and the battle of Austerlitz and the rule of the Hundred Days were no more evolved from the French Revolution as by intrinsic necessity than the burning of Moscow and the Russian snows which turned to naught the campaign of 1812." (A. L. Graebner.) According to the theory we would expect that in the various departments of _art,_ perfection would be a late blossom, burgeoning forth only after ages of feeble experiment and attempt. But what are the facts? As we study the history of any art,--be it literature or any department of literature; be it architecture, sculpture, the domestic arts, or even the art of war,--we find the highest culmination either at points which specifically exclude the idea of a development or, indeed, perfection shines forth in the very beginning, all subsequent art being decay and apostasy from that primal perfection. In epic poetry, the greatest work does not stand at the end of a long period of development, but the first and oldest is the greatest. Nothing has ever been produced to equal the Iliad and Odyssey, written 900 B. C. We have epics that will always hold a prominent place in literature, Virgil's Aeneid, Milton's Paradise Lost, but neither these nor the many flights attempted into epic poetry before or since will be seriously considered as rivalling the rhapsodies of Homer. The first novel ever written, Cervantes' Don Quijote, [tr. note: sic] remains one of the greatest. The oldest dramatists, Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles, have never been surpassed. And so in every department of art, the earliest stage of development seems to be the very most perfect. Pyramid building was a pastime of the earliest Pharaos; [tr. note: sic] the later did not attempt to rival these structures with any of their own. No finer jewelry can be produced to-day than the gold ornaments found in the oldest tombs of Egypt. The finest examples of East Indian architecture are the oldest. Gothic art was not a slow development but came to utter perfection in its earliest examples,--as in the Cathedral of Amiens.