g the art and upon the resources of the country in which
they live. To illustrate: If, for instance, some of the highly advanced
Alaskan tribes which do not make pottery should migrate to another
habitat, less suitable to the practice of their old arts and well
adapted to art in clay, and should there acquire the art of pottery,
they would doubtless, to a great extent, copy their highly developed
utensils of wood, bone, ivory, and basketry, and thus reach a high grade
of ceramic achievement in the first century of the practice of the art;
but, on the other hand, if certain tribes, very low in intelligence and
having no vessel-making arts, should undergo a corresponding change of
habitat and acquire the art of pottery, they might not reach in a
thousand years, if left to themselves, a grade in the art equal to that
of the hypothetical Alaskan potters in the first decade. It is,
therefore, not the age of the art itself that determines its forms, but
the grade and kind of art with which it originates and coexists.

_Ornament_ is subject to similar laws. Where pottery is employed by
peoples in very low stages of culture, its ornamentation will be of the
simple archaic kind. Being a conservative art and much hampered by the
restraints of convention, the elementary forms of ornament are carried a
long way into the succeeding periods and have a very decided effect upon
the higher stages. Pottery brought into use for the first time by more
advanced races will never pass through the elementary stage of
decoration, but will take its ornament greatly from existing art and
carry this up in its own peculiar way through succeeding generations.
The character of the ornamentation does not therefore depend upon the
age of the art so much as upon the acquirements of the potter and his
people in other arts.

ORIGIN OF FORM

In order to convey a clear idea of the bearing of the preceding
statements upon the history of form and ornament, it will be necessary
to present a number of points in greater detail.

The following synopsis will give a connected view of various possible
origins of form.

/ By adventition.
Origin of form--| By imitation--------/ Of natural models.
\ By invention. \ Of artificial models

+FORMS SUGGESTED BY ADVENTITION.+

The suggestions of accident, especially in the early stages of art, are
often adopted, and become fruitful sources of improvement and progress.