MEN I HAVE PAINTED
serve as an example for the others, Guizot, in his History of Civilization, says: "In this century (the fourteenth) painting in oils was discovered." How illuminating is such a statement upon the condition of Art in Europe! In the whole book no other comment is made upon Art, as though it were merely a decorative fringe on a garment woven, not in cloth of gold and silver, but of mail, hammered out by the forgerons of war. Ignoring completely the fact that Art, and Art only, made civilization possible, he talks profusely and learnedly of the conflicts between the sovereigns of the Church and the State, and of the rivalries between barons and kings.
Now what do the stones teach? They show us that in Greece and Rome civilization reached its highest expression in temple and in statue, and in all the arts of the hearth and home, as well as of the altar. And what historian has described the literature of the time and the thought and customs of the people so well as the makers of the literature themselves?
The inference is, then, that the Greeks and the Romans, because of the principle of slavery, of enforced service, or whatever one chooses to call it, possessed that undisturbed leisure which is necessary to the growth and the development of intellectual powers. Society was clearly divided into two classes—the servers and the served. Without doubt the slaves formed the more numerous class, and they comprised all grades, all colours, and all nationalities. They were both skilled and learned, and often attained to high offices of responsibility, under owners who were merely nominal masters.
The men of leisure, the intellectuals, and the artists were not concerned about that part of the machinery of
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