“history” of Chinese-Japanese painting (as we know it) and of Indian architecture. And just as the real history of the Gothic style differs from this pseudo-history, so the Knight of the Crusades differs from the Chinese Mandarin--_the becoming state from the finished_. The one _is_ history; the other has long ago overcome history. “Long ago,” I say; for the history of these Civilizations is merely apparent, like their great cities, which constantly change in face, but never become other than what they are. In these cities there is no Soul. They are land in petrified form. What is it that perishes here? And what that survives? It is a mere incident that German peoples, under pressure from the Huns, take possession of the Roman landscape and so prevent the Classical from prolonging itself in a “Chinese” end-state. The movement of the “Sea-peoples” (similar to the Germanic, even down to the details) which set in against the Egyptian Civilization from 1400 B.C. succeeded only as regards the Cretan island-realm--their mighty expeditions against the Libyan and Phœnician coasts, with the accompaniment of Viking fleets, failed, as those of the Huns failed against China. And thus the Classical is our one example of a Civilization broken off in the moment of full splendour. Yet the Germans only destroyed the upper layer of the forms and replaced it by the life of their own pre-Culture. The “eternal” layer was never reached. It remains, hidden and completely shrouded by a new form-language, in the underground of the whole following history, and to this day in southern France, southern Italy, and northern Spain tangible relics of it endure. In these countries the popular Catholicism is tinged from beneath with a Late Classical colouring, that sets it off quite distinctly from the Church Catholicism of the West-European layer above it. South Italian Church-festivals disclose Classical (and even pre-Classical) cults, and generally in this field there are to be found deities (saints) in whose worship the Classical constitution is visible behind the Catholic names. Here, however, another element comes into the picture, an element with a significance of its own. We stand before the problem of Race. CHAPTER V CITIES AND PEOPLES (B) PEOPLES, RACES, TONGUES I