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Title: The origins of art; a psychological & sociological inquiry

Author: Y. Hirn

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THE ORIGINS OF ART

THE

ORIGINS OF ART

A PSYCHOLOGICAL & SOCIOLOGICAL
INQUIRY
BY

YRJÖ HIRN
LECTURER ON ÆSTHETIC AND MODERN LITERATURE AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF FINLAND, HELSINGFORS

London
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1900
All rights reserved

PREFACE
The aim and scope of this book is sufficiently indicated by its title. I have
endeavoured throughout to restrict my attention to questions connected with
the origins of art. Points of history and criticism have been touched upon
only in so far as they appeared to contribute towards the elucidation of this
purely psychological and sociological problem. In order to save space as
well as to spare the reader’s attention, the descriptive parts have been
concentrated as much as possible. As a rule, only one ethnological example,
which has been selected as typical, is described in the text, while the
corroborating examples are represented by references in the footnotes. And
even of these references only such are adduced as have been considered
especially significant. Only in one matter have I aimed at completeness, viz.
that of reference to authors from whom I have borrowed facts or
observations. And whenever in earlier literature I have found theories which
have appeared similar to the views advanced in this book, these similarities
have been pointed out in the footnotes.
There is one point, however, to which the reader’s attention should be
called in this Preface. When treating of the art-impulse I have—especially
in the tenth chapter—mentioned in the footnotes some modern writers on
æsthetic, who, although starting from different assumptions, have arrived at
a conception of art which in many points may be compared to the one
advanced in this book. This comparison, however, has not been carried out
in the text. Considerations of space account for this omission; but it has a
further ground in the circumstances under which the present work has
originated. A part of it, containing the examination of feeling and its
expression, and the chapter on “Animal Display,” was published in Swedish
as early as 1896[1]—that is, before the above-mentioned authors had made
their theories known. This is not mentioned in order to raise any futile
questions of priority, but only as a justification of the way in which my
conclusions have been presented.
It has appeared to me that the continuity of the argument could not but
have been broken if, instead of proceeding from my original starting-point,

I had based my conclusions upon a critical examination of modern æsthetic
doctrines. And I trust that the differences between the thesis of this book
and other emotionalistic explanations will appear with sufficient clearness
to the attentive reader even if they have not been expressly pointed out in
the text.
There are, no doubt, many points, a fuller treatment of which might have
been to the advantage of the book. The force of circumstances has
compelled me to aim at brevity before anything. But even if it had been
possible to give this study a far greater comprehensiveness, the difficulties
of expressing myself in a foreign tongue would have withheld me from any
avoidable amplification. I have constantly been conscious of my audacity in
appearing before the English public without sufficiently mastering the
English language, and I have been anxious not to make my offence greater
by any number of pages than it already is.
That it has been possible at all to publish this research in English is only
a result of the kind assistance which I have received from my English
friends. I am indebted to Mr. G. G. Berry in Oxford, and Mr. Leonard
Pomeroy in London, who have revised parts of the manuscript. And I am
further indebted to my publishers for procuring me the assistance of Mr.
Stephen Gwynn in preparing the book for the press. He has helped me to
avoid needlessly technical expressions, and in other ways has given the
work a more readable style. But he has not restricted himself to these
emendations. He has assisted me with valuable suggestions as well as with
information. The improvement which the work has derived from his
collaboration can be sufficiently appreciated only by its author.
In purely scientific matters I have benefited much from discussions with
students of psychology and sociology in my own country as well as in
England. My thanks are due to all of them, but especially to my old friends,
Dr. Edward Westermarck and Dr. Richard Wallaschek.
The “List of Authorities quoted” and the Indexes have been compiled by
my wife. This is, however, only the least important part of the assistance
which throughout the book has been rendered to me by the constant
collaborator in all my researches.
Y. H.

Helsingfors, August 1900.

CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Problem stated 1
CHAPTER II
The Art-Impulse 18
CHAPTER III
The Feeling-Tone of Sensation 30
CHAPTER IV
The Emotions 43
CHAPTER V
The Enjoyment of Pain 56
CHAPTER VI
Social Expression 72
CHAPTER VII
Deduction of Art-Forms 86
CHAPTER VIII
Art the Reliever 102
CHAPTER IX
The Work of Art 111
CHAPTER X
Objections and Answers 134
CHAPTER XI
The Concrete Origins of Art 143
CHAPTER XII
Art and Information 149
CHAPTER XIII
Historical Art 164
CHAPTER XIV
Animal Display 186
CHAPTER XV
Art and Sexual Selection 203
CHAPTER XVI
The Origins of Self-Decoration 214
CHAPTER XVII
Erotic Art 228
CHAPTER XVIII
Art and Work 249
CHAPTER XIX
Art and War 261

CHAPTER XX
Art and Magic 278
CHAPTER XXI
Conclusions 298
LIST OF AUTHORITIES QUOTED 307
INDEX OF AUTHORS 323
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 328

CHAPTER I
THE PROBLEM STATED
When, one hundred and fifty years ago, Baumgarten wrote the treatise to
which he gave the name Aesthetica, and which he described as a “theory of
liberal arts and beautiful thinking,” it seemed to him needful to apologise
for attracting attention to a field of inquiry so low and sensuous as that
province of philosophy to which he then affixed a name. Many, he thought,
might regard art and beauty, which appeal primarily to the senses, as
subjects beneath the dignity of philosophers.[2] Yet the theories and the
ideas which were first brought together as an organised body of thought in
Baumgarten’s short manual had so deeply influenced the speculations of his
age that, a generation later, the most important questions of life came to be
treated as æsthetic problems. The philosophy of art, far from needing to
justify its existence, dominated all philosophy—ethics, metaphysics, and
even cosmogony. Imagination was treated as the ruling faculty in all
creation, and beauty was referred to as the criterion, not only in art, but in
morality. Yet the importance thus given to æsthetic speculation was
transitory, and the period during which philosophers were concerned, not
only to find a general criterion of beauty for the arts, but also to apply that
criterion far beyond the sphere of art, has been succeeded by an age which
neglects speculation on art and beauty for other tasks which are regarded as
far more important. Such rapid changes within a few generations appear
almost incomprehensible. But they can easily be explained if we take into
account the intimate connection which always exists between æsthetic
speculation and prevailing currents of thought.
In Mr. Bosanquet’s History of Æsthetic it has been pointed out with great
clearness to what extent the earlier prosperity of æsthetic studies was
caused by the general philosophical situation. The theory of æsthetic, as set
forth in Baumgarten’s chapter on cognitio sensitiva, and further developed
in Kant’s Kritik der Urtheilskraft, dealt, as is well known, with a form of
judgment which is neither purely rational nor purely sensual.[3] In
metaphysics, for philosophers who had to struggle with what seemed to

them an irreconcilable opposition between reason and the senses, this
conception of a mediative faculty must have satisfied a most urgent need.
Similarly we may suppose that the ethical observer felt himself
emancipated from the narrow antagonism between body and spirit by
looking at our actions in the æsthetic way. In proportion, however, as
general science has been able to do away with the old dualism of higher and
lower faculties, the judgment of taste has necessarily lost importance. In the
development of monistic philosophy and monistic morals we may thus see
one important factor, by the influence of which æsthetic has been ousted
from its central position.
The evolution of modern art has been still more injurious to æsthetic
speculation than the progress of science. In the palmy days of art-
philosophy conditions were eminently favourable to universal
generalisations. The great periods of art, classical antiquity and the
Renaissance, were so remote that only their simplest and most salient
features were discerned. Nor did the art of the period exhibit the
bewildering multiplicity of a fertile age,—least of all in Germany, the home
and centre of æsthetic inquiry. The formative arts were less important than
ever before; music, which was so soon to eclipse all other arts, had not yet
awakened the interest of philosophers. The crafts were at a low ebb;
landscape-gardening is indeed the only kind of applied art that we hear
about at this time. Beauty, art, the ideal—these and all other general notions
must have been suggested with unsurpassable simplicity by this uniform
and monotonous artistic output. It is easy to understand the eagerness and
the delight with which the earlier writers on æsthetic, once the impulse
given, drew conclusions, made comparisons, and laid down laws. But it is
equally evident that speculative zeal was bound to fall off as soon as the
province of art was enlarged and its products differentiated.
Even the more intimate knowledge of classical culture which was
subsequently gained, necessitated important corrections in æsthetic dogmas.
The artistic activities of savage tribes, which have been practically
unknown to æsthetic writers until recent years, display many features that
cannot be harmonised with the general laws. And in a yet higher degree
contemporary art defies the generalisations of a uniform theory. With
greater mastery over materials and technique, the different arts have been
able to produce more and more specialised forms of beauty. The painter’s

ideal can no longer be confused with that of the poet or the story-teller, nor
the sculptor’s with that of the actor. Pure music, pure poetry, pure painting,
thus develop into isolated, independent arts, of which each one establishes
its own laws and conditions for itself. The critic who, in spite of this
evolution, tries to apply a narrow æsthetic standard of beauty to all the
various arts may indeed—according to his influence—delay the public
appreciation of modern works, and thus indirectly impede artistic
development. But no amount of theorising will enable him to arrest the
growth of artistic forms whose very existence contradicts the
generalisations of the old systems. And he is equally powerless to stop such
violations of the supposed frontiers of the different arts as continually
occur, for instance, in descriptive music, or in poetry like that of Gautier,
which aims at producing a pictorial impression by means of words.
It is only natural that, in times so inopportune, general speculations on art
and beauty have been more and more abandoned in favour of detailed
studies in the technicalities of art, historical researches in which works of
art are considered chiefly as documents bearing on culture, and experiments
on the physiology and psychology of æsthetic perception. For art itself and
its development it would perhaps be unimportant if a science which has
never exercised any great positive and direct influence on artistic
production should completely disappear. But from the theoretical point of
view it would be matter for regret if artistic activities ceased to be
considered as a whole. And so also would it be if æsthetic feelings,
judgments of taste, and ideals of beauty came to be treated only in
appendices to works on psychology. It is true that all these notions have
irremediably lost their former metaphysical and philosophical importance.
But in compensation, art and beauty have for modern thinking acquired a
social and psychological significance. To determine the part which the
production and the enjoyment of works of art play in their relation to the
other factors of individual and social life—that is indeed a task which is
momentous enough to be treated in a science of its own. Modern æsthetic,
therefore, has still its own ends, which, if not so ambitious as those of the
former speculative science of beauty, are nevertheless of no small
importance. These ends, however, can no longer be attained by the
procedure of the old æsthetic systems. As the problems have changed with
changing conditions, so too the methods must be brought into line with the

general scientific development. Historical and psychological investigation
must replace the dialectic treatment of the subject. Art can no longer be
deduced from general, philosophical, and metaphysical principles; it must
be studied—by the methods of inductive psychology—as a human activity.
Beauty cannot be considered as a semi-transcendental reality; it must be
interpreted as an object of human longing and a source of human
enjoyment. In æsthetic proper, as well as in the philosophy of art, every
research must start, not from theoretical assumptions, but from the
psychological and sociological data of the æsthetic life.
Such a procedure, however, is encumbered with difficulties, of which the
writers on speculative æsthetic were scarcely aware. When theories of art
and beauty were based on general a priori principles, there could not
possibly be any doubt as to the point of departure in the several researches.
But when we have no assumptions to start from, the very demarcation of
the subject may become a matter of uncertainty. In the philosophy of art, to
which department of æsthetic I wish to restrict my researches in the present
work, this difficulty of formulating the data and quæsita—the facts which
we have to go upon, and the facts which we wish to find out—constitutes
the first, and by no means the least important, problem.
If we are to embark upon a scientific treatment of art without any
preconceived definitions, the aim and conditions of such treatment can only
be determined by examining the prevailing notions on the subject, as they
are expressed in language and in literature. As an interpretation for general
use and of general applicability, a theory of art can claim attention only if it
conforms to the recognised usage of the principal æsthetic terms. In the
various definitions of art which are contained in the different æsthetic
systems, we must therefore try to find some point of unity from which to
approach our subject. The difficulties of such a task are evident to any one
who has gone through the discouraging experience of reading a history of
æsthetic. The investigator who seeks an accurate demarcation of the whole
area of art, as distinguished from other departments of life, meets with
partial definitions which can be applied only to certain fixed forms of art.
We need mention but a few of the most typical instances. Even an ardent
admirer of Taine is compelled to admit that his generalisations are too
exclusively derived from the study of poetry and the formative arts. In the
same way it is only by laborious adjustments that the theory of Vischer can

