DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.73713#0016
12 THE WORKS OF
all the coafts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, but
always in that Bate of rusticity and barbarity in
which they remained until they were cultivated
by the Greeks.
Examining why the arts made not great pro-
gress among their first inventors, although it is so
easy to add to invention, I believe the cause has
been, that the ideas ofmen go always in following
progressions and of course if the beginning is bad,
the end ought to be very bad, so that the polite
arts among those nations who began ill ought
to be always worse in continuation; and as the
fruit of abad tree must fall before it comes to ma-
turity. To beginning ill might likewise contri-
bute the deformity of the people, their ignorance
of Beauty, and the disesteem which they had for
the Artists; who besides not being at liberty to
abstract themselves from the form of the Idols,
which the priestshad prescribed, contented them-
selves, as I have said, with the sole lignification of
athing, and when they wished to make any
thing particular they augumented the matter
and not the form, making extraordinary and
gigantic figures.
The Phoenicians on the other hand thought of
nothing but their commerce, for which reason it
was very natural that they ihould range their
artists in the class of Mechanics, who ferved in
a branch of their trafic,
When lastly the Greeks began to compose a
wise nation, and the Athenians particularly to
ssourish, andhad sufficient philosophy to give
the true value to works of genius, then the arts
all the coafts of Asia, Africa, and Europe, but
always in that Bate of rusticity and barbarity in
which they remained until they were cultivated
by the Greeks.
Examining why the arts made not great pro-
gress among their first inventors, although it is so
easy to add to invention, I believe the cause has
been, that the ideas ofmen go always in following
progressions and of course if the beginning is bad,
the end ought to be very bad, so that the polite
arts among those nations who began ill ought
to be always worse in continuation; and as the
fruit of abad tree must fall before it comes to ma-
turity. To beginning ill might likewise contri-
bute the deformity of the people, their ignorance
of Beauty, and the disesteem which they had for
the Artists; who besides not being at liberty to
abstract themselves from the form of the Idols,
which the priestshad prescribed, contented them-
selves, as I have said, with the sole lignification of
athing, and when they wished to make any
thing particular they augumented the matter
and not the form, making extraordinary and
gigantic figures.
The Phoenicians on the other hand thought of
nothing but their commerce, for which reason it
was very natural that they ihould range their
artists in the class of Mechanics, who ferved in
a branch of their trafic,
When lastly the Greeks began to compose a
wise nation, and the Athenians particularly to
ssourish, andhad sufficient philosophy to give
the true value to works of genius, then the arts