fascinate the beholder, but, however skilfully executed, however perfected in finish, the impression produced was but transitory, and failed to satisfy the craving of the soul Beauty was found to be the only abiding source of satisfaction.  As the conceptions of the past no longer satisfied the criterion which their own minds had embraced, the Greek artists sought in nature herself for models of that beauty, which, when placed in art forms, should be a joy forever.  The monsters of antiquity disappeared, and in their places, came attempts to faithfully copy nature.  To be sure, some specimens of the art era from which the Greeks had just emerged appeared at much later periods of their history; but these creations, as in the case of the Centaur, were usually representations of what were believed to be historical facts, rather than fantastic creations designed by the artist to startle the beholder.  The Greek still gratified his passion for beauty of detail, while he was pursuing his new-born purpose of copying nature.  It was not long before he found that nature, however skilfully copied, could be perfectly mirrored to the eye of the beholder only when presented as she appears to the mind of man.  This discovery budded and blossomed into the consummate flower of true art, the fourth or suggestive era, which reached its acme in the work of Phidias and his contemporaries.  Every creation was the expression of some state of mind.  Everything was made as it appeared to the eye of the poet, not as it might seem to the man of no sentiment.  The impression of the poetic mind found its expression in art, and now the statues think, fear, hate, love.

The same general laws which have governed the rise of sculpture, underlie the evolution of all forms of art.  It is the purpose of the present writing to hint at, rather than to trace, the four stages of development in painting, music, and literature.  To follow the steps of progress in painting is somewhat more difficult than to trace the evolution of sculpture or architecture, on account of the perishable nature of the materials.  Music has unfolded with the unfolding of the human mind, from the startling sounds of the savage,—­exhibitions of pure energy,—­through efforts at fascination by the medium of weird and unnatural combinations, and through attempts to reproduce natural sounds, ever upward till it breathes the very spirit of nature in a Haydn or a Beethoven.

We may follow the growth of the English drama through the same process, from its dawning in the fantastic miracle plays with their paraphernalia of heaven and hell, of gods, devils, angels, and demons, to the creations’ of “the thousand-souled Shakespeare.”  In religion we see the same phases—­from the worship of life itself, of natural phenomena, through the panorama of deities friendly and deities unfriendly, of gods many and of devils many, until the human mind grasps the conception of Unity in deity, and bows in worship before an Infinite Being of Love and Providence.