But Mr. Perkins does not seem to reason beyond his texts. He does not discuss the probabilities of the case; he does not undertake to account for, or to harmonize with his view, the great fact that nothing has been found of ancient art cast in plaster. Outside of what is written in books he does not venture. He does not even seem to have a clear opinion of his own. He says, “Sur ce point [casting in plaster] les textes nous laissent dans les ténèbres. Faut-il s’en étonner? Non! Les auteurs classiques trompent notre curiosité sur des choses d’un bien autre intent. Que nous disent-ils des vases peints, dont les musées de l’Europe regorgent? Rien,” etc. Well, if the texts leave us in darkness, are we then to know nothing and to think nothing? Are we not to exercise our minds, and if a doubtful text seems to indicate a fact utterly at variance with our reason and with the facts we know, are we to treat that text as a fetich, and bow down and worship it, because it is written in a book? Are we to endeavor to wrench everything into harmony with it? Or, if it will not agree with facts of which there is no doubt, are we not rather to sacrifice the text than our own reason? And especially, are we to pay such reverence to a doubtful text of Pliny, the most careless of writers, the least accurate of archæologists? As to the painted vases, no argument or ancient texts are needed; there is no question in respect to them; they existed in great numbers; but in respect to casting in plaster there is nothing but texts to depend upon. Nay more, there is only one passage in any ancient author, so far as I am aware, that _seems_ to assert the existence of this process; and the question is as to the meaning of this very ambiguous passage. If it means what Mr. Perkins supposes, where are the moulds; where are the casts; where are the finished likenesses; where is there anything, in a word, to support the statements of Pliny, as thus interpreted? Does it not seem amazing that they should all have totally disappeared? That the text of Pliny, on which all rests, does not mean what it is supposed to mean by Mr. Perkins, we have endeavored to show; but at all events, since it is admitted to be most obscure and scarcely intelligible, it would be better to throw the text overboard, if it is in conflict with all we know and is improbable in itself, particularly when we take into consideration the corrupt condition of the entire text of Pliny. Dr. Brunn, who is certainly an able and learned archæologist, does not hesitate to reject a portion of this very text, from the words “idem et de signis effigiem exprimere,” as an interpolation; and there can be no doubt in the mind of any one who carefully examines it that this entire passage is full of confusion of ideas and statements.