be applied to music and lyric poetry; the aphorisms of Ruskin do not even
pretend to apply to any but the formative arts; and Mr. Marshall’s Æsthetic
Principles—to adduce one of the most recent attempts in general art-theory
—are too obviously those of an expert in architecture. In none of the
modern systems has sufficient room been made for certain forms of art
which, from the evolutionist’s standpoint, are of the highest importance:
such as acting, dancing, and decoration. All the one-sided definitions are,
moreover, so inconsistent with each other that it seems impossible to make
up for their individual deficiencies by an eclectic combination. It is not to
be wondered at, therefore, if some writers on art, confused by the
bewildering contradictions of æsthetic theories, have called in question the
very existence of any universal art-criterion.[4]
Those who adopt this attitude—which seems the more justified now that
the arts have become widely differentiated—deny the possibility, not only
of all general art-philosophy, but also of any sociological and psychological
treatment of artistic activities as a whole. But even if all other hypotheses
are banished, æsthetic research cannot possibly dispense with the
fundamental assumption of the unity of art. And in point of fact there can be
found in most systems, if we do not insist on too minute and positive
demarcations, at least one common quality which is ascribed to all its
different forms. Notwithstanding the mutual contradictions of art-theories,
the believers in a general æsthetic can always appeal to the consent with
which the majority of authors have upheld the negative criterion of art.
Metaphysicians as well as psychologists, Hegelians as well as Darwinians,
all agree in declaring that a work, or performance, which can be proved to
serve any utilitarian, non-æsthetic object must not be considered as a
genuine work of art. True art has its one end in itself, and rejects every
extraneous purpose: that is the doctrine which, with more or less
explicitness, has been stated by Kant,[5] Schiller,[6] Spencer,[7] Hennequin,
[8]
Grosse,[9] Grant Allen,[10] and others. And popular opinion agrees in this
respect with the conclusions of science. This distinctive quality of
independence seems therefore to afford us a convenient starting-point for
the treatment of art in general.
Owing to its negative character, this criterion does not give us much
information as to the real qualities of art. But even the poorest definition is

enough to begin with, if it only holds good with regard to all particular
cases. Unfortunately, however, we need only apply the test of independence
in the concrete instance to find that even the applicability of this single
accepted criterion may be seriously disputed. There is scarcely any author,
however he may formulate his general definitions of art, who would assess
the relative value of art-works according to their degrees of
disinterestedness. No candid man would, for instance, nowadays contend
that an arabesque composition is per se more æsthetically pure than a statue
or a poem.[11] But we may even go farther. We must question whether every
work of art ought to be degraded from its æsthetic rank, if it can be
convicted of having served any external utilitarian purpose. This strict
conception of the æsthetic boundaries has been eloquently attacked by
Guyau in his celebrated treatise, Le principe de l’art et de la poésie.[12]
Though the ultimate conclusions of this work are perhaps not so clear as
might be desired, yet we do not see how his attitude in estimating concrete
manifestations of art can be assailed. It would, to take an example, be
absurd to contend that the singing of Taillefer lost in æsthetic value by
contributing to the victory of Hastings. And however strictly we may insist
upon the requirement that every genuine work of art should have been
created purely for its own sake, we cannot possibly conceal the fact that
some of the world’s finest love lyrics were originally composed, not in
æsthetic freedom, which is independent of all by-purposes, but with the
express end of gaining the ear and the favour of a beloved woman. The
influence which such foreign, non-æsthetic motives have exercised on art
will also become more and more apparent with increased knowledge of the
conditions of æsthetic production. The further the psychological biographer
pushes his indiscreet researches into the private life of individual artists, the
more often will he find that some form of interest—personal, political,
ethical, religious—enters into the so-called disinterested æsthetic activity.
Such instances must induce undogmatic authors to relax to some extent the
strict application of this criterion. And even those philosophers who, in spite
of the historical evidence, insist upon applying it will be compelled to admit
that they have taken for works of genuine art productions which, from their
philosophic standpoint, have no claim to the title.
The danger of such mistakes is all the greater when one has to deal with
the lower stages of artistic development. In point of fact recent ethnological

researches have conclusively proved that it is not only difficult, but quite
impossible, to apply the criterion of æsthetic independence to the
productions of savage and barbarous tribes. It is true that the large province
of primitive art has not as yet in its entirety been made the subject of
systematic study. But, on the other hand, the results which have been
arrived at with regard to decoration, its most typical form, amply bear out
our view. In almost every case where the ornaments of a tribe have been
closely examined, it has appeared that what to us seems a mere
embellishment is for the natives in question full of practical, non-æsthetic
significance. Carvings on weapons and implements, tattooings, woven and
plaited patterns, all of which the uncritical observer is apt to take for purely
artistic compositions, are now explained as religious symbols, owners’
marks, or ideograms. There is still room for discussion as to whether in
certain individual interpretations the tendency to look for concealed
meanings has not been carried too far. But there can be no doubt that the
general principles which to many students seemed so fantastic when first
formulated by Stolpe, Read,[13] and others, have derived additional support
from every fresh inquiry into primitive systems of decoration.
The isolated researches which have been carried on within the
department of primitive literature and drama all point in the same direction.
Wherever ethnologists have the opportunity of gaining some insight into the
inner life of a savage tribe, they are surprised at the religious or magical
significance which lies concealed behind the most apparently trivial of
amusements. And it is to be remarked that they have learned to appreciate
this esoteric meaning, not by a closer study of the manifestations
themselves, but through information acquired by intercourse with the
natives. There is often not a single feature in a savage dance which would
give the uninitiated any reason to suspect the non-æsthetic purpose. When
North American Indians, Kaffirs, or Negroes perform a dance in which all
the movements of the animals they hunt are imitated, we unavoidably see in
their antics an instance of primitive but still purely artistic drama. It is only
from the descriptions of Catlin, Lichtenstein, and Reade[14] that we learn
that these pantomimes have in reality quite as practical a purpose as those
imitations and representations of animals by which hunters all over the
world try to entice their game within shooting distance. According to the
doctrine of sympathetic magic, it is simply an axiomatic truth that the copy

of a thing may at any distance influence the thing itself, and that thus a
buffalo dance, even when it is performed in the camp, may compel the
buffaloes to come within range of the hunters. But the deceptive appearance
of disinterestedness, which in these cases might have led one to mistake a
mere piece of hunting magic for a specimen of pure dramatic art, is apt to
make us cautious about accepting as independently æsthetic any
performance of primitive man.
In the songs and dances by which savages exhort themselves to work and
regulate their exertions we find an aspect of utilitarian advantage which is
real and not imaginary. Evidently also this advantage, and not any
independent æsthetic pleasure, is—intentionally or unintentionally—aimed
at in the war-pantomimes, the boating songs, dances, etc. And it is no doubt
for this reason that music and dance have attained so surprising a
development in the lower stages of culture. In trying, therefore, to explain
the historical development of art, we are compelled to take into account that
foreign purpose which is repudiated in art-theory.
If every work of art were really an end in itself—a Selbstzweck—
standing quite isolated from all the practical utilities of life, it would be
nothing less than a miracle that art should be met with in tribes which have
not yet learnt to satisfy, nor even to feel, the most elementary necessities of
life. In such a case it is not music only which would, as Wallace thinks,
have to be explained by supernatural causes:[15] primitive art in all its
departments would baffle our attempts at rational interpretation. By
studying, however, the artistic activities of savage and barbarous man in
their connection with his non-æsthetic life, writers on evolutionary æsthetic
have succeeded in solving this great crux of art-history. The dances, poems,
and even the formative arts of the lower tribes possess indeed, as every
ethnologist will admit, unquestionable æsthetic value. But this art is seldom
free and disinterested; it has generally a usefulness—real or supposed—and
is often even a necessity of life.[16]
A historical conception of art is thus, it appears, incompatible with a
strict maintenance of the æsthetic criterion. But it may still be asked
whether we are therefore compelled to join Guyau in abolishing all
distinctions between art and other manifestations of human energy.[17] By
doing away with the only definition which is common to the majority of

æsthetic systems, we should dissociate ourselves from all previous views on
art. And it seems hard to believe that all dogmatic writers on æsthetic, one-
sided as they may often seem, have founded their theories on a pure fiction.
The independent æsthetic activity, which simply aims at its own
satisfaction, cannot have been invented for the sake of the systems. The
mere fact that so many theories have been proposed for its explanation
furnishes, it seems to us, a sufficient proof that the conception of this
activity corresponds to some psychological reality. Certainly the “end in
itself” has not played so important a part in the practice of artists as writers
on æsthetic would have us believe; and it is impossible to distinguish its
effects in concrete individual instances. But from all we know of the life
and work of artists, there appears to be a tendency—more or less
consciously followed, it is true, in different cases—to make the work its
own end. And in the public we can in the same way notice an inclination—
which grows with increasing culture—to regard art as something which
exists for its own sake, and to contemplate its manifestations with
independent æsthetic attention. Whatever we may think about the genesis of
particular pictures and poems, we know that at least they need no utilitarian,
non-æsthetic justification in order to be appreciated by us. And with as
much assurance as we can ever feel in comparative psychology we may
take it for granted that the same way of looking at art has prevailed in other
stages of culture as well. However cautious one may be in drawing
conclusions from analogies between higher and lower forms, a closer study
of primitive art must needs compel every one to admit that these dances,
poems, and ornaments, even if they originally served practical, religious, or
political aims, may at least have come by degrees to be enjoyed in the same
way as we enjoy our art. By denying such subjective independence in the
creation and enjoyment of art, we should be no less guilty of one-sidedness
than those authors who deny that genuine art has ever been influenced by
“foreign purposes.” If it is presumptuous to adduce any particular works or
manifestations in proof of free and independent production, it may be no
less audacious to contend that even the most primitive form of art has
flourished in tribes destitute of all æsthetic cravings. There is room for
discussion on the degree of influence which “autotelic”[18] artistic activity
has exercised in particular works and manifestations. It may also be made
an object of research to determine at which precise stage of development
æsthetic attention becomes so emancipated as to entitle us to speak of a

pure and free art-life. But it does not seem that such inquiries can ever lead
to any positive result. The more one studies art, especially primitive art,
from a comparative and historical point of view, the more one is compelled
to admit the impossibility of deciding where the non-æsthetic motives end
and the æsthetic motives begin. The only result we can reach is the
somewhat indefinite one that it is as impossible to explain away the artistic
purpose as it is to detect its presence in a pure state in any concrete work of
art.
For art-philosophy as a distinct science even this non-committal
conclusion is of vital importance. It gives us a right to regard all the forms
and developments of art as witnesses to an activity which tends to become
more and more independent of the immediate utilities of life. This tendency,
on the other hand, not only affords us a point of unity from which to start
upon a research into the general philosophy of art; it also presents to us one
of the greatest problems of the same science. How it is that mankind has
come to devote energy and zeal to an activity which may be almost entirely
devoid of a utilitarian purpose is indeed the riddle, sociological as well as
psychological, which would seem in the first place to claim the attention of
the philosopher. To the writer of this book, at any rate, it appeared that a
discussion, and an attempt at solution, of this seeming paradox was a task
sufficiently important and interesting to form of itself the subject of a
special investigation.
But although the aspects of autotelic artistic activity give us at once a
datum and a problem on which we may confidently base our research, we
must not overlook the peculiar difficulties that will necessarily arise from
the exclusively psychological, non-historical character of this basis. A
historic study of art shows us that the artistic activity proper can never be
explained by examining concrete works as we meet them in reality.
Whenever we have to deal with art as autotelic, the need of theoretical
abstraction forces itself upon us with irresistible cogency. It is of no avail to
argue from the data of art-history, because we can never fully know the
mental origin of the works. The problem presented to us by the tendency to
engage in artistic production and artistic enjoyment for their own sake can
only be solved by studying the psychology both of artists and of their
public. The “art-impulse” and the “art-sense,” as referring to subjective
tendencies in creators and spectators, are the chief notions with which we

have to operate in such an investigation. And when we are obliged to
introduce the notion of the “work of art” we have to remember that this
term, strictly speaking, refers to an abstract and ideal datum. Only by thus
restricting our attention to the psychical facts can we attain any clear
conception of that autotelic aspect of art on which so much stress has been
laid in all æsthetic philosophy.
It is needless to say, however, that even a purely philosophic
interpretation of art would be impossible without a knowledge of its works
and manifestations as they appear in real life, with all their extraneous, non-
æsthetic elements. The psychological examination must therefore
necessarily be supplemented by an historical one. The methods of the latter
research cannot be the same as those used in a strictly æsthetic inquiry. And
the words will naturally be employed in a different sense. We do not at that
stage demand of a poem, a painting, or a drama, that it should fulfil more
than the technical requirements of the several arts. The ornamentation of a
vase, e.g. is in this sense a work of art even if it serves a magical, i.e. a
supposed practical purpose. Indeed it is most advantageous, if we wish to
bring out the influence of sociological factors with the greatest possible
clearness, to concentrate our attention upon the very qualities which we
have to disregard in the treatment of purely artistic activity. The productions
of primitive tribes, in which art is so closely connected with life, supply the
most profitable material for such a study. After having examined, in these
simple forms, all the sociological aspects of art, it will be possible to place
the two art-factors in the most illustrative antithesis and to study their
mutual influence. From this it should be possible to suggest—although in
this work no detailed attempt will be made to follow out the reasoning—
why it is that the concrete work of art, although its historical origin may be
entirely non-æsthetic, has always proved so eminently adapted to serve the
needs of the purely aesthetic craving. And by starting from the conception
of æsthetic activities which has been arrived at on psychological grounds, it
should also be possible to determine the particular qualities in individual
works of art which make them more or less able to satisfy this craving.
Thus a theory of the psychological and sociological origins of art may
furnish suggestions for those which have been considered as distinctive of
æsthetic proper, such as the critical estimation of works of art, or the
derivation of laws which govern artistic production.

