You are on page 1of 42

Python Graphics: A Reference for

Creating 2D and 3D Images 1st Edition


B.J. Korites [Bernard Korites]
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/python-graphics-a-reference-for-creating-2d-and-3d-i
mages-1st-edition-b-j-korites-bernard-korites/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Math for Programmers: 3D Graphics, Machine Learning and


Simulations with Python 1st Edition Paul Orland

https://textbookfull.com/product/math-for-
programmers-3d-graphics-machine-learning-and-simulations-with-
python-1st-edition-paul-orland/

Math for Programmers 3D graphics machine learning and


simulations with Python 1st Edition Paul Orland

https://textbookfull.com/product/math-for-
programmers-3d-graphics-machine-learning-and-simulations-with-
python-1st-edition-paul-orland-2/

Learn Autodesk Inventor 2018 Basics: 3D Modeling, 2D


Graphics, and Assembly Design 1st Edition T. Kishore
(Auth.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/learn-autodesk-
inventor-2018-basics-3d-modeling-2d-graphics-and-assembly-
design-1st-edition-t-kishore-auth/

Math for Programmers 3D graphics machine learning and


simulations with Python MEAP V10 1st Edition Paul
Orland

https://textbookfull.com/product/math-for-
programmers-3d-graphics-machine-learning-and-simulations-with-
python-meap-v10-1st-edition-paul-orland/
Game Programming in C Creating 3D Games Creating 3D
Games Sanjay Madhav

https://textbookfull.com/product/game-programming-in-c-
creating-3d-games-creating-3d-games-sanjay-madhav/

Design and Test Strategies for 2D 3D Integration for


NoC based Multicore Architectures Kanchan Manna

https://textbookfull.com/product/design-and-test-strategies-
for-2d-3d-integration-for-noc-based-multicore-architectures-
kanchan-manna/

Seismic Hydrocarbon Exploration: 2D and 3D Techniques


1st Edition Hamid N. Alsadi (Auth.)

https://textbookfull.com/product/seismic-hydrocarbon-
exploration-2d-and-3d-techniques-1st-edition-hamid-n-alsadi-auth/

2D and 3D Graphene Nanocomposites Fundamentals Design


and Devices 1st Edition Olga E. Glukhova (Editor)

https://textbookfull.com/product/2d-and-3d-graphene-
nanocomposites-fundamentals-design-and-devices-1st-edition-olga-
e-glukhova-editor/

Python Standard Library A Quickstudy Laminated


Reference Guide 1st Edition Berajah Jayne

https://textbookfull.com/product/python-standard-library-a-
quickstudy-laminated-reference-guide-1st-edition-berajah-jayne/
Python
Graphics
A Reference for Creating 2D and 3D Images

B.J. Korites
Python Graphics
A Reference for Creating 2D and
3D Images

B.J. Korites
Python Graphics
B.J. Korites
Duxbury, Massachusetts, USA

ISBN-13 (pbk): 978-1-4842-3377-1 ISBN-13 (electronic): 978-1-4842-3378-8


https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3378-8
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018946635

Copyright © 2018 by B.J. Korites


This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the
material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
Trademarked names, logos, and images may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with
every occurrence of a trademarked name, logo, or image we use the names, logos, and images only in an
editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the
trademark.
The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks, and similar terms, even if they are not
identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject to
proprietary rights.
While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication,
neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or
omissions that may be made. The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein.
Managing Director, Apress Media LLC: Welmoed Spahr
Acquisitions Editor: Todd Green
Development Editor: James Markham
Coordinating Editor: Jill Balzano
Cover designed by eStudioCalamar
Cover image designed by Freepik (www.freepik.com)
Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer Science+Business Media New York, 233 Spring Street,
6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax (201) 348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-
sbm.com, or visit www.springeronline.com. Apress Media, LLC is a California LLC and the sole member
(owner) is Springer Science + Business Media Finance Inc (SSBM Finance Inc). SSBM Finance Inc is a
Delaware corporation.
For information on translations, please e-mail rights@apress.com, or visit www.apress.com/
rights-permissions.
Apress titles may be purchased in bulk for academic, corporate, or promotional use. eBook versions and
licenses are also available for most titles. For more information, reference our Print and eBook Bulk Sales
web page at www.apress.com/bulk-sales.
Any source code or other supplementary material referenced by the author in this book is available to
readers on GitHub via the book’s product page, located at www.apress.com/9781484233771. For more
detailed information, please visit www.apress.com/source-code.
Printed on acid-free paper
For Pam
Table of Contents
About the Author����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� ix

About the Technical Reviewer��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xi


Acknowledgments������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� xiii

Chapter 1: Essential Python Commands and Functions������������������������������������������� 1


1.1 Programming Style����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 2
1.2 The Plotting Area��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 3
1.3 Establishing the Size of the Plotting Area������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 4
1.4 Importing Plotting Commands������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 6
1.5 Displaying the Plotting Area���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
1.6 T he Plotting Grid���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
1.7 Saving a Plot��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 8
1.8 G
 rid Color�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
1.9 T ick Marks������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 9
1.10 Custom Grid Lines��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 11
1.11 L abelling the Axes��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 13
1.12 T he Plot Title����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 14
1.13 C
 olors���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 15
1.13.1 C
 olor Mixing���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 16
1.13.2 C
 olor Intensity������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 19
1.14 O
 verplotting������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 20
1.15 B
 ackground Color��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 23
1.16 T he Plotting Area Shape������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 23
1.17 How to Correct Shape Distortions��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 26
1.17.1 Applying a Scale Factor When Plotting����������������������������������������������������������������������� 27
1.17.2 The Best Way: Scaling the Axes in plt.axis( )��������������������������������������������������������������� 27

v
Table of Contents

1.18 Coordinate Axes������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 29


1.19 Commonly Used Plotting Commands and Functions���������������������������������������������������������� 30
1.19.1 Points and Dots Using scatter( )���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 31
1.19.2 Lines Using plot( )������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 32
1.19.3 Arrows������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 33
1.19.4 Text����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 34
1.19.5 Lists, Tuples, and Arrays��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 36
1.19.6 Arrays������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 41
1.19.7 arange( )��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 42
1.19.8 range( )����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 43
1.20 S
 ummary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 43

