Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West. An abridged edition by Helmut Werner.

English
abridged edition prepared by Arthur Helps from the translation by Charles Francis Atkinson.
New York: oxford University Press c199 [1926, 1928, 1932]. xxxx,415, xvix

IMITATION AND ORNAMENT [102]

All art is expression-language. This expression is either ornament or imitation. Both are higher
possibilities...

I. Imitation

A.Earlier and more characteristic of race

B.Born of the secret rhythm of all this cosmic
C.Every live religion is an effort of the waking soul to reach the powers of the world-
around. And so too is Imitation which in its most devoted moments is wholly religious
1.Consists in an identity of inner activity between the soul and body "here" and
the world around "there" which, ... become one.
D.Let ourselves go in common song or parade-march or dance
1.creates out of many units one unit of feeling and expression, a "we"
E.All imitation is in the broadest sense dramatic;
1.drama in movements of brush stroke or chisel
2.melodic curse of song
3.tone of recitation
4.line of poetry
5.the description
6.the dance
F.Only the living can be imitated
1.can be imitated only in movements
2.belongs to time and direction
G.Expresses something by accomplishing itself
H.Possess beginning and end
II.Ornament - does not follow the stream of life but rigidly faces it
A.Established motives, symbols, impressed upon it
B.Intention not to pretend but to conjure
C.The "I" overwhelms the "Thou."
D.Imitation is speaking with means that are born of the moment andunreproducible
E.employs a languages emancipated from speaking
1.stock of forms that possess duration and is not at the merc of the individual
F.Removed from Time
1.pure extension, settled and stable
G.Expresses by presenting itself to the senses as a finished thing
1.Being as such, wholly independent of origin.
H.Possesses only duration
Sections from Spengler, The Decline of the West:
Introduction: Civilization
Introduction: Imperialism
Architecture and Divinities
Imitation and Ornament
The History of Style as an Organism
Arts as Symbol of the Higher Order
Popular and Esoteric
Will to Power
Impressionism
Morale of Dawning Civilizations
The History of Style as an Organism
Pergamum and Bayreuth: the End of Art
Classical Behaviour Drama and Faustian Character Drama
Every Culture Possesses its own Ethic
Every Science is Dependent upon Religion
Atheism
Origin and Landscape: the Group of the Higher Cultures
Cities
Reformation
Science
Second Religiousness
The State
Politics
Conclusion