CHAPTER II
THE ART-IMPULSE
There are two things which have to be investigated—the reason why
works of art are created, and the reason why works of art are enjoyed. By
choosing at the outset to approach art in its active aspect—to examine into
the impulse of the artist—we do not desert the central field of æsthetic
inquiry. On the contrary, it seems that a study of art-production affords the
most convenient starting-point for any comprehensive treatment of art; all
the more because every æsthetic pleasure, even when apparently most
passive, always involves an element of unconscious artistic creation.[19]
When absorbed in the beauty of nature we do in fact appear to ourselves to
be entirely receptive; but in truth our enjoyment, if the enjoyment has any
æsthetic value at all, is always more or less derived from the activity of our
own mind. It does not matter much, from the psychological point of view,
whether we make an abortive but original effort to select and arrange the
impressions which we receive, as is the case when a new aspect of nature
delights us, or whether we merely reproduce at second hand the impression
originally arranged by an artist, as happens when we admire a statue, or
recognise in a landscape some effect that Turner has recorded.[20] In either
case the passive attitude can never be explained without reference to the
active one.
In the historic interpretation of art it is of no less importance to study its
productive side. It is only by considering art as an activity that we can
explain the great influence which it has exercised on social as well as on
individual life. These are, however, views which can only be properly
established in the later chapters. Here we have merely to dwell on the
aspects which present themselves to the psychological observer; and there
is no doubt that from his point of view the impulse to produce works of
pure art constitutes the chief æsthetic problem. If once the creation has been
satisfactorily accounted for, it is relatively easy to explain the subsequent
enjoyment of art. Accordingly, by concentrating our attention on the art-
impulse we approach the art-problem at its very core.

It has, however, been contended by some authors that the independence
of external motives is nothing peculiar to art-production. There is,
undoubtedly, a certain kind of scientific study—for instance, some
departments of higher mathematics—which may be carried on entirely for
its own sake without any regard to practical application, or even to
increased knowledge of nature. And it is even more impossible to find any
immediate utilitarian purpose for all the intense activity, mental and
physical, which is devoted to sports and games. Every one knows that the
“end in itself” which any of these affords may in many cases exercise as
great an attraction as any of the utilitarian aims in life. Chess is said to have
a demoniac power over its devotees, and the attachment of a golfer to his
game can only be described in the language of the most intense passion.
The same sacrifice of energy and interests to a one-sided and apparently
useless purpose, which in art seems so mysterious, may thus, as Professor
Groos remarks, be found in activities of far less repute.[21] It is evident that
if artistic creation were in no wise different from these other examples of
autotelic manifestations, there would be no ground for considering the art-
impulse as a separate or distinctive problem.
We can scarcely believe, however, that even Professor Groos himself
would seriously maintain the parallel between art-production and the last-
mentioned activities. There are indeed cases in which a man of science
devotes his whole energy to a task which is so abstract that it seems to give
no satisfaction to the craving for positive truth. But it is always an open
question whether the attractiveness of such researches is not, strictly
speaking, more æsthetic than scientific. Higher mathematics is perhaps, for
those that live in the world of abstract quantities, only an abstract form of
art, a soundless music or a wordless poetry. In other cases the eagerness
with which pure science is pursued as an autotelic end may be explained as
a result of acquired habits. Like the miser, the passionate researcher may
often gradually lose sight of the ultimate aim of his activity and concentrate
all his attention on the means. There can be no question of denying the
emotional value and the great attractive force which thus comes to be
attached to these secondary purposes. But in comparing such autotelic
activities to those of art we have to remember that the passion, however
intense it may be, is probably not primary but derived; and it is in any case

self-evident that it can be developed only in exceptional cases and in
peculiarly predisposed individuals.
By the same criterion we can also separate the art-desire from the love of
games and sports. However passionate the sporting mania may be in
individuals or nations, it can never be compared as a universal and primary
impulse with the craving for æsthetic creation. Philosophers who bestow
their whole attention only on the mature works which can be studied in the
history of art, may indeed contend that even the art-impulse is given to
some favoured few. But this view, which would reduce all art-life to the
status of a great and marvellous exception, cannot possibly be upheld in a
psychological æsthetic.
It is, no doubt, the fact that the percentage of executive artists in modern
nations is an almost negligible quantity. It is also probable that—contrary to
a common notion—the poets, the painters, and the dramatists form a
distinct class even among the lower tribes.[22] But in treating the art-impulse
as a psychological phenomenon the inquiry cannot be restricted to the few
individuals who publicly practise a certain art. As far as the artistic powers
are concerned, these undoubtedly stand apart from the rest of mankind. But
we are not entitled to maintain that they are also distinguished by some
peculiar psychical impulse. From the point of view of artistic perfection,
there is all the world between the youthful verses of Goethe and the
doggerel of a common schoolboy. But, psychologically, the schoolboy’s
doggerel may be the result of as strong a craving for poetic expression as
any of the world’s greatest poems.[23] Bad or good, known or unknown,
every manifestation of artistic activity is equally illustrative for our purpose.
We have to count with the immense number of dilettanti who produce in
privacy and in secret, as well as with recognised artists. And even those
unfortunate persons who have never been able to find for themselves any
satisfactory mode of æsthetic expression may still be adduced in proof of
the universality of the artistic desire. If the notion of art is conceived in its
most general sense, every normal man, at some time of his life at least, is an
artist—in aspiration, if not in capacity.
If, moreover, we take into consideration the eagerness and devotion
which is lavished upon artistic activity—not least, perhaps, by those who
have never appeared as artists—we shall be compelled to admit that the art-

impulse is not only commoner, but also stronger and deeper, than any of the
above-mentioned non-utilitarian impulses. If it can be explained at all, it is
only by deriving it from some great and fundamental tendency of the
human mind. This fact has, naturally enough, not been realised by those
writers on æsthetic who only study the ideal work of art as it appears among
civilised nations. In short, the great systems of æsthetic philosophy have
never expressly stated the problem of finding an origin for the art-impulse;
and any interpretation of that impulse which may be derived constructively
from their speculations upon the work of acknowledged artists is
irreconcilable with the wider notion of art as a universal human activity. If
the aim of every artist really were, as Vischer must have thought, to
reinstate by the creation of a semblance the Idea in the position from which
it is in Reality always thrust by material accidents; if he desired, for
instance, to show a human character as it would be but for the accidents of
life;[24] or if, to use the language of Taine, the artist’s main object were to
produce a representation of nature in which the essential characters enjoy an
absolute sovereignty; if he strove to depict a lion in such a way to
emphasise specially these leonine traits which distinguish the lion from any
other great cat,[25]—then it would be hard to understand the attraction
which art has exercised on people who are almost devoid of intellectual
cravings. We could not possibly find any connection between modern and
primitive art. Nor could we explain why, for instance, poetry and music are
so often cultivated by persons who do not otherwise show the slightest
eagerness to understand the hidden nature of things, who do not meddle
with ideas or “dominating faculties.” Even in the case of philosophically-
minded artists such motives are probably somewhat feeble. The
intellectualistic definitions may perhaps explain the æsthetic qualities of the
work of art itself. But they can never account for the constraining force by
which every genuine work of art is called into existence.
There are some authors, however, who have felt the need of a dynamic
explanation of the art-impulse, which should trace the motive force to its
origin. It was so with Aristotle when he interpreted artistic production as a
manifestation of the desire to imitate. By this theory art is indeed brought
into connection with a general animal impulse, the æsthetic importance of
which can scarcely be overestimated. It is only by reference to the
psychology of imitative movements that we shall be able to explain the

enjoyment of art. But it seems, nevertheless, somewhat strained to make
imitation the basis and purpose of artistic activity, seeing that there are
various forms of art, as, for instance, architecture and purely lyrical music
or poetry, in which we can scarcely detect any imitative element at all. The
theories of Aristotle, of Seneca, and all their modern followers, can only be
upheld if the word “imitation” is used in a much wider sense than that
which it generally bears. But even those who, with Engel, would consider
the bodily movements as “imitating the thoughts,”[26] or those who in
æsthetic would speak of “circulary reaction”[27] as a phenomenon of
imitation, would find it hard to discover in any of these relatively automatic
manifestations such a mental compulsion as that which impels to artistic
activity. Moreover, as we need scarcely point out, art in all its forms always
strives after something more than a mere likeness.
It seems equally superfluous to emphasise the fact that no genuine artist
has made it his sole object to please. The fatal confusion between art-theory
and the science of beauty has indeed led some writers on æsthetic to derive
artistic activities from an impulse to “produce objects or objective
conditions which should attract by pleasing.”[28] Such views will especially
recommend themselves to those who believe in an animal art called forth by
sexual selection. Nor can it be denied that the means of attraction employed
in the competition for the favour of the opposite sex supply a part of the
material which is used in the various arts.[29] With the artistic impulse itself,
which, according to its very definition, is independent of external motives,
the various means of attraction have no connection whatever.[30]
From the theoretical point of view it is undoubtedly easier to defend
Professor Baldwin’s way of stating the case, in which the “self-exhibiting
impulse” takes the place of the “instinct to attract by pleasing.”[31]
Figuratively speaking, an element of self-exhibition is involved in every
artistic creation which addresses itself to a public. And without a public—in
the largest sense of the word—no art would ever have appeared. But it
seems somewhat difficult to make this self-exhibiting—in a sense which
implies an actual audience—the aim and purpose of, for instance, the most
intimate and personal examples of lyrical poetry.

