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PREFATORY ESSAY


the generations to the Italian of the Renaissance, to the classical painters of Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany, and France; nay, even to the artist of the the 19th century. The court artist of an Oriental prince of the 9th or 10th century B.C. conceives a certain ideal; and, following him, a certain type of sculptured horse, such as the artist who carved it has never seen, steps before the chariots on Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe, in 19th-century Paris.

We have only been able to indicate some of the most important of the issues raised by modern research. Enlightening as the results have been, they are even more striking as the promise of further investigation. At the opening of the Twentieth Century the field of inquiry stretched out on all sides, and the method of cultivating it for the profit of all mankind-since the true history of man on the earth must always be of the supremest interest to intelligent people-had been brought home to us by the new treasures already at our disposal. Strangely enough, there were still obstacles—pecuniary or political-to be faced by those expert archeologists who had best proved their title to support. But in the light of accomplished facts, it is not reasonable to suppose that a work so successfully begun will not be pushed forward further and further, till every available source of knowledge has been tapped.