Chapter 2: Graphics in Two Dimensions���������������������������������������������������������������� 45


2.1 Lines from Dots��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 45
2.2 Dot Art����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 50
2.3 Circular Arcs from Dots��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 52
2.4 Circular Arcs from Line Segments���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 59
2.5 C
 ircles����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 60
2.6 D
 ot Discs������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 64
2.7 E llipses���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 68
2.8 2D Translation����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 75
2.9 2 D Rotation��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 78
2.10 Summary�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 100

Chapter 3: Graphics in Three Dimensions������������������������������������������������������������ 101


3.1 The Three-Dimensional Coordinate System������������������������������������������������������������������������ 101
3.2 Projections onto the Coordinate Planes������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 104
3.3 Rotation Around the y Direction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 106
3.4 Rotation Around the x Direction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 109
3.5 Rotation Around the z Direction������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 111
3.6 Separate Rotations Around the Coordinate Directions�������������������������������������������������������� 113
3.7 Sequential Rotations Around the Coordinate Directions����������������������������������������������������� 121

vi
Table of Contents

3.8 Matrix Concatenation���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 129


3.9 Keyboard Data Entry with Functional Program Structure��������������������������������������������������� 133
3.10 Summary�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 141

Chapter 4: Perspective����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 143


4.1 Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 152

Chapter 5: Intersections��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 153


5.1 Line Intersecting a Rectangular Plane�������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 153
5.2 Line Intersecting a Triangular Plane������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 166
5.3 Line Intersecting a Circle���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 181
5.4 Line Intersecting a Circular Sector�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 181
5.5 Line Intersecting a Sphere�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 187
5.6 Plane Intersecting a Sphere������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 196
5.7 S
 ummary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 201

Chapter 6: Hidden Line Removal��������������������������������������������������������������������������� 203


6.1 Box�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 203
6.2 Pyramid������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 212
6.3 Planes��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 218
6.4 Sphere��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 225
6.5 S
 ummary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 233

Chapter 7: Shading����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 235


7.1 Shading a Box��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 236
7.2 Shading a Sphere���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 246
7.3 Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 253

Chapter 8: 2D Data Plotting���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 255


8.1 Linear Regression��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 265
8.2 Function Fitting������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 269
8.3 Splines�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 275
8.4 Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 283

vii
Table of Contents

Chapter 9: 3D Data Plotting���������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 285


9.1 3D Surfaces������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 297
9.2 3D Surface Shading������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 305
9.3 Summary���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 319

Chapter 10: Demonstrations��������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 321


10.1 Saturn������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 321
10.2 Solar Radiation������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 331
10.2.1 Photons and the Sun������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 331
10.2.2 Max Planck’s Black Body Radiation�������������������������������������������������������������������������� 333
10.2.3 The Sun’s Total Power Output����������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 334
10.3 Earth’s Irradiance�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 344
10.3.1 The Earth Sun Model������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������ 346
10.4 Summary�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 351

Appendix A: Where to Get Python������������������������������������������������������������������������� 353

Appendix B: Planck’s Radiation Law and the Stefan-Boltzmann Equation����������� 355

Index��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������� 359

viii
About the Author
B.J. Korites has been involved in engineering and scientific
applications of computers for his entire career. He has
been an educator, consultant, and author of more than
ten books on geometric modelling, computer graphics,
artificial intelligence, simulation of physical processes,
structural analysis, and the application of computers
in science and engineering. He has been employed by
Northrop Corporation, the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institute, Arthur D. Little, Itek, and Worcester Polytech.
He has consulted for Stone and Webster Engineering, Gould Inc, Wyman Gordon, CTI
Cryogenics, the US Navy, Aberdeen Proving Grounds, and others. Early in his career he
developed mathematics and software that would find physical interferences between
three-dimensional solid objects. This found wide application in the design of nuclear
power plants, submarines, and other systems with densely packed spaces. He enjoys
sailing and painting maritime landscapes in oils. He holds degrees from Tufts and Yale.

ix
About the Technical Reviewer
Andrea Gavana has been programming in Python for
almost 15 years and dabbling with other languages since the
late nineties. He graduated from university with a Master’s
degree in Chemical Engineering, and he is now a Senior
Reservoir Engineer working for Maersk Oil in Copenhagen,
Denmark.
Andrea enjoys programming at work and for fun, and
he has been involved in multiple open source projects, all
Python-based. One of his favorite hobbies is Python coding,
but he is also fond of cycling, swimming, and cozy dinners
with family and friends.

xi
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wife, Pam, for her patience during the many long days and
nights that I spent writing this book and for her understanding of the distant stare I
sometimes had while off in another world thinking of math and Python, two of life’s great
joys. I would also like to thank everyone at Apress, especially editors Todd Green and Jill
Balzano, who made the production of this book a fast and seamless process.

xiii
CHAPTER 1

Essential Python
Commands and Functions
In this chapter, you will learn the essential Python commands and functions you
will need to produce the illustrations shown in this book. You will learn how to use
Python’s basic plotting functions, set up a plotting area, create a set of two-dimensional
coordinate axes, and use basic plotting primitives (the dot, the line, and the arrow),
which are the building blocks you will use to construct images throughout this book. In
Chapter 2, you will learn how to use these primitives to build two-dimensional images
and then translate and rotate them. In Chapter 3, you will extend these concepts to three
dimensions. Also in this chapter you will learn about colors, how to apply text to your
plots, including the use of Latex commands, and the use of lists and arrays. By the last
chapter, you will be able to create images such as Figure 1-1.