It may of course be contended, by those who advocate the importance of
the last-mentioned interpretations, that the variety of art-forms compels us
to assume, not one, but several art-impulses. At this stage of our research
we cannot enter upon a discussion of such views; but it will at least be
admitted that explanations which can be applied in the whole field of art
must be preferable to partial definitions.
This merit of universality, at least, cannot be denied to the theories which
derive art from the playing impulse. The notion of a sportive activity
involves precisely that freedom from external, consciously utilitarian
motives which, according to the consensus of almost all writers on æsthetic,
is required in every genuine manifestation of art. It is not surprising,
therefore, that it was by reference to the play-impulse that Schiller tried to
distinguish artistic production from all “unfree” forms of activity.[32] It is
true that the notion of “play” as used by Schiller and Spencer—who has
given the theory a physiological foundation—is chiefly important as a
negative demarcation. But even Schiller brings in a positive factor when he
speaks of the force by which “overflowing life itself urges the animal to
action” (“wenn das überflüssige Leben sich selbst zur Thätigkeit stachelt”).
[33]
In Spencer’s theory, on the other hand, the “excessive readiness” to
nervous discharge which accompanies every surplus of vigour, and which,
in his view, accounts for play, represents a motor element, the impelling
force of which must be considered as very strong.[34] As is well known,
Spencer, Wallace, and Hudson have applied this principle of surplus energy
to explain so-called animal art, rejecting the theory which ascribes æsthetic
judgment to the female.[35]
As formulated by the last-mentioned authors, the play-theory is, however,
open to objection from a physiological point of view. It has been remarked
by Dr. Wallaschek that, in speaking of animals, the phrase “surplus of
vigour” ought to be superseded by “inapplicability of energy” or
“unemployed energy.”[36] And still more explicitly Professor Groos has
shown that a stored-up supply of energy is by no means a necessary
condition for play.[37] But these criticisms have by no means deprived the
play-instinct of its importance as a dynamic factor. Since Groos by his
epoch-making researches has been able to prove that the majority of games
—especially the games of youth—are based upon instincts, we can adduce

as an impelling force “the demon instinct that urges and even compels to
activity not only if and so long as the vessel overflows (to use a figure of
speech), but even when there is but a last drop left in it.”[38] By considering
artistic activity as a kind of play, one is therefore able to account for its
great attractiveness, even when no “surplus of vigour” can be shown to
exist.
In the beginning of this chapter we did indeed contend that the
“compulsion” which prompts to artistic activity is too strong to be even
compared with the passion for sports and games. But this superiority may of
course be explained as a result of some peculiarity of this special kind of
play. As a matter of fact art is, in a far higher degree than any of the sports
and games, able to satisfy the greatest and most fundamental instincts of
man. Groos has tried to prove that the artistic motives which in all times
have been most popular, offer to the spectator as well as to the producer an
opportunity for warlike and erotic stimulation;[39] and Guyau had already
remarked how important a part the moods of war, or rather of struggle, play
in all enjoyment of art.[40] It is easy to understand the eager prosecution of
an activity which thus affords free, if imaginary, exercise for instincts and
tendencies which would otherwise be thwarted by the narrow restrictions of
social life. We are all animals in captivity, and we eagerly seize every kind
of vicarious function which can give at least a memory of the life from
which we are excluded.
At lower stages of social evolution, where instincts are more in harmony
with life, the play-element in art must evidently be of still greater
importance. Artistic production and artistic enjoyment provide exercise for
those very functions which are most important in real life. Art fulfils a great
social mission, and is developed in subservience to the struggle for life. The
play-theory, as formulated by Professor Groos, affords, therefore, in many
cases an explanation of the high artistic level reached by the lower tribes. In
our historical treatment of primitive dances and dramas we shall be
continually obliged to have recourse to this theory. And it will thus appear
that it is no deficient appreciation of its importance which compels us to
look elsewhere for an explanation for the artistic impulse.
Play and art have indeed many important characteristics in common.
Neither of them has any immediate practical utility, and both of them do

nevertheless serve some of the fundamental needs of life. All art, therefore,
can in a certain sense be called play. But art is something more than this.
The aim of play is attained when the surplus of vigour is discharged or the
instinct has had its momentary exercise. But the function of art is not
confined to the act of production; in every manifestation of art, properly so
called, something is made and something survives. It is true that in certain
manifestations—for instance in the dance or in acting—the effect is
destroyed as soon as created; it survives only in the rhythm devised by the
dancer, or in the spectator’s memory of the part played. But this is
accidental, not essential to the nature of the arts as arts. On the other hand,
there is nothing in the nature of the play-impulse to call for a stereotyping
of the state of mind and feelings to which it gives rise. Still less can the
artistic qualities, such as beauty and rhythm, which, however difficult to
define scientifically, always characterise works of art, be interpreted as a
result of the play-impulse. The theories of Schiller, Spencer, and Groos may
indeed explain the negative criterion of art, but they cannot, any more than
the imitation theories or the Darwinian interpretation, give us any positive
information as to the nature of art.
In order to understand the art-impulse as a tendency to æsthetic
production, we must bring it into connection with some function, from the
nature of which the specifically artistic qualities may be derived. Such a
function is to be found, we believe, in the activities of emotional
expression.
It is therefore to the psychology of feeling and expression that we shall
turn for the solution of the problem of the art-impulse.

CHAPTER III
THE FEELING-TONE OF SENSATION
Before attempting to prove that the impelling force in art-creation is to be
explained by the psychology of feeling, we must first pay some attention to
the general theory of emotional states. It would be impossible to assert
anything about the æsthetic importance of such activities as have their
origin in emotional conditions without first having made out the relation
between feeling and movement.
In this purely psychological investigation it is advantageous to postpone
all æsthetic considerations. The important thing is to get hold of the mental
factors in their simplest possible form. Even the lowest feelings, therefore,
the feeling-tones of mere physical sensation or the vaguest emotional states,
such as comfort or discomfort, which are overlooked in all works on
æsthetic proper, may be of great value in this preliminary discussion.
It is preferable to begin with the feeling-tones of definitely physical
origin, because these hedonic elements have been subjected to an
experimental investigation which could never be undertaken with regard to
the complex emotions and sentiments. As early as 1887 Féré published
some important researches on the relation between sensation and
movement. By submitting persons to various external stimuli, he showed
that every such stimulus calls forth a modification of the activities of the
body, which modification, according to the intensity and the duration of the
stimulus, takes the character either of enhancement or of arrest. In all cases
when the apparatus used in the experiments indicated a shortened reaction-
time and an increased development of energy, the subject of the experiment
had experienced a feeling of pleasure. Every painful stimulus, on the other
hand, was connected with a diminution of energy.[41]
These results have been corroborated in the main by the later researches
of Lehmann. He has not, however, restricted his attention to the
development of energy, but has also measured the changes in pulsation and

respiration which occur under the influence of various stimuli. His
conclusions are these:—
“Simple pleasurable sensations are accompanied by dilatation of the
blood-vessels, and perhaps also by an increase in the amplitude of heart-
contraction, together with an increase in the innervation of the voluntary
muscles, at least of those connected with respiration. In sensations of pain
one has to distinguish the first shock of irritation from the subsequent state.
At the moment of irritation there ensues a deeper inhalation, and, if the
irritation is strong, also an increase in the innervation of voluntary muscles.
Then there generally follows a relaxation.”[42]
The physiological theory of pleasure and pain which can be deduced
from these experiments is, however, neither new nor original. Féré has
himself pointed out that his researches only serve to prove the views which
have been advanced with more or less explicitness by Kant, Bain, Darwin,
and Dumont.[43] All authors who have closely studied the movements of
expression have also remarked that pleasurable feelings are accompanied by
a tendency towards increased activity (Gratiolet, Darwin, Bain, Bouillier,
Mantegazza).[44] And the popular views on pleasure and pain, as we find
them expressed in literature, all agree on this point: “La joie est l’air vital de
notre âme. La tristesse est un asthme compliqué d’atonie.”[45] Every one
knows that movement and unchecked increased activity generally create
pleasure. And, on the other hand, functional inhibition is in our experience
closely connected with feelings of pain.
Although these broad facts are universally recognised, there is
nevertheless no unanimity with regard to their interpretation. It may be
held, on the one hand, that the perception of those objective conditions
which call forth pleasure is accompanied by a tendency to movement. That,
conversely, movement creates pleasure would thus be the result of an
association. But it may also be contended that the functional enhancement,
the stimulation itself, when present to consciousness, is perceived as
pleasure, and that the feeling-tone created by movement is thus not indirect
and secondary, but, on the contrary, is a typical pleasure.
We do not by any means deny the influence which associative processes
exercise on all our feelings and on the activities connected with them. As

has been shown by Darwin, animals as well as primitive man have earned
their chief enjoyment, outside their delight of warmth and repose, by violent
actions, such as hunting, war, and pairing fights.[46] And if it be objected
that memories from those distant times cannot now influence our feelings, it
must at least be admitted that within the life of the individual a firm
foundation is laid for association between pleasure and activity.[47]
Independently of all general theories, we must therefore reckon with
association as a factor by which the motor element of pleasure is greatly
increased. But it seems to us impossible to make the remembrance—
conscious or unconscious—of earlier similar states the only ground of the
activity which is connected with pleasurable feelings.
It is at least far more simple and consistent to explain, with Hamilton and
Bain, the activity itself as the physiological condition of pleasure. If any
increase of function—whether brought about by chemical, mechanical, or
psychical (that is, indirectly mechanical) influences—be considered as a
physiological condition of pleasure, and any arrest of function in the same
way be considered as a counterpart of pain, then all states of pleasure or
pain may be included in one common interpretation. Only it must be
remembered that the increase of function can never be measured by any
absolute standard. The same stimulus which in one individual calls forth
pleasure may in another individual cause pain, and the same bodily activity
which we enjoy when in a vigorous state of health may occasion suffering
when we are weak or ill. Such variations are evidently conditioned by the
varying functional powers of the organs involved. When these powers are
reduced, a stimulus, or a movement which usually produces a stimulating
effect, may instead call forth depression and pain.
In every explanation of pleasure-pain, attention must therefore be paid
not only to the claims which are made on the several organs by the
objective causes (stimuli or movements), but also to the capacity of the
organs to meet these claims. This capacity, on the other hand, is evidently
dependent upon the supply of energy afforded by the nutritive processes. In
the endeavour to pay due attention to both these factors Lehmann has been
led to this conclusion: “Pleasure and pain may in all cases be assumed to be
the psychical outcome of the relation between the consumption of energy
which at a given moment is demanded from the organs, and the supply of

energy which is afforded by nutrition.”[48] In the course of a lengthy and
laborious investigation Marshall has arrived at a very similar result:
“Pleasure and pain are determined by the relation between the energy given
out and the energy received at any given moment by the physical organs
which determine the content of that moment.” Pleasure is experienced,
according to Marshall’s definition, whenever a surplus of stored energy is
discharged in the reaction to the stimulus; pain is experienced whenever a
stimulus claims a greater development of energy in the reaction than the
organ is capable of affording.[49]
In this mode of treatment due attention is paid to those theories according
to which the conditions of pleasure are to be sought, not in expenditure of
force, but in the receiving of force or in the recovery of balance.[50] But
though this point has its own importance, it cannot by any means be put on
a level with the dynamic aspect. Pleasure can never arise when the organs
are not well-nourished, strong, and capable of function; but it arises only on
the condition that they actually do perform a function. As Marshall has
rightly remarked, there is no reason to believe that surplus of vigour and
receipt of nourishment in themselves could ever be objects of
consciousness.[51] As long as we can speak of mental states, these must be
accompanied by corresponding activities. The chief merit of Marshall’s
thesis is precisely this, that every emotional state, independently of its tone
and of its perceptible manifestations, can be interpreted in terms of activity.
Pleasure, acute or massive, appears as the result of a stimulus, which, owing
to a happy proportion between its intensity and the functional capacity of
the organ, has modified the bodily functions in such a way as to produce
manifestations of energy. Pain, acute or massive, appears as the result of a
stimulus, possibly of the same kind, which, owing to a disproportion arising
from its own greater intensity or the smaller functional capacity in the
organ, has called forth a functional inhibition—that is to say, that kind of
activity which is manifested to us as an arrest of energy.
It would be too sanguine to expect the real nature of pleasure and pain to
be exhaustively defined in any formula such as the above. From a
theoretical point of view grave objections may undoubtedly be raised
against Marshall’s theory as well as against every general interpretation of
emotional states. It may even be admitted, and we desire to admit it as soon

as possible, that in several cases it seems extremely difficult to derive the
feeling-tone of even the simplest sensations from the proportion between
“energy given out and energy received.”[52] But since, as far as we can see,
similar difficulties meet us in the application of every existing emotional
theory, for the present we must consider the constructions of Mr. Marshall,
notwithstanding their speculative and necessarily unsafe character, as
affording us the most consistent explanation of the hedonic phenomena. In
an earlier work, Förstudier till en konstfilosofi (A Preliminary Study for a
Philosophy of Art), I have tried to discuss and refute some of the arguments
which can be adduced against this theory. In the present work such a
theoretic digression would lead us too far away from the main subject. For a
right understanding of the relation between feeling and “expressional”
movements it is not necessary, we believe, to adopt exclusively any one of
the emotional theories. We shall be quite content if it is admitted that Mr.
Marshall’s interpretation affords us a scheme or formula by the aid of which
we can account, if not for the nature, at least for the external manifestations
of our feelings.
In applying his definitions to the various kinds of pleasure and pain, Mr.
Marshall has recourse to three important principles, viz. the limited amount
of energy which our system is capable of developing at any given moment,
the storage of surplus supplies of nourishment, and the transference of
energy from one organ to another. By referring to these principles he has
been able to bring under his explanation those feelings which seem to
correspond not to “activities,” but to “states.”[53]
As is well known, Hamilton had already pointed out the important,
though unsuspected, element of activity which is involved in our enjoyment
of dolce far niente.[54] But with the physiology at his command he could
scarcely have explained why rest after heavy work is always accompanied
by eminently pleasurable feelings. If it be assumed, however, that in the
case of psychical effort, e.g., the call upon our limited fund of energy has
reduced the vegetative functions to inactivity, and that this inactivity has
caused a storage of nutritive supply, then it is self-evident that the
vegetative functions, as soon as the one-sided effort has ceased, must
discharge their surplus in movements of a pleasurable character.

