e advanced scale than is actually shown by the
bone-scratchings; the only other relic of his handiwork is the
needle.[74]

It is evident that a direct imitation of nature, such as is seen in
these "graffiti," and at an immense distance in advance of them, in
the earliest known Egyptian sculptures, preceded all conventional art.
Some of the earliest portrait statues in the Museum at Boulac exhibit
a high degree of naturalistic design before it became subservient to
the expression of the faith of the people. As soon as art was found to
be the fittest conveyance of symbolism, it became the consecrated
medium for transmitting language, thought, and history, and was
reduced to forms in which it was contented to remain petrified for
many centuries, entirely foregoing the study or imitation of
nature.[75] It recorded customs, historical events, and religious
beliefs; receiving from the last the impress of the unchangeable and
the absolute, which it gave to the other subjects on which it touched.
It ceased to be a creative art (if it had ever aspired to such a
function), and was never the embodiment of individual thought. This
phase prevailed under different manifestations in Assyria and China.
Pictorial art had, in fact, become merely the nursing mother of the
alphabet, guiding its first steps--the hieroglyphic delineation or
expression of thoughts and facts.[76]

In Egypt, the change from the first period of actual imitation of
nature was succeeded by many centuries of the very slowest progress.
Renouf speaks,[77] however, of "the astonishing identity that is
visible through all the periods of Egyptian art" (for you could never
mistake anything Egyptian for the produce of any other country). "This
identity and slow movement," he says, "are not inconsistent with an
immense amount of change, which must exist if there is any real life."
In fact, there were periods of relative progress, repose, and decay,
and every age had its peculiar character. Birch, Lepsius, or Marriette
could at once tell you the age of a statue, inscription, or
manuscript, by the characteristic signs which actually fix[78] the
date.

Design, unconsciously has a slowly altering and persistently onward
movement, which but seldom repeats itself. It is one of the most
remarkable instances of evolution. But it also has its cataclysms
(however we may account for them), of which the Greek apotheosis of
all art is a shining example, and the total disappearance