part from symmetry as well as from consistency. I call
attention here to the arrangement of the parts merely, not to the
motives employed, as I happen to have no examples of identical figures
from the two arts.

[Illustration: FIG. 485.--Geometric form, of textile ornament.]

[Illustration: FIG. 486.--Loss of geometric accuracy in painting.]

It will be seen by reference to the design given in Fig. 486, taken from
the upper surface of an ancient vase, that although the spirit of the
decoration is wonderfully well preserved the idea of the origin of all
the rays in the center of the vessel is not kept in view, and that by
carelessness in the drawing two of the rays are crowded out and
terminate against the side of a neighboring ray. In copying and
recopying by free-hand methods, many curious modifications take place in
these designs, as, for example, the unconformity which occurs in one
place in the example given may occur at a number of places, and there
will be a series of independent sections, a small number only of the
bands of devices remaining true rays.

[Illustration: FIG. 487.--Design painted upon pottery.]

A characteristic painted design from the interior of an ancient bowl is
shown in Fig. 487, in which merely a suggestion of the radiation is
preserved, although the figure is still decorative and tasteful. This
process of modification goes on without end, and as the true geometric
textile forms recede from view innovation robs the design of all traces
of its original character, producing much that is incongruous and
unsatisfactory.

The growth of decorative devices from the elementary to the highly
constituted and elegant is owing to a tendency of the human mind to
elaborate because it is pleasant to do so or because pleasure is taken
in the result, but there is still a directing and shaping agency to be
accounted for.

I have already shown that such figures as the scroll and the guilloche
are not _necessarily_ developed by processes of selection and
combination of simple elements, as many have thought, since they may
have come into art at a very early stage almost full-fledged; but there
is nothing in these facts to throw light upon the processes by which
ornament followed particular lines of development throughout endless
elaboration. In treating of this point, Prof. C.F. Hartt[2] maintained
that the development of ornamental designs took particular and uniform
directions owing to the structure of t