The pain arising from restricted activity can equally be explained in
terms of movement. If we believe that our system has a limited amount of
energy which—as long as life is maintained—must necessarily be active in
some direction or other, then we shall also understand that anything which
closes the natural and usual outlet of this energy will give rise to activities
in related organs, the nutritive state of which does not present the conditions
of pleasurable function. Mr. Marshall has tried to indicate the details of the
transition by which inactivity in one organ causes excessive activity in other
organs. His description of the “gorging of the nutritive channels,” “the
calling for aid of the disabled elements,” etc., is, however, too figurative
and poetical to be of any importance in a psychological argument.[55] Taken
as a vague and necessarily coarse metaphor, this physiological image may,
however, illustrate a process which perhaps can never be exactly analysed,
but which is nevertheless familiar to everybody. No one who has
experienced in any higher degree the diffused sensation of gnawing
inactivity can doubt the active element in this corroding feeling. One seems
to feel how the checked and thwarted impulses devouringly turn themselves
inward. Poetical literature is full of passionate outcries against the tortures
which imposed inaction inflicts on active spirits; and modern
autobiographies give us pathetic examples of the sufferings of those whose
intellectual activity has been diverted from outward aims to internal
analysis. The candid confessions of Amiel and Kierkegaard show the
inevitable necessity with which mental energy, if arrested in its natural
course, finds itself an outlet in destructive activity. This truth had already
been expressed in simple and drastic form in Logau’s old epigram:—

Ein Mühlstein und ein Menschenherz wird stets herumgetrieben.
Wenn beides nicht zu reiben hat, wird beides selbst zerrieben.

The displacement of mental attention corresponding to the transference
of energy from one organ to another in the inevitable search for a channel of
outlet causes arrested activity to be felt as an unbearable massive pain; but
this process implies at the same time a possibility of relief. If the sufferings
of restriction can be considered as brought about by arrested impulses
which have turned inwards, then it is evident that any outward activity may
overcome the obstruction. Pleasure can perhaps not be achieved before the
checked organ resumes its functions; but even a vicarious activity in some

related organ may relieve the pain. Hence the diffused, undirected
movements by which we instinctively try to get rid of a feeling of
restriction. Every high-strung emotional state which has not yet found its
appropriate expression affords an instance of this sensation. Exalted delight
therefore often manifests itself in ecstatic dances and songs, which,
properly speaking, rather relieve an incipient pain than express a pleasure.
Violent movements act as unconscious expedients by which the organism
restores itself to its normal balance.
A similar instinct ought, one would expect, to operate in sensations of
acute pain. In point of fact, an obscure consciousness of the limitation of
functional energy, or, to put it in psychological terms, of attentive power,
leads us to seek and find relief from pain in violent movement. Some of the
frantic dances of savage tribes undoubtedly serve to deaden the sufferings
inflicted by ritual tortures. But it is, of course, only in exceptional cases that
these anæsthetic expedients are intentionally resorted to. As a rule they are
to be considered as a radiation of nervous tension, and are so little
conscious that we can scarcely even call them instinctive. Besides all the
motor manifestations which thus follow upon a sensation of severe pain in
almost direct physiological sequence, some pantomimic activity of defence
or avoidance will generally be called forth by the notion of an objective
source of pain. Owing to associations derived from earlier similar states,
this reaction may often appear even when there is no definite object which
can be assigned as the cause of the feeling. Among primitive people the
pantomime of pain undoubtedly has its ground in a mythological
conception of the nature of feeling. Pain is regarded as a concrete thing
which the body may be capable of shaking off or avoiding. Crude as it may
seem, this illusion is so closely bound up with our instinctive reactions that
even the most enlightened man can never completely emancipate himself
from its influence. There is thus nearly always an intellectual factor which
co-operates with the physical tendency towards energetic reaction to pain.
Thus pain, notwithstanding its inhibitive character, may act, especially
when it is acute, as a motor incitement. Hence the curious cases of
favourable medical effects produced by severe physical suffering, which
may serve not only as a distraction of the attention, but also as a positive
stimulation of sinking vitality. Hence also the enhanced intellectual activity
which often follows upon pain.[56] There was perhaps more malignity than

truth in the remark of Michelet that Flaubert might imperil his talent by
curing his boils;[57] but there are unquestionable instances to prove that
wounds and acute diseases have exercised a powerful exciting influence on
certain artistic temperaments.
All these stimulating effects of pain must naturally be taken into account
in every emotional theory. But they can by no means be adduced, as
Fechner thinks, as an argument against the definition which we have
already given.[58] Reactions to pain follow, indeed, so immediately upon the
sensation, that they cannot be separated in time from its proper expression.
But it must always be remembered that the activities, whether of writhing
under the influence of pain or of combating it, are secondary manifestations
by which the feeling-tone is gradually weakened. Whether the stimulating
effects appear at the very moment of impression or only when the sensation
has become fully conscious, pain is always, we believe, at its keenest when
the outward development of energy is lowest. If the notion “expression” is
conceived in its strictest sense, i.e. as the physiological counterpart of the
emotional state, then pain has only one expression—inhibition.
With regard to states of pleasure it is more difficult to make any
distinction between primary and secondary manifestations. Every new
movement is a new expression of the same feeling which—as long as
fatigue does not set up its peculiar pain—is only enhanced by these
repeated “somatic resonances.” If pleasure is originated by the increased
function of one individual organ, then this stimulation must, owing to the
solidarity of the functions, gradually extend over wider areas in the system.
The more numerous the organs which take part in the activity, the more
numerous also are our sensations of function, and the greater the gain of our
pleasure in richness and variety. An undefined feeling of vigour, assurance,
or power can only acquire distinctness and intensity by expressing itself in
some mode of physical or mental activity. But while stimulation is thus
directly connected with the feeling-tone of pleasurable states, it must be
admitted, on the other hand, that—as has been remarked above—
associative influences also contribute towards enhancing their active
manifestations. By these secondary motor-impulses, however, the original
feeling is only increased. It can therefore be said that pleasure feeds and
nurtures itself by expression. Pain, on the contrary, increases in strength in
the same degree as the inhibition extends over the organism. But it can only

be weakened by active manifestations. Movements, as we have shown,
deliver us from the massive, indistinct pains of restriction as well as
mitigate our acute sufferings.
The life-preserving tendency which, under the feeling of pleasure, leads
us to movements which intensify the sensation and make it more distinct for
consciousness, compels us in pain to seek for relief and deliverance in
violent motor discharge. In either case the activity is called expressional,
and it seems difficult to avoid this equivocal usage. But it is indispensable
to make a strict distinction between the expression which operates in the
direction of the initial feeling itself, and the expression by which this
feeling is weakened.
This distinction will appear with greater clearness in the following
chapter, where we shall apply the laws of expression to the complex
emotional states. Then it will also be possible for us to point out some
æsthetic result of the psychological survey which perhaps may seem for the
moment a departure from our proper subject.

CHAPTER IV
THE EMOTIONS
The discussion of complex emotional states on which we enter in the
present chapter will be subject to the same reservation as was our previous
discussion of simple sensation-feeling. It is not proposed to attempt a
definitive explanation of the nature of emotion, nor even to criticise the
various emotion-theories which have been advanced in psychological
literature. For the purposes of an æsthetic investigation we are only
concerned with the external aspects, the outward manifestations, of mental
states. We need not therefore dilate upon the controversies as to the exact
relation between simple feeling and emotion. It is enough for us that all
authors—those who consider pain and pleasure as elements sui generis as
well as those who count them among sensations or emotions—agree in
emphasising the prominent hedonic element which enters into all our
emotions. Starting from this universally recognised fact, we shall try to
explain the impulse to expression, as it appears in complex emotions, by the
same laws which we deduced from an examination of simple hedonic
states.
The legitimacy of such a course will scarcely be contested by any one
who admits the vital and necessary connection between emotional states
and movement-sensations. And in point of fact, this connection does not
seem to be denied by many modern psychologists. There is indeed much
controversy as to the best mode of formulating the well-known theory due
to James and Lange, and there is also much to discuss in its general
theoretic aspect. But the observation on which this theory was based by
James, viz. that it is impossible for us to imagine any emotion which is not
connected with feelings of bodily symptoms, seems nowadays to be pretty
safe against attack. Before and after James, the fundamental importance of
bodily changes has been acknowledged by almost all authors who have
specially studied the emotional states. We need only refer to Bain, Ribot,
Féré, Paulhan, and Godfernaux.[59] Even Professor Stout, who on general
grounds takes exception to the views of James, leaves unassailed the thesis

from which the latter starts in his chapter on the emotions.[60] And it is even
somewhat superfluous to adduce all these authorities in support of a fact
which must have been noted by every one who pays any attention to his
own mental states. We never experience any intense emotion, such as fear,
anger, or sorrow, without at the same time experiencing some distinct
sensation of change in our functions of respiration and circulation, as well
as in the activities of our voluntary muscles. In the case of emotions of
slight intensity, where no changes of this character are perceptible, we are
justified in assuming that they do nevertheless occur, only on a much
smaller scale, and possibly in different organs. The clinical and
experimental researches of medical science, as well as experiments
undertaken in psychological laboratories, tend to prove that all ideas, even
of the most abstract kind, are accompanied by modifications of organic
activity, similar to, but weaker than, those which accompany the simple
sensations. It is only natural, therefore, to conclude that the feeling-element
in emotions and sentiments, as well as in simple pain and pleasure, is
correlated with the quality—stimulating or inhibitive—and intensity of
these modifications. All hedonic states, whether called forth directly by a
simple physiological stimulus, or indirectly by the mediation of perceptions,
memories, and ideas, can thus, in so far as they are feelings, be considered
as essentially alike. The complete emotion, such as joy or anger, with all its
elements of thought and conscious or unconscious volition, is of course
something quite different from the simple feeling-tone of mere pleasure or
pain. Physiological psychology does not, as its opponents maintain,
assimilate gratifications of the sense of taste to æsthetic enjoyment or
religious exaltation. We allow rank to a sentiment in virtue of the mental
conceptions by which it is justified in the breast of the person who feels it.
But the strength of such a sentiment, as feeling, we deem to be proportioned
to the organic changes by which enthusiasm and devotion, just as much as
sensual pleasure, are always accompanied. We do not assert that these
organic changes are always identical in kind. In the simplest forms of
hedonic sensation—sensation proper—they have their main equivalent in
changes of the vegetative functions; in the emotions they are accompanied
by movements of our voluntary muscles; and in the sentiments they may
correspond to an activity which takes place chiefly in the organ of thought.
And from these differences arise other important differences in duration as
well as in intensity of the pleasure-pain. But all these various limitations