Figure 1-1. Saturn


1
© B.J. Korites 2018
B.J. Korites, Python Graphics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-3378-8_1
Chapter 1 Essential Python Commands and Functions

1.1 Programming Style


First a note on the programming style used in this book. We all have preferences when
it comes to style. I favor a clear, top-down, open style. Many programmers try to reduce
their code to as few lines as possible. That may be fine in practice but in an instructional
text, such as we have here, I believe it is better to proceed slowly in small, simple steps.
The intention is to keep everything clear and understandable. Since I do not know the
skill level of the readers, and since I want to make this book accessible to as wide an
audience as possible, I generally start each topic from an elementary level, although I do
assume some familiarity with the Python language. If you are just learning Python, you
will benefit from the material in this first chapter. If you are an accomplished Pythoner,
you could probably skip it and move on to Chapter 2.
Some Python developers advocate using long descriptive names for variables such
as “temperature” rather than “T.” I find excessively long variable names make the code
difficult to read. It’s a matter of preference. With relatively short programs such as we
have in this book, there’s no need for complex programming. Try to adopt a style that is
robust rather than elegant but fragile.
My programs usually have the same structure. The first few statements are generally
import numpy as np, import matplotlib.pyplot as plt, and so on. Sometime I will
import from the math library with from math import sin, cos, radians, sqrt. These are
commonly used functions in graphics programming. Importing them separately in
this way eliminates the need to use prefixes as in np.sin(); you can just use sin().
Then I most often define the plotting area with plt.axis([0,150,100,0]). As explained in
Section 1.2, these values, where the x axis is 50% wider than the y axis, produce a round
circle and a square square without reducing the size of the plotting area. At this point,
axes can be labelled and the plot titled if desired. Next, I usually define parameters
(such as diameters, time constants, and so on) and lists. Then I define functions.
Finally, in lengthy programs, at the bottom I put a control section that invokes the
functions in the proper order.
Including plt.axis('on') plots the axes; plt.grid(True) plots a grid. They are very
convenient options when developing graphics. However, if I do not want the axes or grid
to show in the final output, I replace these commands with plt.axis('off ') and
plt.grid(False). The syntax must be as shown here. See Section 1.10 to learn how to
create your own grid lines if you are not satisfied with Python’s defaults.

2
Chapter 1 Essential Python Commands and Functions

I often begin development of graphics by using the scatter() function which


produces what I call scatter dots. They are fast and easy to use and are very useful in the
development stage. If kept small enough and spaced closely together, dots can produce
acceptable lines and curves. However, they can sometimes appear a bit fuzzy so, after I
have everything working right, I will often go back and replace the dots with short line
segments using either arrows via plt.arrow() or lines via plt.plot(). There is another
aspect to the choice of dots or lines: which overplots which. You don’t want to create
something with dots and then find lines covering it up. This is discussed in Section 1.14.
Some variants of Python require the plt.show() statement at the end to plot graphics.
My setup, Anaconda with Spyder and Python 3.5 (see Appendix A for installation
instructions), does not require this but I include it anyway since it serves as a marker for
the end of the program. Finally, press the F5 key or click on the Run button at the top to
see what you have created. After you are satisfied, you can save the plot by right-clicking
it and specifying a location.
Regarding the use of lists, tuples and arrays, they can be a great help, particularly
when doing graphics programming that involves a lot of data points. They are explained
in Section 1.19.5. An understanding of them, together with a few basic graphics
commands and techniques covered in this chapter, are all you need to create the
illustrations and images you see in this book.

1.2 The Plotting Area


A computer display with a two-dimensional coordinate system is shown in Figure 1-2.
In this example, the origin of the x,y coordinate axes, (x=0, y=0), is located in the center
of the screen. The positive x axis runs from the origin to the right; the y axis runs from
the origin vertically downward. As you will see shortly, the location of the origin can be
changed as can the directions of the x and y axes. Also shown is a point p at coordinates
(x,y), which are in relation to the x and y axes.
The direction of the y axis pointing down in Figure 1-2 may seem a bit unusual.
When plotting data or functions such as y=cos(x) or y=exp(x), we usually think of y as
pointing up. But when doing technical graphics, especially in three dimensions, as you
will see later, it is more intuitive to have the y axis point down. This is also consistent
with older variants of BASIC where the x axis ran along the top of the screen from left to
right and the y axis ran down the left side. As you will see, you can define y to point up or
down, whichever best suits what you are plotting.

3
Chapter 1 Essential Python Commands and Functions

1.3 Establishing the Size of the Plotting Area


The plotting area contains the graphic image. It always appears the same physical size
when displayed in the Spyder output pane. Spyder is the programming environment
(see Appendix A). However, the numerical size of the plotting area, and of the values
of the point, line, and arrow definitions within the plotting area, can be specified to be
anything. Before doing any plotting, you must first establish the area’s numerical size.
You must also specify the location of the coordinate system’s origin and the directions
of the coordinate axes. As an illustration, Listing 1-1 uses the plt.axis([x1,x2,y1,y2])
function in line 8 to set up an area running from x=-10 to +10; y=−10 to +10. The rest of
the script will be explained shortly.

Figure 1-2. A two-dimensional x,y coordinate system with its origin (0,0) centered
in the screen. A point p is shown at coordinates (x,y) relative to x,y.

Listing 1-1. Program PLOTTING_AREA


1  import numpy as np
2  import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
3
4  x1=-10
5  x2=10
6  y1=-10
7  y2=10
8  plt.axis([x1,x2,y1,y2])
9
10 plt.axis('on')

4
Chapter 1 Essential Python Commands and Functions

11 plt.grid(True)
12
13 plt.show()

Listing 1-1 produces the plotting area shown in Figure 1-3. It has a horizontal width
of 20 and a vertical height of 20. I could have made these numbers 200 and 200, and
the area would appear in an output pane as the same physical size but with different
numerical values on the axes. Line 13 contains the command plt.show(). The purpose
of this is to display the program’s results in the output pane. With modern versions of
Python it isn’t required since the plots are automatically displayed when the program is
run. With older versions it may or may not be displayed. plt.show() can also be placed
within a program in order to show plots created during execution. Even though it may
not be necessary, it’s a good idea to include this command at the end of your script since
it can serve as a convenient marker for the end of your program. Lines 1, 2, 10, and 11 in
Listing 1-1 will be explained in the following sections. These commands, or variations of
them, will appear in all of our programs.

