I will not say much as to the place of realism in culture. The archaeological world has lately been somewhat startled by the discovery of well-executed designs of elephants and other animals in the French caves in association with the rude stone implements of the palaeolithic age, and by the more recent discovery of Mariette Bey, that the earliest Egyptian sculptures of the third dynasty are the most truthful representations of the human form that are to be found in that country. I see nothing surprising in this, when we consider the power that is developed in many children of eight or nine years old of making drawings of animals and other objects, which, when allowance is made for the feeble hand of childhood, are often as truthful as those of the cave-period men, at a time when their minds have acquired but little power of reasoning or generalizing, or even of taking care of themselves; all which goes to prove that this power of imitation, which is a very different thing from ideal art, is one of the most early developed faculties of the mind of man.
When the power of imitation had once been developed, it would naturally be made use of as a means of intercommunication; thus the drawing of a stag would be made to convey information to people at a distance that there was a herd of deer in the neighbourhood to be hunted; and as the object of the drawing was no longer to depict truthfully the peculiarities of the beast, but merely to convey information, the amount of labour expended upon it would be the least that could be employed for the required purpose. All written characters have originated in this way; and no one now requires to be told how pictographic representations developed into hieroglyphic and subsequently into phonetic characters.
But realistic degeneration would equally take place in all cases in which pictorial representations came to be employed for other purposes than those for which they were originally designed, as in the case of ornamental designs.
EVOLUTION OF TYPES ON ANCIENT BRITISH COINS.]
So also a coin receives upon its surface the image of a king or a god as a stamp of authority. When from any cause the object of the original design is lost, the object of the stamp being no longer to convey a likeness, but being merely used as a test of genuineness, or perhaps amongst an unlettered people to denote its value, the tendency to realistic degeneration would be proportioned to the difficulties of execution; no further labour would be expended on it than was necessary for the object to be attained. Here I must again remind you of the interesting discourse delivered in this Institution on May 14, 1875, by Mr. Evans, on the evolution of British coins.[11] His examples are figured in his _Coins of the Ancient Britons_, pp. 24-32. With his permission I have introduced some of his diagrams (Plate XXI). You will remember how the coin of Philip of Macedon having been introduced into Britain, the head on the obverse gradually disappeared, leaving only the wreath as a band across the coin, which was ultimately converted into a cross; and how on the reverse, the chariot and two horses dwindled into a single horse, the chariot disappeared, leaving only the wheels, the driver became elevated, not elevated after the manner unfortunately but too common amongst London drivers, but elevated after the manner of the Spiritualists, except that you see he had the precaution to take on a pair of wings, differing also both from the London driver and the Spiritualists, inasmuch as instead of having lost his head he has lost his body, and nothing but the head remains; the body of the horse then gradually disappears, leaving only four lines to denote the legs.