpieces as the Venus de Milo and the Apollo Belvedere.

The Romans, because they conceived of their gods less vividly and felt their influence less keenly, failed for the most part as sculptors, and were chiefly dependent upon the Greeks. Occasionally an Emperor like Hadrian appeared who had a genuine appreciation of sculpture, and did what he could to cultivate it; but every effort was powerless to stay its general decline, and by the time of Constantine it had lost its former glory.

Then for a thousand years, although Christianity had gained control of the civilization and power of the world, sculpture remained quiescent, because the religion of that period opposed everything that pertained to the ancients, and made such a distinction between the divine and the human that all art of every kind was robbed of its nobleness and power. Only scenes of suffering, of ascetic privation, of voluntary torture, were regarded as proper objects of religious contemplation.