cannot modify the essential fact, which is, that pleasure is always connected
with an enhancement, and pain with a depression, of the vital functions.
For a satisfactory explanation of our emotions it would no doubt be
desirable to have all the complicated physiological concomitants reduced to
simple terms of functional enhancement and functional arrest. Such a
reduction can, however, be undertaken only in a few favourable cases. We
can easily see, for instance, that in pride and humiliation a series of
perceptions and ideas have brought about conditions of facilitated and
checked activity similar to those which, in sensational pleasure-pain, are
created by simple physiological stimuli.[61] We may also agree with
Lehmann when he endeavours to prove that the pain a child experiences
when its mother leaves its bedside can be reduced to a sensation of arrested
activity.[62] And we may in the same way explain our own feelings after
losses which, from our point of view, are more serious, as largely due to the
fact that an occasion of activity for our senses, thoughts, or bodily powers
has been suddenly withdrawn. But it would be too laborious to enter upon
such an analysis of all our compound emotions, and it is also superfluous.
Even when the organic conditions of pleasure and pain cannot be detected
among the intricate mass of intellectual and volitional elements which make
up what we can observe of an emotion, we must still, from analogy,
conclude that some kind of functional enhancement or arrest corresponds to
the feeling-tone.
Seeing, then, that what we may call “pure feeling” remains the same in
all possible combinations, we must expect to meet with the same
phenomena in connection with the manifestations of the higher emotions
and sentiments, as those already described in case of simple pain or
pleasure. It is true that in fully formed anger, joy, contempt, and so on, the
tendency to expression for expression’s sake—as when a child laughs or
dances for mere joy—is seldom found pure and unmixed. But even in such
complex states we may in the abstract distinguish the impulse directly and
inherently connected with the physiological change—the impulse which
tends automatically to bring out the tone of pleasure with more prominence
or to relieve the tone of pain—from all the conscious and volitional
activities by which the external cause of the feeling is either approached or
avoided. We have only to remember that, as was the case with sensation-
feelings, those intentional movements which are directly or by virtue of

association connected with an emotion will always work in the same
direction as the purely automatic expression.
With regard to anger, for instance, we can in theory, at all events,
distinguish the activity which follows as a purely physiological reaction
upon the initial inhibition, and which therefore is quite undirected by any
idea of attacking an enemy, from the conscious reaction by which we strive
with all our powers to overcome and annihilate a real or imaginary foe. But
we know that both these kinds of expression produce similar mental effects.
Whether we concentrate our attention on the element of pure feeling and its
accompanying activities, or on the intermixture of intellectual and volitional
elements by which the emotion is distinguished from simple pleasure-pain,
we shall thus find that active manifestations always enhance the positive
tone of feeling, which is in itself the counterpart of a functional
enhancement, and relieve the negative tone, which is the counterpart of
functional arrest.
To prove this assertion with regard to all the different emotions would
mean an unnecessary repetition of the arguments adduced in the preceding
chapter. We need therefore only dwell on a few individual cases in which
the effects of expression, owing to the complex nature of all fully developed
emotions, are subject to misinterpretation. It has, for instance, often been
contended in psychological literature that pleasurable emotions lose in
strength in the same degree as they are expressed. Mr. Spencer, who finds
the physiological basis of all emotion in nervous tension, has tried to prove
that joy is always strongest when most restrained. But the argument he
adduces is by no means unimpeachable. He says that people who show the
finest appreciation of humour are often capable of saying and doing the
most laughable things with the utmost gravity.[63] In this instance joy has,
however, been confounded with the sense of the comic, which is of course a
purely intellectual gift, and which does not even presuppose a cheerful
disposition. The less the expenditure of nervous force on outward activity,
the greater is the efficiency with which the work of thought can be carried
on.[64] There is thus a physiological reason why he who laughs least utters
the best jokes. But all the fools whose mouths overflow with laughter (risus
abundat in ore stultorum) may no doubt often be happier than the most
talented humourist. No sane man would say that Swift was happy.

It is, however, undeniable that even joy gradually decreases if it is
allowed an unimpeded outlet. But that is often a result of bodily fatigue,
which makes thought as well as feeling impossible. Pleasure may also
increase qua feeling, if its most outward manifestations are controlled. But
hereby the activity has only, as Spencer himself remarks, been directed into
new channels.[65] The motor impulses reflect themselves inwards and
accumulate when their outlet is stopped. From bodily movements, which
are its simplest and most natural expression, joy may thus be diverted into
the region of thought. When a savage has attained so high a state of
development as to be able to control the impulse to dance and yell for joy,
the first dithyramb has been composed.
It is impossible for us to estimate the relative importance of internal and
external activity. All we can say is that a joy, the outward expressions of
which are controlled, probably gains in durability. But on the other hand it
is possible that a joy which has been allowed a free discharge, in the very
moment of expression is stronger qua feeling. If the motor impulses find no
outlet in any direction, the emotional state will, as has already been pointed
out, become more and more affected with elements of pain.
When the physiological counterpart of an emotion takes the form of an
inhibition, the feeling-tone will of course gain in intensity in the same
degree as wider and wider areas of activity come under the influence of the
arrest. This law can also be observed in the course of development of all
pain-emotions. Sorrow, despair, humiliation, and so on, are relatively mild
as long as the inhibition is restricted to the voluntary muscles. They acquire
their full and proper strength as feeling only when the involuntary activities
take part in the functional disturbance. And we can often notice in ourselves
how, in the same degree as a painful emotion increases, the inhibition cuts
its way deeper and deeper into the organism.[66] Humiliation, which of all
emotions is the most hopelessly and irredeemably painful, is in its higher
degrees always accompanied by functional changes which make themselves
felt even in our digestive organs. Literature, to which in questions of
emotional psychology we must apply for the information which no
experiment can supply, proves that it is hard to swallow. It has a bitter taste,
and is sickening even in purely physical sense.[67] The greatest grief, on the
other hand, that man has been able to imagine manifests itself

physiologically as a complete internal as well as external paralysis, such as
is suggested by the Greek myth of the sorrowing mother turned into stone.
The progress of functional inhibition from organ to organ and the
accompanying increase of the pain-emotion does of course generally take
place without the co-operation of volition. But the increase of an incipient
pain-sentiment can also be facilitated by voluntary efforts. As Professor
James remarks, we may effectively strengthen a mood of sadness if we only
consistently arrest the activity of all the organs which are under the control
of our will.[68] And it is well known that much is possible in the way of
working up feelings of melancholy. It may seem somewhat strange that the
cultivation of such painful states has attained so high a development in man.
But the apparent paradox is solved if we direct our attention to the
secondary tones of pleasure which can always be derived from artificial
moods of suffering. Sentimental reflection is able to extract from them a
peculiar satisfaction which is highly appreciated by certain temperaments.
We need only refer to the literature of romanticism, which gives us most
instructive instances of pride in sensibility. Another kind of enjoyment is
attained when persons who consider themselves unfairly treated by cruel
fortune deliberately feed upon their own sufferings. As Spencer has
shrewdly pointed out, they will infallibly derive a pleasurable sensation of
their own value when contrasting their fate with the happiness which they
consider their due.[69] Melancholy people, on the other hand, may perhaps
be inclined to make themselves as helpless and unfortunate as possible for
the sake of experiencing both sides of that “love of the helpless”[70] which,
according to Spencer, is the most primordial form of altruistic feeling. The
expressions and pantomimes of sadness often strike us as a kind of self-
caressing in which the sufferer, by division of his own personality, enjoys
the double pleasure of giving and receiving.
According to the most consistent terminology, this tendency to enhance
feeling by voluntary co-operation with functional inhibition ought perhaps
to be considered as the characteristic expression of painful emotion. It is,
however, as has already been pointed out in our treatment of sensation-
feeling, more in conformity with ordinary usage—and also with etymology
—to apply the word expression to those active, outward manifestations by
which the inhibition is relieved. There can be no inconvenience in doing so

if we only keep constantly in mind the distinction between the expression
which enhances and the expression which relieves. As long as these two
notions are confounded, a consistent explanation of emotional states is quite
impossible. The contradictions in Professor James’ brilliant chapter on the
emotions furnish us with a ready proof of this impossibility. If he had based
his theory upon a close discrimination of either class of expression, as they
can be distinguished in simple sensational feeling, he would probably not
have contended that sorrow is increased by sobbing,[71] while admitting in
another passage that “dry and shrunken sorrow” is more painful than any
“crying fit.”[72]
It is, however, impossible to deny that sighing, sobbing, twisting the
hands, and other active manifestations are often effectively used, by actors,
for example, as means for working up despair or sorrows.[73] But it seems
to us indubitable that these movements when they succeed in creating the
real feeling do so by help of association. A pain-emotion which has been
called into existence by such dramatic mechanism is therefore seldom quite
genuine. Real sorrow, hate, or anger, as pain-feelings, are on their
physiological side much more deeply seated than these surface expressions,
which, properly speaking, are merely a reproduction of the usual reactions
upon the primary feeling. They are therefore not to be easily stirred up by
aid of mimetic action.
It may perhaps be contended that these remarks apply only to the
artificial creation of pain-emotion. When under the sway of veritable
sorrow we undoubtedly feel as if the mental state were really intensified
during its expression by the direct influence of the muscular activities,
which constitute the sighing, sobbing, or crying. As far as the compound
emotion is concerned, this observation is unquestionably correct. Sorrow,
with all its intellectual and volitional elements, may become more distinct
for consciousness the more it is actively expressed. But the pain itself,
which constitutes the primary and initial state of this emotion, has by no
means been increased. On the contrary, a crying fit, for instance, as even
Professor James admits, may be accompanied by a kind of excitement
which has a peculiar tone of pungent pleasure.[74]
The same process can be observed in the course of all the so-called pain-
emotions. During active expression, while the general mental state increases

in definiteness, the purely “algedonic” element of pain is gradually
weakened or changed. Anger, which begins with an inhibition and a
vascular contraction, to which,[75] on the mental side, corresponds a feeling
of intense pain, is thus in its active stage a decidedly pleasurable emotion.
[76]
Fear, which in its initial stage is paralysing and depressing, often
changes in tone when the first shock has been relieved by motor reaction.
[77]
And to some extent the same may be said even of despair. In every pain-
emotion where there is a development of active energy involved in the
reaction upon the initial feeling, the tone of this feeling is apt to undergo
some change owing to the influence of this activity.
This circumstance explains why expression for expression’s sake as a
life-preserving principle occupies so important a place in the life of man.
But it also accounts for another phenomenon which, although not directly
connected with the expressional impulse, is æsthetically so important that it
cannot properly be passed over in this work. We refer to the apparent
paradox that anger, fear, sorrow, notwithstanding their distinctly painful
initial stage, are often not only not avoided, but even deliberately sought.
Taken in connection with those perhaps even more curious cases, in which
sensation-feelings of pain are intentionally provoked, this apparent
inversion of the normal course constitutes one of the most important
problems in emotional psychology. The question of such “luxuries of grief,”
or, to use a more appropriate German phrase, “Die Wonne des Leids,” is,
however, so complicated that its treatment will require a chapter to itself.

CHAPTER V
THE ENJOYMENT OF PAIN
We have pointed out that enjoyment can be derived by sentimental
reflection on moods of sadness. Such refined forms of the “luxury of grief”
presuppose a certain intellectual development and a tendency to
introspection, which cannot possibly be assumed in primitive man. But as
the active forms of the so-called pain-emotions are highly appreciated—we
may even say indulged in as enjoyments—by the lower tribes of man, there
must evidently be some more immediate cause of this delight. And we are
the more tempted to look for this cause in the emotional process itself, by
the fact that even bodily pains, which do not admit of any sentimental
interpretation, may be deliberately excited.
We remarked in our treatment of the simple emotional elements, that
pleasure and pain can in no case be estimated by any absolute measure.
Now that we have to find some explanation of the delight in pain, which
applies to purely physical as well as to mental pain, we begin by admitting
that the relative character of feeling probably accounts for many instances
in which the pain is merely apparent. The same external stimulus which acts
on one individual with hypernormal strength, and therefore evokes pain,
may in the case of another individual who has duller senses, produce a
weaker impression, and thus call forth a pleasurable reaction. The taste and
smell anomalies of hysterical patients afford us good examples of such
abnormal pleasure. And, on the other hand, there are plenty of instances, too
familiar to be enumerated, in which an impression which a sick person
would call painful brings pleasure to a healthy one.
Again, the power of receiving pleasurable sensations from strong stimuli
may often be increased by exercise. Mr. Marshall has applied his psycho-
physiological principles to the interpretation of these “acquired pleasure-
gettings” and though he perhaps does not exhaustively and convincingly
explain the process, he at least gives a graphic and clear account of its most
probable course. He thinks that a hypernormal stimulus indirectly increases
the blood-supply to the stimulated organ. This organ will therefore, if the