Figure 1-3. Plotting area produced by Listing 1-1 with (0,0) located in the center
of the area

5
Chapter 1 Essential Python Commands and Functions

1.4 Importing Plotting Commands


While Python has many built-in commands and functions available, some math and
graphics commands must be imported. Lines 1 and 2 in Listing 1-1 do this. The import
numpy as np statement in line 1 imports math functions such as sin(ϕ), eα, and so on.
The np in this statement is an abbreviation that may be used when referring to a numpy
function. When used in a program, these functions must be identified as coming from
numpy. For example, if you were to code v=eα, the program statement would be v=np.
exp(α) where α would have been previously defined. You don’t have to write out the full
length numpy.exp(α) since you defined the shorthand np for numpy in line 1. Graphics
commands are handled similarly. The statement import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
imports the library pyplot, which contains graphics commands. plt is an abbreviation
for pyplot. For example, if you want to plot a dot at x,y you would write plt.scatter(x,y).
I will talk more about plt.scatter() shortly.
Functions may also be imported directly from numpy. The statement from numpy
import sin, cos, radians imports the sin(), cos(), and radians() functions. When
imported in this manner they may be used without the np prefix. There is also a math
library that operates in a similar way. For example, from math import sin, cos, radians
is equivalent to importing from numpy. You will be using all these variations in the
coming programs.
There is also a graphics library called glib that contains graphics commands. glib
uses a different syntax than pyplot. Since pyplot is used more widely, you will use it in
your work here.
Line 8 in Listing 1-1, plt.axis([x1,x2,y1,y2]), is the standard form of the command
that sets up the plotting area. This is from the pyplot library and is preceded by the
plt. prefix. There are attributes to this command and there are other ways of defining
a plotting area, notably the linspace() command, but the form in line 8 is sufficient
for most purposes and is the one you will use. x1 and x2 define the values of the left
and right sides, respectively, of the plotting area; y1 and y2 define the bottom and top,
respectively. With the numeric values in lines 8-11 you get the plotting area shown in
Figure 1-3. x1,x2,y1, and y2 always have the locations shown in Figure 1-3. That is, x1 and
y1 always refer to the lower left corner, y2 to other end of the y axis, and x2 to the other
end of the x axis. Their values can change, but they always refer to these locations. They
may be negative, as shown in Figure 1-4.

6
Chapter 1 Essential Python Commands and Functions

Figure 1-11. Purple color band with r=x/100, g=0, b=x/100

Figure 1-12. Yellow color band with r=x/100, g=x/100, b=0

18
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Chapter VII. Music and Plastic. (1) The Arts of Form 217
Music one of the arts of form, p. 219. Classification of the arts impossible
except from the historical standpoint, p. 221. The choice of particular arts
itself an expression-means of the higher order, p. 222. Apollinian and
Faustian art-groups, p. 224. The stages of Western Music, p. 226. The
Renaissance an anti-Gothic and anti-musical movement, p. 232. Character
of the Baroque, p. 236. The Park, p. 240. Symbolism of colours, p. 245.
Colours of the Near and of the Distance, p. 246. Gold background and
Rembrandt brown, p. 247. Patina, p. 253.

Chapter VIII. Music and Plastic. (2) Act and Portrait 257
Kinds of human representation, p. 259. Portraiture, Contrition, Syntax, p. 261.
The heads of Classical statuary, p. 264. Portrayal of children and women,
p. 266. Hellenistic portraiture, p. 269. The Baroque portrait, p. 272.
Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo overcome the Renaissance, p. 273.
Victory of Instrumental Music over Oil-Painting, corresponding to the victory
of Statuary over Fresco in the Classical, p. 282. Impressionism, p. 285.
Pergamum and Bayreuth, p. 291. The finale of Art, p. 293.

Chapter IX. Soul-image and Life-feeling. (1) On the


Form of the Soul 297
Soul-image as function of World-image, p. 299. Psychology of a counter-
physics, p. 302. Apollinian, Magian and Faustian soul-image, p. 305. The
“Will” in Gothic space, p. 308. The “inner” mythology, p. 312. Will and
Character, p. 314. Classical posture tragedy and Faustian character
tragedy, p. 317. Symbolism of the drama-image, p. 320. Day and Night Art,
p. 324. Popular and esoteric, p. 326. The astronomical image, p. 329. The
geographical horizon, p. 332.

Chapter X. Soul-image and Life-feeling. (2) Buddhism,


Stoicism, and Socialism 339
The Faustian morale purely dynamic, p. 341. Every Culture has a form of
morale proper to itself, p. 345. Posture-morale and will-morale, p. 347.
Buddha, Socrates, Rousseau as protagonists of the dawning Civilizations,
p. 351. Tragic and plebeian morale, p. 354. Return to Nature, Irreligion,
Nihilism, p. 356. Ethical Socialism, p. 361. Similarity of structure in the
philosophical history of every Culture, p. 364. The Civilized philosophy of
the West, p. 365.

Chapter XI. Faustian and Apollinian Nature-


knowledge 375
Theory as Myth, p. 377. Every Natural Science depends upon a preceding
Religion, p. 391. Statics, Alchemy, Dynamics as the theories of three
Cultures, p. 382. The Atomic theory, p. 384. The problem of motion
insoluble, p. 388. The style of causal process and experience, p. 391. The
feeling of God and the knowing of Nature, p. 392. The great Myth, p. 394.
Classical, Magian and Faustian numina, p. 397. Atheism, p. 408. Faustian
physics as a dogma of force, p. 411. Limits of its theoretical (as distinct
from its technical) development, p. 417. Self-destruction of Dynamics, and
invasion of historical ideas; theory dissolves into a system of morphological
relationships, p. 420.

