art, but extends to other arts. Like a strong race of men it is not to
be confined to its own original habitat, but spreads to other realms,
stamping its own habits and character upon whatever happens to come
within its reach. Its influence is felt throughout the whole range of
those arts with which the esthetic sense of man seeks to associate
ideas of beauty. It is necessary, before closing this paper, to
examine briefly the character and extent of this influence and to
describe in some detail the agencies through which the results are
accomplished. First and most important are the results of direct
transmission.

House building, or architecture as it is called in the higher stages,
is in primitive times to a great extent textile; as culture develops,
other materials and other systems of construction are employed,
and the resultant forms vary accordingly; but textile characters are
especially strong and persistent in the matter of ornament, and
survive all changes, howsoever complete. In a similar way other
branches of art differentiated in material and function from the
parent art inherit many characters of form and ornament conceived in
the textile stage. It may be difficult to say with reference to any
particular example of design that it had a textile origin, for there
may be multiple origins to the same or to closely corresponding forms;
but we may assert in a general way of the great body of geometric
ornament that it owes something--if not its inspiration, its modes of
expression--to the teachings of the textile system. This appears
reasonable when we consider that the weaver's art, as a medium of
esthetic ideas, had precedence in time over nearly all competitors.
Being first in the field it stood ready on the birth of new forms of
art, whether directly related or not, to impose its characters upon
them. What claim can architecture, sculpture, or ceramics have upon