DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.29898#0088
52
HISTOEY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Rart II.
PART II.
I.—ETHNOGRAPHY AS APPLIED TO ARCHITECTURAL
ART.
Ethnology, though one of the youngest, is perhaps neither the least
beautiful nor the least attractive of that fair sisterhood of sciences
whose birth has rewarded the patient industry and inflexible love of
truth which characterises the philosophy of the present day. It takes
up the history of the world at the point where it is left by its elder
sister Geology, and, following the same line of argument, strives to
reduce to the same scientific- mode of expression the apparent chaos of
facts which have hitherto been looked upon as inexplicable by the
general observer.
It is only within the limits of the present century that Geology
was rescued from the dreams of cataclysms and convulsions which
formed the staple of the science in the last century ; and that step by
step, by slow degrees, rocks have been classified and phenomena
explained. All that picturesque wildness with which the materials
seemed at first sight to be distributed over the world’s surface has been
reduced to order, and they now lie arranged as clearly and as certainly
in the mind of a geologist, as if they had been squared by the tool of
a mason and placed in order by the hand of a mechanic. So it is with
Ethnology. Race has succeeded race ;—all have been disturbed, some
obliterated—many contorted—and sometimes the older, apparently,
superimposed upon the newer. All at first sight is chaos and confusion,
and it seems almost hopeless to attempt to unravel the mysteries of
the long-forgotten past. It is true nevertheless, in Ethnology, as in the
sister science, that no change on the world’s surface has taken place
without leaving its mark. A race may be obliterated, or only crop up
at the edge of some great basin of population; but it has left its traces
either as fossil remains in the shape of buildings or works, or as im-
pressions on language or on the arts of those who supplanted the
perishing race. When these are read,—when all the phenomena are
gathered together and classified, we find the same perfection of Order,
the same beautiful simplicity of law pervading the same complex
Arariery of results, which characterise all the phenomena of nature, and
the knowledge of which is the hmhest reward of intellectual exertion.
Language has hitherto been the great implement of analysis which
HISTOEY OF ARCHITECTURE.
Rart II.
PART II.
I.—ETHNOGRAPHY AS APPLIED TO ARCHITECTURAL
ART.
Ethnology, though one of the youngest, is perhaps neither the least
beautiful nor the least attractive of that fair sisterhood of sciences
whose birth has rewarded the patient industry and inflexible love of
truth which characterises the philosophy of the present day. It takes
up the history of the world at the point where it is left by its elder
sister Geology, and, following the same line of argument, strives to
reduce to the same scientific- mode of expression the apparent chaos of
facts which have hitherto been looked upon as inexplicable by the
general observer.
It is only within the limits of the present century that Geology
was rescued from the dreams of cataclysms and convulsions which
formed the staple of the science in the last century ; and that step by
step, by slow degrees, rocks have been classified and phenomena
explained. All that picturesque wildness with which the materials
seemed at first sight to be distributed over the world’s surface has been
reduced to order, and they now lie arranged as clearly and as certainly
in the mind of a geologist, as if they had been squared by the tool of
a mason and placed in order by the hand of a mechanic. So it is with
Ethnology. Race has succeeded race ;—all have been disturbed, some
obliterated—many contorted—and sometimes the older, apparently,
superimposed upon the newer. All at first sight is chaos and confusion,
and it seems almost hopeless to attempt to unravel the mysteries of
the long-forgotten past. It is true nevertheless, in Ethnology, as in the
sister science, that no change on the world’s surface has taken place
without leaving its mark. A race may be obliterated, or only crop up
at the edge of some great basin of population; but it has left its traces
either as fossil remains in the shape of buildings or works, or as im-
pressions on language or on the arts of those who supplanted the
perishing race. When these are read,—when all the phenomena are
gathered together and classified, we find the same perfection of Order,
the same beautiful simplicity of law pervading the same complex
Arariery of results, which characterise all the phenomena of nature, and
the knowledge of which is the hmhest reward of intellectual exertion.
Language has hitherto been the great implement of analysis which