Index Following page 428

Tables Illustrating the Comparative At end of volume


Morphology of History
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION
I
In this book is attempted for the first time the venture of
predetermining history, of following the still untravelled stages in the
destiny of a Culture, and specifically of the only Culture of our time
and on our planet which is actually in the phase of fulfilment—the
West-European-American.
Hitherto the possibility of solving a problem so far-reaching has
evidently never been envisaged, and even if it had been so, the
means of dealing with it were either altogether unsuspected or, at
best, inadequately used.
Is there a logic of history? Is there, beyond all the casual and
incalculable elements of the separate events, something that we
may call a metaphysical structure of historic humanity, something
that is essentially independent of the outward forms—social, spiritual
and political—which we see so clearly? Are not these actualities
indeed secondary or derived from that something? Does world-
history present to the seeing eye certain grand traits, again and
again, with sufficient constancy to justify certain conclusions? And if
so, what are the limits to which reasoning from such premisses may
be pushed?
Is it possible to find in life itself—for human history is the sum of
mighty life-courses which already have had to be endowed with ego
and personality, in customary thought and expression, by predicating
entities of a higher order like “the Classical” or “the Chinese Culture,”
“Modern Civilization”—a series of stages which must be traversed,
and traversed moreover in an ordered and obligatory sequence? For
everything organic the notions of birth, death, youth, age, lifetime are
fundamentals—may not these notions, in this sphere also, possess a
rigorous meaning which no one has as yet extracted? In short, is all
history founded upon general biographic archetypes?
The decline of the West, which at first sight may appear, like the
corresponding decline of the Classical Culture, a phenomenon
limited in time and space, we now perceive to be a philosophical
problem that, when comprehended in all its gravity, includes within
itself every great question of Being.
If therefore we are to discover in what form the destiny of the
Western Culture will be accomplished, we must first be clear as to
what culture is, what its relations are to visible history, to life, to soul,
to nature, to intellect, what the forms of its manifestation are and how
far these forms—peoples, tongues and epochs, battles and ideas,
states and gods, arts and craft-works, sciences, laws, economic
types and world-ideas, great men and great events—may be
accepted and pointed to as symbols.
II
The means whereby to identify dead forms is Mathematical Law.
The means whereby to understand living forms is Analogy. By these
means we are enabled to distinguish polarity and periodicity in the
world.
It is, and has always been, a matter of knowledge that the
expression-forms of world-history are limited in number, and that
eras, epochs, situations, persons are ever repeating themselves true
to type. Napoleon has hardly ever been discussed without a side-
glance at Cæsar and Alexander—analogies of which, as we shall
see, the first is morphologically quite inacceptable and the second is
correct—while Napoleon himself conceived of his situation as akin to
Charlemagne’s. The French Revolutionary Convention spoke of
Carthage when it meant England, and the Jacobins styled
themselves Romans. Other such comparisons, of all degrees of
soundness and unsoundness, are those of Florence with Athens,
Buddha with Christ, primitive Christianity with modern Socialism, the
Roman financial magnate of Cæsar’s time with the Yankee.
Petrarch, the first passionate archæologist (and is not archæology
itself an expression of the sense that history is repetition?) related
himself mentally to Cicero, and but lately Cecil Rhodes, the
organizer of British South Africa, who had in his library specially
prepared translations of the classical lives of the Cæsars, felt himself
akin to the Emperor Hadrian. The fated Charles XII of Sweden used
to carry Quintus Curtius’s life of Alexander in his pocket, and to copy
that conqueror was his deliberate purpose.
Frederick the Great, in his political writings—such as his
Considérations, 1738—moves among analogies with perfect
assurance. Thus he compares the French to the Macedonians under
Philip and the Germans to the Greeks. “Even now,” he says, “the
Thermopylæ of Germany, Alsace and Lorraine, are in the hands of
Philip,” therein exactly characterizing the policy of Cardinal Fleury.
We find him drawing parallels also between the policies of the
Houses of Habsburg and Bourbon and the proscriptions of Antony
and of Octavius.
Still, all this was only fragmentary and arbitrary, and usually
implied rather a momentary inclination to poetical or ingenious
expressions than a really deep sense of historical forms.
Thus in the case of Ranke, a master of artistic analogy, we find
that his parallels of Cyaxares and Henry the Fowler, of the inroads of
the Cimmerians and those of the Hungarians, possess
morphologically no significance, and his oft-quoted analogy between
the Hellenic city-states and the Renaissance republics very little,
while the deeper truth in his comparison of Alcibiades and Napoleon
is accidental. Unlike the strict mathematician, who finds inner
relationships between two groups of differential equations where the
layman sees nothing but dissimilarities of outward form, Ranke and
others draw their historical analogies with a Plutarchian, popular-
romantic, touch, and aim merely at presenting comparable scenes
on the world-stage.
It is easy to see that, at bottom, it is neither a principle nor a sense
of historic necessity, but simple inclination, that governs the choice of
the tableaux. From any technique of analogies we are far distant.
They throng up (to-day more than ever) without scheme or unities,
and if they do hit upon something which is true—in the essential
sense of the word that remains to be determined—it is thanks to
luck, more rarely to instinct, never to a principle. In this region no one
hitherto has set himself to work out a method, nor has had the
slightest inkling that there is here a root, in fact the only root, from
which can come a broad solution of the problems of History.
Analogies, in so far as they laid bare the organic structure of
history, might be a blessing to historical thought. Their technique,
developing under the influence of a comprehensive idea, would
surely eventuate in inevitable conclusions and logical mastery. But
as hitherto understood and practised they have been a curse, for
they have enabled the historians to follow their own tastes, instead of
soberly realizing that their first and hardest task was concerned with
the symbolism of history and its analogies, and, in consequence, the
problem has till now not even been comprehended, let alone solved.
Superficial in many cases (as for instance in designating Cæsar as
the creator of the official newspaper), these analogies are worse
than superficial in others (as when phenomena of the Classical Age
that are not only extremely complex but utterly alien to us are
labelled with modern catchwords like Socialism, Impressionism,
Capitalism, Clericalism), while occasionally they are bizarre to the
point of perversity—witness the Jacobin clubs with their cult of
Brutus, that millionaire-extortioner Brutus who, in the name of
oligarchical doctrine and with the approval of the patrician senate,
murdered the Man of the Democracy.
III
Thus our theme, which originally comprised only the limited
problem of present-day civilization, broadens itself into a new
philosophy—the philosophy of the future, so far as the
metaphysically-exhausted soil of the West can bear such, and in any
case the only philosophy which is within the possibilities of the West-
European mind in its next stages. It expands into the conception of a
morphology of world history, of the world-as-history in contrast to the
