A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present DayFergusson, James
History
A History of Architecture in all Countries, Volumes 1 and 2, 3rd ed.: From the Earliest Times to the Present Day
Fergusson, James
Architecture -- History
When a people are so mixed up with other races as the Celts are in
Europe,—frequently so fused as to be undistinguishable,—it is almost
impossible to speak with precision with regard either to their arts or
influence. It must in consequence be safer to assert that where no
Celtic blood existed there no real art is found; though it is perhaps
equally true to assert that not only Architecture, but Painting and
Sculpture, have been patronised, and have flourished in the exact ratio
in which Celtic blood is found prevailing in any people in Europe; and
has died out as Aryan influence prevails, in spite of their methodical
efforts to indoctrinate themselves with what must be the spontaneous
impulse of genius, if it is to be of any value.
SCIENCES.
Of their sciences we know nothing till they were so steeped in the
civilisation of older races that originality was hopeless. Still, in the
stages through which the intellect of Europe has yet passed, they have
played their part with brilliancy. But now that knowledge is assuming a
higher and more prosaic phase, it is doubtful whether the deductive
brilliancy of the Celtic mind can avail anything against the inductive
sobriety of the Aryan. So long as metaphysics were science, and science
was theory, the peculiar form of the Celtic mind was singularly well
adapted to see through sophistry and to guess the direction in which
truth might lie. But now that we have only to question Nature, to
classify her answers, and patiently to record results, its mission seems
to have passed away. Truth in all its majesty, and Nature in all her
greatness, must now take the place of speculation, with its cleverness,
and man’s ideas of what might or should be, must be supplanted by the
knowledge of God’s works as they exist and the contemplation of the
eternal grandeur of the universe which we see around us.
Though these are the highest, they are at the same time the most sober
functions of the human mind; and while conferring the greatest and most
lasting benefit, not only on the individual who practises them, but also
on the human race, they are neither calculated to gratify personal
vanity, nor to reward individual ambition.
Such pursuits are not, therefore, of a nature to attract or interest the
Celtic races, but must be left to those who are content to sink their
personality in seeking the advantage of the common weal.
V.—ARYAN.
According to their own chronology, it seems to have been about the year
3101 B.C. that the Aryans crossed the Indus and settled themselves in
the country between that river and the Jumna, since known among
themselves as Arya Varta, or the Country of the Just, for all succeeding
ages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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