THE ARTS OF THE ANCIENTS
From "Speeches and Lectures," with the permission of Lothrop, Lee and
Shepard, Boston, publishers.
BY WENDELL PHILLIPS
We have a pitying estimate, a tender compassion, for the narrowness, ignorance, and darkness of the bygone ages. We seem to ourselves not only to monopolize, but to have begun, the era of light. In other words, we are all running over with a fourth-day-of-July spirit of self-content. I am often reminded of the German whom the English poet Coleridge met at Frankfort. He always took off his hat with profound respect when he ventured to speak of himself. It seems to me, the American people might be painted in the chronic attitude of taking off its hat to itself.
Considering their employment of the mechanical forces, and their movement of large masses from the earth, we know that the Egyptians had the five, seven, or three mechanical powers; but we cannot account for the multiplication and increase necessary to perform the wonders they accomplished.
There is a book telling how Domenico Fontana of the sixteenth century set up the Egyptian obelisk at Rome on end, in the Papacy of Sixtus V. Wonderful! Yet the Egyptians quarried that stone, and carried it a hundred and fifty miles, and the Romans brought it seven hundred and fifty miles, and never said a word about it.
Take canals. The Suez canal absorbs half its receipts in cleaning out the sand which fills it continually, and it is not yet known whether it is a pecuniary success. The ancients built a canal at right angles to ours; because they knew it would not fill up if built in that direction, and they knew such a one as ours would. There were magnificent canals in the land of the Jews, with perfectly arranged gates and sluices. We have only just begun to understand ventilation properly for our houses; yet late experiments at the Pyramids in Egypt show that those Egyptian tombs were ventilated in the most perfect and scientific manner.
Again, cement is modern, for the ancients dressed and joined their stones so closely, that, in buildings thousands of years old the thin blade of a penknife cannot be forced between them. The railroad dates back to Egypt. Arago has claimed that they had a knowledge of steam. A painting has been discovered of a ship full of machinery, and a could only be accounted for by supposing the motive power to have been steam. Bramah acknowledges that he took the idea of his celebrated lock from an ancient Egyptian pattern. De Tocqueville says that there was no social question that was not discussed to rags in Egypt.
"Well," say you, "Franklin invented the lightning rod." I have no doubt he did; but years before his invention, and before muskets were invented, the old soldiers on guard on the towers used Franklin's invention to keep guard with; and if a spark passed between them and the spearhead, they ran and bore the warning of the state and condition of affairs. After that you will admit that Benjamin Franklin was not the only one that knew of the presence of electricity, and the advantages derived from its use. Solomon's Temple you will find was situated on an exposed point of the hill: the temple was so lofty that it was often in peril, and was guarded by a system exactly like that of Benjamin Franklin.
Well, I may tell you a little of ancient manufactures. The Duchess of Burgundy took a necklace from the neck of a mummy, and wore it to a ball given at the Tuileries; and everybody said they thought it was the newest thing there. A Hindoo princess came into court; and her father, seeing her, said, "Go home, you are not decently covered,—go home;" and she said, "Father, I have seven suits on;" but the suits were of muslin so thin that the king could see through them, A Roman poet says, "the girl was in the poetic dress of the country." I fancy the French would be rather astonished at this. Four hundred and fifty years ago the first spinning machine was introduced into Europe. I have evidence to show that it made its first appearance two thousand years before.
Why have I groped among these ashes? I have told you these facts to show you that we have not invented everything—that we do not monopolize the encyclopedia. The past had knowledge. But it was the knowledge of the classes, not of the masses. "The beauty that was Greece and the grandeur that was Rome" were exclusive, the possession of the few. The science of Egypt was amazing; but it meant privilege— the privilege of the king and the priest. It separated royalty and priesthood from the people, and was the engine of oppression. When Cambyses came down from Persia and thundered across Egypt, treading out royalty and priesthood, he trampled out at the same time civilization itself.
The distinctive glory of the nineteenth century is that it distributes knowledge; that it recognizes the divine will, which is that every man has a right to know whatever may be serviceable to himself or to his fellows; that it makes the church, the schoolhouse, and the town hall, its symbols, and humanity its care. This democratic spirit will animate our arts with immortality, if God means that they shall last.