morphology of the world-as-nature that hitherto has been almost the
only theme of philosophy. And it reviews once again the forms and
movements of the world in their depths and final significance, but this
time according to an entirely different ordering which groups them,
not in an ensemble picture inclusive of everything known, but in a
picture of life, and presents them not as things-become, but as
things-becoming.
The world-as-history, conceived, viewed and given form from out
of its opposite the world-as-nature—here is a new aspect of human
existence on this earth. As yet, in spite of its immense significance,
both practical and theoretical, this aspect has not been realized, still
less presented. Some obscure inkling of it there may have been, a
distant momentary glimpse there has often been, but no one has
deliberately faced it and taken it in with all its implications. We have
before us two possible ways in which man may inwardly possess
and experience the world around him. With all rigour I distinguish (as
to form, not substance) the organic from the mechanical world-
impression, the content of images from that of laws, the picture and
symbol from the formula and the system, the instantly actual from
the constantly possible, the intents and purposes of imagination
ordering according to plan from the intents and purposes of
experience dissecting according to scheme; and—to mention even
thus early an opposition that has never yet been noted, in spite of its
significance—the domain of chronological from that of mathematical
number.[1]
Consequently, in a research such as that lying before us, there
can be no question of taking spiritual-political events, as they
become visible day by day on the surface, at their face value, and
arranging them on a scheme of “causes” or “effects” and following
them up in the obvious and intellectually easy directions. Such a
“pragmatic” handling of history would be nothing but a piece of
“natural science” in disguise, and for their part, the supporters of the
materialistic idea of history make no secret about it—it is their
adversaries who largely fail to see the similarity of the two methods.
What concerns us is not what the historical facts which appear at this
or that time are, per se, but what they signify, what they point to, by
appearing. Present-day historians think they are doing a work of
supererogation in bringing in religious and social, or still more art-
history, details to “illustrate” the political sense of an epoch. But the
decisive factor—decisive, that is, in so far as visible history is the
expression, sign and embodiment of soul—they forget. I have not
hitherto found one who has carefully considered the morphological
relationship that inwardly binds together the expression-forms of all
branches of a Culture, who has gone beyond politics to grasp the
ultimate and fundamental ideas of Greeks, Arabians, Indians and
Westerners in mathematics, the meaning of their early
ornamentation, the basic forms of their architecture, philosophies,
dramas and lyrics, their choice and development of great arts, the
detail of their craftsmanship and choice of materials—let alone
appreciated the decisive importance of these matters for the form-
problems of history. Who amongst them realizes that between the
Differential Calculus and the dynastic principle of politics in the age
of Louis XIV, between the Classical city-state and the Euclidean
geometry, between the space-perspective of Western oil-painting
and the conquest of space by railroad, telephone and long-range
weapon, between contrapuntal music and credit economics, there
are deep uniformities? Yet, viewed from this morphological
standpoint, even the humdrum facts of politics assume a symbolic
and even a metaphysical character, and—what has perhaps been
impossible hitherto—things such as the Egyptian administrative
system, the Classical coinage, analytical geometry, the cheque, the
Suez Canal, the book-printing of the Chinese, the Prussian Army,
and the Roman road-engineering can, as symbols, be made
uniformly understandable and appreciable.
But at once the fact presents itself that as yet there exists no
theory-enlightened art of historical treatment. What passes as such
draws its methods almost exclusively from the domain of that
science which alone has completely disciplined the methods of
cognition, viz., physics, and thus we imagine ourselves to be
carrying on historical research when we are really following out
objective connexions of cause and effect. It is a remarkable fact that
the old-fashioned philosophy never imagined even the possibility of
there being any other relation than this between the conscious
human understanding and the world outside. Kant, who in his main
work established the formal rules of cognition, took nature only as
the object of reason’s activity, and neither he himself, nor anyone
after him, noted the reservation. Knowledge, for Kant, is
mathematical knowledge. He deals with innate intuition-forms and
categories of the reason, but he never thinks of the wholly different
mechanism by which historical impressions are apprehended. And
Schopenhauer, who, significantly enough, retains but one of the
Kantian categories, viz., causality, speaks contemptuously of history.
[2]
That there is, besides a necessity of cause and effect—which I
may call the logic of space—another necessity, an organic necessity
in life, that of Destiny—the logic of time—is a fact of the deepest
inward certainty, a fact which suffuses the whole of mythological
religions and artistic thought and constitutes the essence and kernel
of all history (in contradistinction to nature) but is unapproachable
through the cognition-forms which the “Critique of Pure Reason”
investigates. This fact still awaits its theoretical formulation. As
Galileo says in a famous passage of his Saggiatore, philosophy, as
Nature’s great book, is written “in mathematical language.” We await,
to-day, the philosopher who will tell us in what language history is
written and how it is to be read.
Mathematics and the principle of Causality lead to a naturalistic,
Chronology and the idea of Destiny to a historical ordering of the
phenomenal world. Both orderings, each on its own account, cover
the whole world. The difference is only in the eyes by which and
through which this world is realized.
IV
Nature is the shape in which the man of higher Cultures
synthesizes and interprets the immediate impressions of his senses.
History is that from which his imagination seeks comprehension of
the living existence of the world in relation to his own life, which he
thereby invests with a deeper reality. Whether he is capable of
creating these shapes, which of them it is that dominates his waking
consciousness, is a primordial problem of all human existence.
Man, thus, has before him two possibilities of world-formation. But
it must be noted, at the very outset, that these possibilities are not
necessarily actualities, and if we are to enquire into the sense of all
history we must begin by solving a question which has never yet
been put, viz., for whom is there History? The question is seemingly
paradoxical, for history is obviously for everyone to this extent, that
every man, with his whole existence and consciousness, is a part of
history. But it makes a great difference whether anyone lives under
the constant impression that his life is an element in a far wider life-
course that goes on for hundreds and thousands of years, or
conceives of himself as something rounded off and self-contained.
For the latter type of consciousness there is certainly no world-
history, no world-as-history. But how if the self-consciousness of a
whole nation, how if a whole Culture rests on this ahistoric spirit?
How must actuality appear to it? The world? Life? Consider the
Classical Culture. In the world-consciousness of the Hellenes all
experience, not merely the personal but the common past, was
immediately transmuted into a timeless, immobile, mythically-
fashioned background for the particular momentary present; thus the
history of Alexander the Great began even before his death to be
merged by Classical sentiment in the Dionysus legend, and to
