[36] In studying the actual decline of Greek art it would, I think, be very necessary to lay some stress upon the part taken by the people in general, in judging and criticizing artistic productions under the democracies. See Rev. J. Mahaffy (_Social Life in Greece_), who is talking entirely from the Hellenic standpoint, p. 440: "The really vital point was the public nature of the work they (the Athenian Demos) demanded; it was not done to please private and peculiar taste, it was not intended for the criticism of a small clique of partial admirers, but it was set up, or performed for all the city together, for the fastidious, for the vulgar, for the learned, and for the ignorant. It seems to me that this necessity, and the consequent broad intention of the Greek artist, is the main reason _why its effects upon the world has never been diminished, and why its lessons are eternal_" (the italics are mine). [37] T. G. Tucker, in his _Life in Ancient Greece_, does his best to reconcile the realism of Greek art with the "ideal," and helps himself out of the difficulty by reasserting Schelling's claim in _The Philosophy of Art_ (see note to p. 91 in this book). Mr. Tucker says, p. 186: "Many people imagine that Greek sculpture--to take that salient province again--deliberately avoided truth to Nature, and aimed at some utterly conventional thing called the ideal. Nothing could be more mistaken. The whole aim of Greek sculpture was to reproduce the living man or woman, and the sublime of its execution was attained only when the carving seemed instinct with life--a life not merely of the limbs, but a life of the soul, which informed the countenance, and was felt to be controlling every limb. A Greek sculptor like Praxiteles studied long and lovingly.... To anatomy he is as true as an artist need wish to be. But are not his figures ideal? Doubtless, but what does 'ideal' mean? That they are abstract, conventional, or frankly superhuman? Anything but that. It means simply that he carves figures which, while entirely true to strict anatomy, entirely lifelike in all their delicate modelling ... are examples of nature in happiest circumstances...." [38] _Ideals of the East_, p. 53. 2. Egyptian Art.--A. King Khephrën.