The deeper we penetrate into such studies, the more we regret the insufficiency of the materials, and yet we have thought it imperative that we should fill in the framework of our history. It has one peculiar aspect which distinguishes it from all others: the Egyptians gave much to their neighbours and received nothing from them, at least, during that period during which the character of their art as a whole was established. The features which are distinctive of Egyptian sculpture and architecture were determined at a time when there were no races in her neighbourhood sufficiently advanced to have influence upon them. This was not the case with Chaldæa and Assyria, at least, to anything like the same extent. Their work, moreover, has come down to us in a very fragmentary condition. Egypt is, then, the only country in which a complete development, begun and carried on solely by the energy and aptitude of one gifted race, can be followed through all its stages. Everywhere else the examples of predecessors or of neighbours have had an influence upon the march of art. They may have accelerated its progress, but at the same time they diverted it in some degree from its natural channel; they may have helped men to do better, it is certain that they led them to do what they would not otherwise have done. The goal may have been reached more quickly by those who had a guide, but it was reached by a path different from that they would have taken had they been left to their own devices. In the Valley of the Nile there was no guide, no precedent to follow. There, and there alone, did the evolution of the plastic faculty preserve a normal organic character from the commencement of its activity almost to its final decease.