Page:American Anthropologist NS vol. 1.djvu/40

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ESTHETOLOGY
27

that develop and multiply through the centuries until science becomes a controlling element in civilization.

The time of science is marked by events, but the time of science as a stage of culture may be considered as beginning with the discovery of the new world and the invention of printing, together with scientific principles that had been developed up to that time. Research is born of the love of truth, and the truth discovered breeds more research, so the child becomes the parent that new children may be born; and when these generations have multiplied until they become a host, the multitude of scientific motives extant in the world constitute a power over society ever more and more efficacious in the regeneration of mankind.

Heretofore we have sought a motive for drama in religion; now we must seek it in the desire to truthfully express life—the life of man in society. The promoter of drama as entrepreneur or undertaker of dramatic enterprise, may have a motive of gain. The artist may have a motive of ambition, but it is soon found that these motives may be gratified to the highest degree only by a most deft expression of the truth; so the motive for evolution is now the desire to express the truth in the action which is designed to represent a trait of character, and the artist, be he dramatic writer or actor, strives to express the emotions of the scene in the most vivid and truthful manner. Columbus discovered America that Jefferson might portray Rip Van Winkle.

He who hath ears to hear, then let him hear
And sage become that he may come a seer.


Romance

Romance is the fine art next in logical order. The first form of romance is myth. We cannot understand its nature without understanding the cosmology with which it is associated. All tribes, savage and barbaric alike, have a cosmology based on a notion of seven worlds. This notion is developed through that phase of the evolution of language which Max Müller has called