Of these, the first to be considered is undoubtedly the utilization and imitation of natural forms. Nature was the only instructor of primaeval man.
In my previous paper, I discussed this subject at some length, giving many examples in which the weapons of animals have been employed by man. But besides these weapons derived from animals, primaeval man must no doubt at first have employed the natural forms of wood and bone, and of stones either fractured by the frost, or rolled into convenient forms upon the seashore.
This principle of the utilization and imitation of natural forms appears to bear precisely the same relationship to the development of the arts, that, in the science of language, onomatopoeia has been shown to bear to the growth and development of articulate speech. In the attempt to trace language to its origin, onomatopoeia, or the imitation of the sounds of animals and of nature, appears not only to have been the chief agent in _initiating_ the growth of language, but it has also served to enrich it from time to time, so that even to this day, poetry and eloquence in a great measure depend on the employment of it. But apart from this, language has had an independent and systematic growth of its own.
So, in like manner, men not only drew upon nature for their ideas in the infancy of the arts, but we continue to copy the forms and contrivances of nature with advantage to this day. But apart from this, we must look for an independent origin and growth, in which form succeeded form in regular continuity. Many a lesson has still to be learnt from the book of nature, the pages of which are sealed to us until, by the natural growth of knowledge, we acquire the power of reading and applying them. Imitation therefore, though an important element in the initiation of the arts, would not alone be sufficient to account for the phenomenon of progress.
The next principle which we shall have to consider, is that of variation. Amongst all the products of the most primitive races of man, we find endless variations in the forms of their implements, all of the most trivial character. A Sheffield manufacturer informed me, that he had lately received a wooden model of a dagger-blade from Mogadore, made by an Arab, who desired to have one of steel made exactly like it. Accordingly my informant, thinking that he had found a convenient market for the sale of such weapons, constructed some hundreds of blades of exactly the same pattern. On arriving at their destination, however, they were found to be unsaleable. Although precisely of the type in general use about Mogadore, all of which to the European eye would be considered alike, their uniformity rendered them unsuited to the requirements of the inhabitants, each of whom piqued himself upon possessing his own particular pattern, the peculiarity of which consisted in having some almost imperceptible difference in the curve or breadth of the blade.