DOI article:
Essay I: The provice, aim, and methos of the stuy of classical archaeology
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11444#0050
30
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[1-
sponding passages, or with which no such passages have as yet
been identified. The museums all over Europe are full of such
works, and excavations that are being carried on, continually
yield new treasures. And if we compare this mass of un-
identified material, which the earnest student cannot, with due
regard for scientific morality, ignore, with the comparative
scantiness of firmly systematised information, we cannot help
feeling how much work remains to be done in this direction,
and even that the working power of archaeologists up to this
moment has not been properly expended and distributed, and
that there must be something radically wrong in their method
of research. And so it is. As has been stated, partly as a
result of the history of the study itself, most archaeologists, up
to the present day, have been too strongly influenced by the
philological spirit. The primary impulse was almost always
given by the literature and not by the monuments, and so not
only did their eyes fail to receive the training which would
enable them readily to perceive likeness, and settle similarity
and difference in the character of works, but they have, more
than that, lost even their original naivete through being pre-
judiced by what passages led them to see. The result is that
observation has not been made systematic and that whenever
they do profess to use their eyes, their statements carry no
sufficient weight. Though the archaeologist is bound to make
use of his literary evidence, his chief task for the future must
be to study the actual form and nature of the existing
monuments, adopting the methods of observation which the
natural sciences have long since supplied. Palpable and mani-
fest as the advantage and urgency of this course must appear to
all who have the faintest idea of the nature of the archaeological
material, it is still far from being recognised by the great mass
of scholars. An inaccurate passage from any miserable scholiast
of the 12th century who happened to write Greek, has more
convincing power over the word-enslaved minds of many modern
scholars than the life-long careful comparative study of form in
the things themselves. The same struggle is noticeable in many
branches of research which are connected with literature. Yet
if this method of the comparative study of form has been so
fruitful when applied to plants, animals and man, how much
ESSAYS ON THE ART OF PHEIDIAS.
[1-
sponding passages, or with which no such passages have as yet
been identified. The museums all over Europe are full of such
works, and excavations that are being carried on, continually
yield new treasures. And if we compare this mass of un-
identified material, which the earnest student cannot, with due
regard for scientific morality, ignore, with the comparative
scantiness of firmly systematised information, we cannot help
feeling how much work remains to be done in this direction,
and even that the working power of archaeologists up to this
moment has not been properly expended and distributed, and
that there must be something radically wrong in their method
of research. And so it is. As has been stated, partly as a
result of the history of the study itself, most archaeologists, up
to the present day, have been too strongly influenced by the
philological spirit. The primary impulse was almost always
given by the literature and not by the monuments, and so not
only did their eyes fail to receive the training which would
enable them readily to perceive likeness, and settle similarity
and difference in the character of works, but they have, more
than that, lost even their original naivete through being pre-
judiced by what passages led them to see. The result is that
observation has not been made systematic and that whenever
they do profess to use their eyes, their statements carry no
sufficient weight. Though the archaeologist is bound to make
use of his literary evidence, his chief task for the future must
be to study the actual form and nature of the existing
monuments, adopting the methods of observation which the
natural sciences have long since supplied. Palpable and mani-
fest as the advantage and urgency of this course must appear to
all who have the faintest idea of the nature of the archaeological
material, it is still far from being recognised by the great mass
of scholars. An inaccurate passage from any miserable scholiast
of the 12th century who happened to write Greek, has more
convincing power over the word-enslaved minds of many modern
scholars than the life-long careful comparative study of form in
the things themselves. The same struggle is noticeable in many
branches of research which are connected with literature. Yet
if this method of the comparative study of form has been so
fruitful when applied to plants, animals and man, how much