operation of the stimulus is not too prolonged, store up some portion of
unused nutritive force during the subsequent repose. And thus, if the same
stimulus is shortly afterwards repeated, the organ will be able to respond
with greater facility and intensity, i.e. react under the conditions of
pleasurable reaction. In this way Marshall accounts for the classic instances
of acquired liking for olives and tobacco.[78]
It is probable that a similar influence of repeated exercise may also
operate in the department of compound emotions. Lehmann, who explains
the transformation of originally painful impressions into pleasurable ones in
a somewhat different way, viz. by his law of “the indispensability of
accustomed things” refers to this law those instances in which persons who
have had many troubles grow so accustomed to them, that in a moment of
ease they feel a kind of loss.[79] The validity of this law will be recognised
by every one who has any opportunity of observing the vaguely and weakly
unpleasant feeling which sometimes appears when we are suddenly
liberated from some pursuing anxiety. And the indispensability of
accustomed sensations may impel persons to create new mental pains or
worries to replace the old ones.
Yet the mere craving for customary sensations cannot explain those cases
of genuine luxury in grief in which pain-sensations and pain-emotions are
sought precisely because they are painful. But if we take into account the
powerful stimulating effect which is produced by acute pain, we may easily
understand why people submit to momentary unpleasantness for the sake of
enjoying the subsequent excitement. This motive leads to the deliberate
creation not only of pain-sensations, but also of emotions in which pain
enters as an element. The violent activity which is involved in the reaction
against fear, and still more in that against anger, affords us a sensation of
pleasurable excitement which is well worth the cost of the passing
unpleasantness. It is, moreover, notorious that some persons have developed
a peculiar art of making the initial pain of anger so transient that they can
enjoy the active elements in it with almost undivided delight. Such an
accomplishment is far more difficult in the case of sorrow. The reactions are
here seldom allowed so free a course as to be able to change the feeling-
tone of the state. Moreover, the remembrance of the objective cause will
always tend to reawaken the original feeling with its accompanying
inhibition. Besides, a man of culture and refinement is generally deterred by

a kind of respect for his own emotional life from artificially stirring up
states of sorrow for his own enjoyment. This reluctance, however, does not
seem to exist in lower stages of development. The crying feasts of the
Maoris and the Todas—which afford a striking parallel to the ceremonial
wailings of ancient Greece—are no doubt, whatever their ritual significance
may be, attended with a kind of pleasure.[80] By seizing on some real or
fictitious cause for grief—the death of a Linos or an Adonis—the
participants succeed, we imagine, in creating a state of sorrow in which the
active and stimulating elements outweigh the pain.
However barbarous this kind of amusement may seem to us, it is by no
means certain that we have completely outgrown such pleasures. The
delight in witnessing the performance of a tragedy undoubtedly involves the
enjoyment of a borrowed pain, which, by unconscious sympathetic
imitation, we make partially our own.[81] And the same phenomenon
appears in a yet cruder form in the custom, so general among the lower
classes of most countries, of visiting funerals and similar ceremonies where
sorrow can be contemplated and shared. Even civilised man is thus able to
enjoy the pleasure which may be connected with emotions of sorrow and
despair, at least in second-hand reproduction.
It is scarcely necessary to go through all the various emotional states in
order to prove that every one of them, if it can per se be enjoyed (in nature
or art), is either primarily or by its reactions connected with an increase of
outward activity. But we must point out that the pleasure derived from this
motor excitement is often still further enhanced by the agency of an
intellectual element which is simpler than sentimental reflection, and does
not presuppose any tendency towards introspection. In pain as in pleasure,
in suffering as in voluptuousness, we attain a heightened and enriched
sensation of life. The more we love life, the more must we also enjoy this
sensation, even if it be called into existence by pain. Lessing, who cannot
possibly be called morbid, confesses to this taste in an interesting letter
written to Mendelssohn: “Darinn sind wir doch wohl einig, l.F., dass alle
Leidenschaften entweder heftige Begierden oder heftige Verabscheuengen
sind? Auch darinn: dass wir uns bei jeder heftigen Begierde oder
Verabscheuung, eines grösser Grads unserer Realität bewusst sind und dass
dieses Bewusstsein nicht anders als angenehm sein kann? Folglich sind alle
Leidenschaften, auch die allerunangenehmsten, als Leidenschaften

angenehm.”[82] (“We are agreed in this, my dear friend, that all passions are
either vehement cravings or vehement loathings, and also that in every
vehement craving or loathing we acquire an increased consciousness of our
reality, and that this consciousness cannot but be pleasurable. Consequently,
all our passions, even the most painful, are, as passions, pleasurable.”) And
Helvetius has expressed almost the same idea: “Nous souhaiterons donc,
par des impressions toujours nouvelles, être à chaque instant avertis de
notre existence, parceque chacun de ces avertissements est pour nous un
plaisir.”[83] (“Accordingly, we shall desire, by means of constantly renewed
impressions, to be at every moment reminded of our existence, because
each of these reminders is for us a pleasure.”) For the sake of this
“avertissement” of existence, individuals of intense vital temperament, like
Richard Jefferies and Maryia Bashkirtseff, have positively loved their very
sufferings.[84]
It is evident that pain as a sign of life and function may be especially
welcome when the vital sensation has for any reason become weakened.
The self-woundings of the heathen and Christian saints, although no doubt
fully justified to the sufferers themselves by religious motives, may thus
have had their innermost unconscious motive in an endeavour to overcome
that anæsthesia which is so usual an accompaniment of hysterical
disturbances.[85] It is hard to believe that the tortures which they inflict
upon themselves are really felt as neutral or pleasurable. But we can easily
understand that such torture, although more or less painful, may afford a
kind of satisfaction by compelling the slow and dull senses to function.
Professor Lange has in his work on the emotions laid special stress upon
this point. “It is a condition of our well-being,” he says, “that our sensorial
centres should be in a certain degree of activity called forth by the
impressions which reach them through the sensorial nerves from the
outside. If from some cause or other—for instance, from a decrease in the
functional powers of these centres—there arises an insensibility,
anæsthesia, then we feel a longing to force them to their usual activity by
addressing to them an abnormally strong appeal, or, in other words, by
intensifying the external impressions and thereby neutralising the
insensibility.”[86] This principle has, indeed, as applied by Lange to the
expressions of anger, been mercilessly ridiculed by Wundt.[87] But it seems
to us that the observation itself can scarcely be contested. Whether we

explain it as a case of the indispensability of the accustomed or as the result
of some peculiar yearning for life—a soul-desire, as Mr. Jefferies would
have called it—a deficient consciousness of function is in most cases
distinctly unpleasant. And, on the other hand, it seems as if an increased
consciousness of function were per se pleasurable. It is of course difficult to
prove by exact argument the existence of a feeling which can be observed
only as the innermost concealed motive of our life. But on as strong
evidence as can ever be adduced on matters of emotional life, we may
believe that in every conscious life there operates a dim instinctive craving
for fuller and greater consciousness, or, if the expression be preferred, for
the most complete self-realisation. Happiness itself has been defined by a
philosopher so little inclined to mysticism as Mr. Brinton, as “the increasing
consciousness of self.”[88] It is therefore easy to understand why, when this
consciousness has been blunted by some cause or other, we may even long
for suffering and pain as a means of escaping the dulness, emptiness, and
darkness of insensibility. It may seem to be a disturbance of all normal
instincts that pain—an element hostile to vital activity—can thus be
preferred to a state the unpleasantness of which is only diffuse. But we have
to remember that the absence of sensation and function frightens us by its
similarity to what we fear more than pain.
The sufferings of insensibility, this highest possible form of tedium,
which—if we are to judge from the descriptions in literature and poetry—
may in themselves be unbearable enough, must needs be unusually keen in
individuals who are given up to philosophic reflection. The feeling of
inanity which is caused by a suspense of vital sensations is apt to spread
itself over the whole field of sense-experience.[89] In default of strong
impressions, with their subsequent reactions, we may lose the sense not
only of our own existence, but also of that of the external world.[90] The
relatively neutral evidence of our higher senses does not afford us the same
assurance of reality as is given by grosser impressions, which affect us
more directly in the way of pleasure or pain. On purely physiological
grounds there may thus be produced a morbid conception of the universe
which, having neither ego nor non-ego to rely on, lacks the conviction
either of subjective or objective existence. From this vertiginous inanity,
which must bring every philosophic temperament into despair, life delivers
us by the same means which Molière uses to confute the Pyrrhonists. Pain

is the most convincing reality we can imagine. It may therefore, even when
it is not deliberately sought for, afford a welcome support to thought.

“Suffice it thee
Thy pain is a reality.”

(Tennyson, “The Two Voices”).

In this connection, however, we have not to dwell on the philosophical
importance of pain. We are here only concerned with its significance for the
immediate sense of life. And in this respect we believe that an artificial
creation of pain may play some part not only in anger, but in the expression
of all high-strung emotions. It is well known that the orgiastic state of mind,
whether originally caused by religious exaltation or by erotic delirium, may
often, when it has reached its highest stage, express itself in self-laceration.
These facts are no doubt difficult to interpret. But it seems justifiable to
assume that a tendency towards the creating of pain-sensations may have
been derived from the emotional process itself. Explained in this way,
orgiastic self-tortures may be adduced as the most remarkable proofs of this
desire for an enhanced sense of life which lies at the bottom of all our
appetence.
However energetically strong emotions may accentuate our existence,
and however deeply we may enjoy the “realisation of ourselves” which we
find in the violent excitement accompanying them, high-strung states are
naturally bound to be followed by exhaustion and stupor. And thus even the
intoxication of life, this most powerful of sensations, sooner or later passes
its climax and sinks into dull insensibility. The lower the function by the
incitement of which the exaltation is produced, the greater probably is its
orgiastic power. But its duration is also so much the shorter. A wild dance,
for instance, invariably ends in impotent prostration, during which the
power of function and sensation is completely exhausted. As long as the
mental desire for increased excitement is unsatisfied, this state must be
distinctly disagreeable. Hence all the frenetic manifestations by which man,
when raging in insatiable exaltation, strives to awake and rouse his failing
powers of enjoyment.

In the whole domain of comparative psychology there can scarcely be
adduced an example which throws so much light on the orgiastic state of
mind as the Bacchanal frenzy. And the descriptions of this “Dionysischer
Zustand” which are to be found in classic literature give us the most
complete idea of the various expedients by which the devotee tries to
maintain and increase his state of exaltation in spite of the growing
tendency to relaxation. By noise, roaring, and loud cries, by frenetic dance
and wild actions, the “Maenads” strive to preserve and recover the fading
sense of life, which ever baffles their exertions. And as the last, infallible
means of excitement, resorted to when all other stimulations have proved
unable to stir up the dulled senses, we may explain the tortures which the
partly insensible Bacchante inflicts upon herself. “Suum Bacchis non sentit
saucia vulnus.”[91]
There are various kinds of orgiastic exaltation connected with self-torture
—as that of the tarantella dancers, of the dervishes, of the shamans, and
others—in which the creation of pain-sensations may be explained as a
desperate device for enhancing the intensity of the emotional state. Acute
pain often makes it possible to overcome momentarily the exhaustion or the
dulness which unfits us for work. And it is evident that pain may produce a
similar excitement when we require an increase of energy, not for the sake
of obtaining the greatest possible result from a working activity, but for the
sake of extracting the greatest possible enjoyment out of an emotional state.
But if this interpretation be admitted as possible, there will be ample
room for discussion as to its application to individual cases. For it is to be
remembered that even pain may fulfil the task of relieving a nervous
tension. In cases of bodily suffering counter irritation may thus bring about
a wholesome diversion of the attention from an otherwise unbearable pain.
[92]
And it is unquestionable that self-inflicted lacerations during violent
emotion often subserve the same purpose. When a savage scarifies himself
on receiving bad news, or at a funeral feast, his action is an instinctive effort
to procure relief from the overpowering feelings.[93] That he is not simply
performing a sacrificial rite,[94] but is merely seeking the relief which
experience has taught him may be afforded by pain as well as by the
subsequent exhaustion (especially from loss of blood), is proved by the fact
that the same expedient is employed in order to overcome humiliation or

