Such being the situation of Greece, it could not but happen, that, as soon as the Greek race drew itself clear from primitive barbarism, the fertile germs of art,--examples, models, processes,--should penetrate into the country from the neighbouring East by all the channels of communication which we have mentioned. Seeing how far civilization had advanced, would it not have been absurd for the Greeks to have turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to the experience of their predecessors; to have begun again at the beginning? Was it not better to take up the work at the point where it had been left, and to make use, for future developments, of those which had already been established? Man progresses as fast as he can; as soon as he learns any new method of satisfying his wants and ameliorating his life, he makes use of it; he makes use of it at first in its original form, but with years and experience he improves it and brings it nearer to perfection. Thus then, the more we study the past, the more surely do we recognize the truth contained in those myths and traditions which betray the influence exercised upon Greece by the people of Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor. To confine ourselves to the plastic arts, the historian of Greek art discovers _survivals_, forms and motives which had been employed in previous centuries and earlier civilizations, in exact proportion to the accuracy of his researches, and to the number of his elements for comparison. He also finds that the Greeks borrowed from the same instructors those industrial processes which, although not in themselves artistic, are among the antecedent conditions of art; namely, metallurgy, ceramics, smith's work, glass-making, weaving, embroidery, stone-working and carving, in a word all those trades which seem so simple when their secrets are known, but which, nevertheless, represent the accumulated efforts of countless unknown inventors.