Cæsar there seemed at the least nothing preposterous in claiming
descent from Venus.
Such a spiritual condition it is practically impossible for us men of
the West, with a sense of time-distances so strong that we habitually
and unquestioningly speak of so many years before or after Christ,
to reproduce in ourselves. But we are not on that account entitled, in
dealing with the problems of History, simply to ignore the fact.
What diaries and autobiographies yield in respect of an individual,
that historical research in the widest and most inclusive sense—that
is, every kind of psychological comparison and analysis of alien
peoples, times and customs—yields as to the soul of a Culture as a
whole. But the Classical culture possessed no memory, no organ of
history in this special sense. The memory of the Classical man—so
to call it, though it is somewhat arbitrary to apply to alien souls a
notion derived from our own—is something different, since past and
future, as arraying perspectives in the working consciousness, are
absent and the “pure Present,” which so often roused Goethe’s
admiration in every product of the Classical life and in sculpture
particularly, fills that life with an intensity that to us is perfectly
unknown.
This pure Present, whose greatest symbol is the Doric column, in
itself predicates the negation of time (of direction). For Herodotus
and Sophocles, as for Themistocles or a Roman consul, the past is
subtilized instantly into an impression that is timeless and
changeless, polar and not periodic in structure—in the last analysis,
of such stuff as myths are made of—whereas for our world-sense
and our inner eye the past is a definitely periodic and purposeful
organism of centuries or millennia.
But it is just this background which gives the life, whether it be the
Classical or the Western life, its special colouring. What the Greek
called Kosmos was the image of a world that is not continuous but
complete. Inevitably, then, the Greek man himself was not a series
but a term.[3]
For this reason, although Classical man was well acquainted with
the strict chronology and almanac-reckoning of the Babylonians and
especially the Egyptians, and therefore with that eternity-sense and
disregard of the present-as-such which revealed itself in their
broadly-conceived operations of astronomy and their exact
measurements of big time-intervals, none of this ever became
intimately a part of him. What his philosophers occasionally told him
on the subject they had heard, not experienced, and what a few
brilliant minds in the Asiatic-Greek cities (such as Hipparchus and
Aristarchus) discovered was rejected alike by the Stoic and by the
Aristotelian, and outside a small professional circle not even noticed.
Neither Plato nor Aristotle had an observatory. In the last years of
Pericles, the Athenian people passed a decree by which all who
propagated astronomical theories were made liable to impeachment
(εἰσαγγελία). This last was an act of the deepest symbolic
significance, expressive of the determination of the Classical soul to
banish distance, in every aspect, from its world-consciousness.
As regards Classical history-writing, take Thucydides. The mastery
of this man lies in his truly Classical power of making alive and self-
explanatory the events of the present, and also in his possession of
the magnificently practical outlook of the born statesman who has
himself been both general and administrator. In virtue of this quality
of experience (which we unfortunately confuse with the historical
sense proper), his work confronts the merely learned and
professional historian as an inimitable model, and quite rightly so.
But what is absolutely hidden from Thucydides is perspective, the
power of surveying the history of centuries, that which for us is
implicit in the very conception of a historian. The fine pieces of
Classical history-writing are invariably those which set forth matters
within the political present of the writer, whereas for us it is the direct
opposite, our historical masterpieces without exception being those
which deal with a distant past. Thucydides would have broken down
in handling even the Persian Wars, let alone the general history of
Greece, while that of Egypt would have been utterly out of his reach.
He, as well as Polybius and Tacitus (who like him were practical
politicians), loses his sureness of eye from the moment when, in
looking backwards, he encounters motive forces in any form that is
unknown in his practical experience. For Polybius even the First
Punic War, for Tacitus even the reign of Augustus, are inexplicable.
As for Thucydides, his lack of historical feeling—in our sense of the
phrase—is conclusively demonstrated on the very first page of his
book by the astounding statement that before his time (about 400
B.C.) no events of importance had occurred (oὐ μεγάλα γενέσθαι) in
the world![4]
Consequently, Classical history down to the Persian Wars and for
that matter the structure built up on traditions at much later periods,
are the product of an essentially mythological thinking. The
constitutional history of Sparta is a poem of the Hellenistic period,
and Lycurgus, on whom it centres and whose “biography” we are
given in full detail, was probably in the beginning an unimportant
local god of Mount Taygetus. The invention of pre-Hannibalian
Roman history was still going on even in Cæsar’s time. The story of
the expulsion of the Tarquins by Brutus is built round some
contemporary of the Censor Appius Claudius (310 B.C.). The names
of the Roman kings were at that period made up from the names of
certain plebeian families which had become wealthy (K. J.
Neumann). In the sphere of constitutional history, setting aside
altogether the “constitution” of Servius Tullius, we find that even the
famous land law of Licinius (367 B.C.) was not in existence at the time
of the Second Punic War (B. Niese). When Epaminondas gave
freedom and statehood to the Messenians and the Arcadians, these
peoples promptly provided themselves with an early history. But the
astounding thing is not that history of this sort was produced, but that
there was practically none of any other sort; and the opposition
between the Classical and the modern outlook is sufficiently
illustrated by saying that Roman history before 250 B.C., as known in
Cæsar’s time, was substantially a forgery, and that the little that we
know has been established by ourselves and was entirely unknown
to the later Romans. In what sense the Classical world understood
the word “history” we can see from the fact that the Alexandrine
romance-literature exercised the strongest influence upon serious
political and religious history, even as regards its matter. It never
entered the Classical head to draw any distinction of principle
between history as a story and history as documents. When, towards
the end of the Roman republic, Varro set out to stabilize the religion
that was fast vanishing from the people’s consciousness, he
classified the deities whose cult was exactly and minutely observed
by the State, into “certain” and “uncertain” gods, i.e., into gods of
whom something was still known and gods that, in spite of the
unbroken continuity of official worship, had survived in name only. In
actual fact, the religion of Roman society in Varro’s time, the poet’s
religion which Goethe and even Nietzsche reproduced in all
innocence, was mainly a product of Hellenistic literature and had
almost no relation to the ancient practices, which no one any longer
understood.
Mommsen clearly defined the West-European attitude towards this
history when he said that “the Roman historians,” meaning especially
Tacitus, “were men who said what it would have been meritorious to
omit, and omitted what it was essential to say.”
In the Indian Culture we have the perfectly ahistoric soul. Its
decisive expression is the Brahman Nirvana. There is no pure Indian
astronomy, no calendar, and therefore no history so far as history is
the track of a conscious spiritual evolution. Of the visible course of
their Culture, which as regards its organic phase came to an end
with the rise of Buddhism, we know even less than we do of
Classical history, rich though it must have been in great events
between the 12th and 8th centuries. And this is not surprising, since
it was in dream-shapes and mythological figures that both came to
be fixed. It is a full millennium after Buddha, about 500 A.D., when
Ceylon first produces something remotely resembling historical work,
the “Mahavansa.”
The world-consciousness of Indian man was so ahistorically built
that it could not even treat the appearance of a book written by a
single author as an event determinate in time. Instead of an organic
series of writings by specific persons, there came into being
gradually a vague mass of texts into which everyone inserted what
he pleased, and notions such as those of intellectual individualism,
intellectual evolution, intellectual epochs, played no part in the
matter. It is in this anonymous form that we possess the Indian
philosophy—which is at the same time all the Indian history that we
have—and it is instructive to compare with it the philosophy-history
of the West, which is a perfectly definite structure made up of
individual books and personalities.
Indian man forgot everything, but Egyptian man forgot nothing.
Hence, while the art of portraiture—which is biography in the kernel
—was unknown in India, in Egypt it was practically the artist’s only
theme.
The Egyptian soul, conspicuously historical in its texture and
impelled with primitive passion towards the infinite, perceived past
and future as its whole world, and the present (which is identical with
waking consciousness) appeared to him simply as the narrow
common frontier of two immeasurable stretches. The Egyptian
Culture is an embodiment of care—which is the spiritual
counterpoise of distance—care for the future expressed in the choice
of granite or basalt as the craftsman’s materials,[5] in the chiselled
archives, in the elaborate administrative system, in the net of
irrigation works,[6] and, necessarily bound up therewith, care for the
past. The Egyptian mummy is a symbol of the first importance. The
body of the dead man was made everlasting, just as his personality,
his “Ka,” was immortalized through the portrait-statuettes, which
were often made in many copies and to which it was conceived to be
attached by a transcendental likeness.
There is a deep relation between the attitude that is taken towards
the historic past and the conception that is formed of death, and this
relation is expressed in the disposal of the dead. The Egyptian
denied mortality, the Classical man affirmed it in the whole
symbolism of his Culture. The Egyptians embalmed even their
history in chronological dates and figures. From pre-Solonian Greece
nothing has been handed down, not a year-date, not a true name,
not a tangible event—with the consequence that the later history,
(which alone we know) assumes undue importance—but for Egypt
we possess, from the 3rd millennium and even earlier, the names
and even the exact reign-dates of many of the kings, and the New
Empire must have had a complete knowledge of them. To-day,
pathetic symbols of the will to endure, the bodies of the great
Pharaohs lie in our museums, their faces still recognizable. On the
shining, polished-granite peak of the pyramid of Amenemhet III we
can read to-day the words “Amenemhet looks upon the beauty of the
Sun” and, on the other side, “Higher is the soul of Amenemhet than
the height of Orion, and it is united with the underworld.” Here indeed
is victory over Mortality and the mere present; it is to the last degree
un-Classical.
V
In opposition to this mighty group of Egyptian life-symbols, we
meet at the threshold of the Classical Culture the custom, typifying
the ease with which it could forget every piece of its inward and
outward past, of burning the dead. To the Mycenæan age the
elevation into a ritual of this particular funerary method amongst all
those practised in turn by stone-age peoples, was essentially alien;
indeed its Royal tombs suggest that earth-burial was regarded as
peculiarly honourable. But in Homeric Greece, as in Vedic India, we
find a change, so sudden that its origins must necessarily be
psychological, from burial to that burning which (the Iliad gives us the
full pathos of the symbolic act) was the ceremonial completion of
death and the denial of all historical duration.
From this moment the plasticity of the individual spiritual evolution
was at an end. Classical drama admitted truly historical motives just
as little as it allowed themes of inward evolution, and it is well known
how decisively the Hellenic instinct set itself against portraiture in the
arts. Right into the imperial period Classical art handled only the
matter that was, so to say, natural to it, the myth.[7] Even the “ideal”
portraits of Hellenistic sculpture are mythical, of the same kind as the
typical biographies of Plutarch’s sort. No great Greek ever wrote
down any recollections that would serve to fix a phase of experience
for his inner eye. Not even Socrates has told, regarding his inward
life, anything important in our sense of the word. It is questionable
indeed whether for a Classical mind it was even possible to react to
the motive forces that are presupposed in the production of a
Parzeval, a Hamlet, or a Werther. In Plato we fail to observe any
conscious evolution of doctrine; his separate works are merely
treatises written from very different standpoints which he took up
from time to time, and it gave him no concern whether and how they
hung together. On the contrary, a work of deep self-examination, the
Vita Nuova of Dante, is found at the very outset of the spiritual
history of the West. How little therefore of the Classical pure-present
there really was in Goethe, the man who forgot nothing, the man
whose works, as he avowed himself, are only fragments of a single
great confession!
After the destruction of Athens by the Persians, all the older art-
works were thrown on the dustheap (whence we are now extracting
them), and we do not hear that anyone in Hellas ever troubled
himself about the ruins of Mycenæ or Phaistos for the purpose of
ascertaining historical facts. Men read Homer but never thought of
excavating the hill of Troy as Schliemann did; for what they wanted
was myth, not history. The works of Æschylus and those of the pre-
Socratic philosophers were already partially lost in the Hellenistic
period. In the West, on the contrary, the piety inherent in and
peculiar to the Culture manifested itself, five centuries before
Schliemann, in Petrarch—the fine collector of antiquities, coins and
manuscripts, the very type of historically-sensitive man, viewing the
distant past and scanning the distant prospect (was he not the first to
attempt an Alpine peak?), living in his time, yet essentially not of it.
The soul of the collector is intelligible only by having regard to his
conception of Time. Even more passionate perhaps, though of a
different colouring, is the collecting-bent of the Chinese. In China,
whoever travels assiduously pursues “old traces” (Ku-tsi) and the
untranslatable “Tao,” the basic principle of Chinese existence,
derives all its meaning from a deep historical feeling. In the
Hellenistic period, objects were indeed collected and displayed
everywhere, but they were curiosities of mythological appeal (as
described by Pausanias) as to which questions of date or purpose
simply did not arise—and this too in the very presence of Egypt,
which even by the time of the great Thuthmosis had been
transformed into one vast museum of strict tradition.
Amongst the Western peoples, it was the Germans who
discovered the mechanical clock, the dread symbol of the flow of
time, and the chimes of countless clock towers that echo day and
night over West Europe are perhaps the most wonderful expression
of which a historical world-feeling is capable.[8] In the timeless
countrysides and cities of the Classical world, we find nothing of the
sort. Till the epoch of Pericles, the time of day was estimated merely
by the length of shadow, and it was only from that of Aristotle that the

You might also like