bodily pain.[95] It is not stimulation, but a lulling of the senses, which is
here aimed at.
It must also be admitted that even the other orgiastic manifestations may
serve as purely cathartic means of relieving emotional pressure. It is, as has
already been remarked, impossible to decide in individual cases whether an
activity of expression—a dance, for instance—serves to enhance a
pleasurable feeling or to relieve a pain. Suffering, sorrow, and despair may
often, in their outward reactions, borrow the forms of expression which are
usually connected with joy. Thus frenetic games and dances are often met
with on occasions when we should least of all expect them, as, for instance,
in time of famine, epidemic, or war.[96] Such paradoxical manifestations, in
which an overstrained despair attempts to obtain some kind of relief, are
externally not to be distinguished from the genuine expression of joy. On
the other hand, an abnormally strong emotion, which is primarily caused by
the objective conditions of pleasure, may in its excess be perceived as a
pain. Joy itself can thus be felt as an oppressive burden, which we try with
all our power to get rid of. The motor discharges, by which we seek relief
from such a “Noth der Fülle und der Überfülle,” can, however, only
indirectly offer us any real deliverance. A wild dance, for instance, will
inevitably accentuate the original feeling as a conscious state, and thereby
increase its intensity. But with this increase the craving for relief will also
become stronger. As long as expression is unable to satisfy the ever-
growing nervous tension, there must remain an element of “never enough”
in the orgiastic exaltation. It is only when repeated solicitation has brought
on bodily exhaustion that a real release is attained.
There is no doubt that such a relief-bringing exhaustion was the ultimate
aim of all those exalted manifestations to which the poor tarantuli and the
Vitus dancers abandoned themselves. But the problem presented by the
similarity between the pathological despair which constitutes the initial
stage of such epidemic mental disorders, and the oppressive feeling of joy
whose expression has been thwarted, is so difficult that we can hardly
expect to obtain a decisive answer to such questions as whether, for
example, the mænadic exaltation is to be considered as a melancholic or a
cheerful state of mind. And in most cases it would probably be equally
impossible to ascertain whether in a given manifestation we have to do with

pleasure that seeks enhancement, or with pain that seeks relief in
exhaustion.
While every one is thus free to interpret the facts according to his
optimistic or pessimistic bias, it must nevertheless be considered as a
confusion of ideas to make the quest of unconsciousness a universal and
fundamental impulse in man. It is impossible for us to assign any
psychological importance to commonplaces on the enviable state of the
insensible and the happiness to be found in unconsciousness. It is only
when it delivers us from pain that a state of partial insensibility and
cessation of function may be perceived as relatively agreeable. That an
absolute absence of feeling could afford us any pleasure is a psychological
contradiction in terms.
This illusion of unconsciousness can, however, be easily explained by the
fact that intense emotional states are generally dominated by a single
preoccupation. A strong feeling, by reason of the limitations of our
consciousness, annihilates external sensations and ideas. Ecstasy, that
“over-conscious” state of highly concentrated activity, rises above space
and time to a state in which we feel liberated from all forms of perception.
But the highest pleasure which we may thus experience is not, as Wagner in
his pessimistic period would have it, a sinking and drowning of ourselves in
unconsciousness; it is far rather—

“endlos ewig
einbewuszt.”

To enjoy so rich and complete a sensation of life has, we believe, been
the object for which, each in his own manner, all men of strong vitality have
striven. Even if there are individuals so unfortunate that for them a
cessation of life and function appears as the highest end of desire, such
negative instances need hardly be taken into account in a survey of
universal human impulses. The longing for unconsciousness is moreover so
passive a condition of mind, that by itself it could never explain
expressional activities of the more violent or elaborate sort. And it is even
more insufficient as an explanation of all those secondary expressions
which are to occupy us in the sequel. Art production would never have
reached so high a development if it had served only as a sedative for human

feelings. But neither does art, any more than the direct activities of
expression, involve mere excitement; it too fulfils, and with even greater
efficacy, a relieving and cathartic mission. While supplying man with a
means of intensifying the feelings connected with all the varied activities of
the soul, art at the same time bestows upon him that inward calm in which
all strong emotions find their relief.
Every interpretation of art which does not pay due attention to both of
these aspects must needs be one-sided and incomplete.

CHAPTER VI
SOCIAL EXPRESSION
In order to find an explanation of the nature and origin of the art-impulse
we were compelled to enter upon a digression on the general psychology of
feeling. It appeared from this hasty examination that in the motor
concomitants of physical as well as of mental feeling we have to do with a
form of activity which, taken by itself, is independent of all external
motives. It was shown that the diffusion of a feeling-tone always
corresponds to some active manifestation, generally outward, which
increases in the same degree as the state of consciousness gains in intensity
and distinctness. Besides these immediate transformations of energy which,
owing to the law of inertia, follow the primary enhancement or inhibition of
function, we met with reactions of a more conscious kind, by which the
organism strives to overcome the inhibition of pain, and to keep up the
excitement of pleasure. And it was also found that the universal animal
desire to increase every pleasure and to relieve every pain has given rise to
a multitude of secondary manifestations, by which we try to sustain every
pleasure, to make it more distinct for consciousness, and thus enhance it by
expression, while, during states of pain, we strive for relief in diversion or
in violent motor discharge. Finally it was remarked that by the side of this
expressional impulse we must take account of a yearning after increased
consciousness, which leads us to pursue, even at the risk of some passing
pain, all feelings and emotions by which our sensation of life is reinforced
and intensified. All these impulses, accompanied by higher or lower degrees
of conscious endeavour, are psychical phenomena of fundamental
importance. They are not restricted to any particular stage of culture. And
their coercive force is equal—nay, even superior to that of the imitative
impulse, the play-impulse, and the impulse “to attract by pleasing.” If we
could deduce the desire for artistic creation from the activities connected
with feeling, we should here find the explanation of its universality as well
as of its force.

But among the manifestations described in the foregoing chapters there is
none which directly leads us to the artistic activity. As against the Spieltrieb
theories it was objected that play never develops of itself into art, so it may
now be objected, with as much reason, that all immediate or secondary
emotional manifestations, however interesting they may be, give us no
information on artistic manifestations. The instinctive tendency to express
overmastering feeling, to enhance pleasure, and to seek relief from pain,
forms the most deep-seated motive of all human activity. We can therefore
derive the distinctive qualities of artistic production from this impulse only
when it has been proved that art is better able than any other kind of mental
function to serve and satisfy the requirements which arise from this impulse
when it occurs in its purest form.
That this is the case, is the fundamental hypothesis upon which this work
is based. It was impossible to prove its validity as long as emotional
manifestations were treated as phenomena in the psychical life of the
individual. For art is in its innermost nature a social activity. In order to
elucidate the connection between art-impulse and emotional activities, we
must therefore examine the latter as they appear in the social relations of
mankind. We do not believe that any new principles are necessary for this
purpose. We need only apply to social phenomena the same laws which
were found to be valid for the emotional life of the individual. As, however,
the legitimacy of such a course may be questioned, we must first devote
some pages to a treatment of what we may call—if the expression is
allowed—the interindividual life.
This digression brings us into a field of inquiry—that of the psychical
conditions of social life—which during recent years has been the object of
certain most important scientific researches. The investigations into the
psychology of masses, as well as the experiments on suggestive
therapeutics, have proved to how great an extent mental states may be
transmitted from individual to individual by unconscious imitation of the
accompanying movements. The doctrine of universal sympathy, a clear
statement of which was given long ago in the ethical theory of Adam Smith,
[97]
has thus acquired a psychological justification in the modern theories of
imitative movement. Contemporary science has at last learned to appreciate
the fundamental importance of imitation for the development of human
culture.[98] And some authors have even gone so far as to endeavour to

deduce all sociological laws from this one principle. At the same time
natural history has begun to pay more and more attention to the
indispensability of imitation for the full development of instincts, as well as
for training in those activities which are the most necessary in life.[99]
It is fortunate for the theory of art that the importance of the imitative
functions has thus been simultaneously acknowledged in various
departments of science. Whatever one may think of the somewhat
audacious generalisations which have been made in the recent application
of this new principle, it is incontestable that the æsthetic activities can be
understood and explained only by reference to universal tendency to
imitate. It is also significant that writers on æsthetic had felt themselves
compelled to set up a theory of imitation long before experimental
psychologists had begun to turn their attention in this direction. In Germany
the enjoyment of form and form-relations has since Vischer’s time been
interpreted as the result of the movements by which not only our eye, but
also our whole body, follows the outlines of external things.[100] In France
Jouffroy stated the condition for the receiving of æsthetic impressions to be
a “power of internally imitating the states which are externally manifested
in living nature.”[101] In England, finally, Vernon Lee and Anstruther
Thompson have founded a theory of beauty and ugliness upon this same
psychical impulse to copy in our own unconscious movements the forms of
objects.[102] And in the writings of, for instance, Home,[103] Hogarth,[104]
Dugald Stewart,[105] and Spencer,[106] there can be found a multitude of
isolated remarks on the influence which is in a direct way exercised on our
mental life by the perception of lines and forms.
In most of these theories and observations, however, the imitative activity
has been noticed only in so far as it contributes to the æsthetic delight
which may be derived from sensual impressions. But its importance is by
no means so restricted as this; on the contrary, we believe it to be a
fundamental condition for the existence of intuition itself. Without all these
imperceptible tracing movements with which our body accompanies the
adaptation of the eye-muscles to the outlines of external objects, our notions
of depth, height, and distance, and so on, would certainly be far less distinct
than they are.[107] On the other hand, the habit of executing such
movements has, so to say, brought the external world within the sphere of

the internal. The world has been measured with man as a standard, and
objects have been translated into the language of mental experience. The
impressions have hereby gained not only in emotional tone, but also in
intellectual comprehensibility.[108]
Greater still is the importance of imitation for our intuition of moving
objects. And a difficult movement itself is fully understood only when it has
been imitated, either internally or in actual outward activity. The idea of a
movement, therefore, is generally associated with an arrested impulse to
perform it.[109] Closer introspection will show every one to how great a part
our knowledge, even of persons, is built up of motor elements. By
unconsciously and imperceptibly copying in our own body the external
behaviour of a man, we may learn to understand him with benevolent or
malevolent sympathy.[110] And it will no doubt be admitted by most readers
that the reason why they know their friends and foes better than they know
any one else is that they carry the remembrance of them not only in their
eyes, but in their whole body. When in idle moments we find the memory of
an absent friend surging up in our mind with no apparent reason, we may
often note, to our astonishment, that we have just been unconsciously
adopting one of his characteristic attitudes, or imitating his peculiar gestures
or gait.
It may, however, be objected that the above-mentioned instances refer
only to a particular class of individuals. In other minds, it will be said, the
world-picture is entirely built up of visual and acoustic elements. It is also
impossible to deny that the classification of minds in different types, which
modern psychology has introduced, is as legitimate as it is advantageous for
the purposes of research. But we can hardly believe that such divisions have
in view anything more than a relative predominance of the several psychical
elements.[111] It is easily understood that a man in whose store of memory
visual or acoustic images occupy the foremost place may be inclined to
deny that motor sensations of unconscious copying enter to any extent into
his psychical experience. But an exclusively visual world-image, if such a
thing is possible, must evidently be not only emotionally poorer, but also
intellectually less distinct and less complete, than an intuition, in which
such motor elements are included.

The importance of motor sensations in the psychology of knowledge is
by itself of no æsthetic interest. The question has been touched upon in this
connection only because of the illustration which it gives to the imitation
theory. If, as we believe is the case, it is really necessary, for the purpose of
acquiring a complete comprehension of things and events, to “experience”
them—that is to say, to pursue and seize upon them, not only with the
particular organ of sense to which they appeal, but also by tracing
movements of the whole body, then there is no need to wonder at the
universality of the imitative impulse. Imitation does not only, according to
this view, facilitate our training in useful activities, and aid us in deriving an
æsthetic delight from our sensations: it serves also, and perhaps primarily,
as an expedient for the accommodating of ourselves to the external world,
and for the explaining of things by reference to ourselves. It is therefore
natural that imitative movements should occupy so great a place among the
activities of children and primitive men. And we can also understand why
this fundamental impulse, which has played so important a part in racial as
well as in individual education, may become so great as to be a disease and
dominate the whole of conscious life.[112] As children we all imitated before
we comprehended, and we have learned to comprehend by imitating.[113] It
is only when we have grown familiar by imitation with the most important
data of perception that we become capable of appropriating knowledge in a
more rational way. Although no adult has any need to resort to external
imitation in order to comprehend new impressions, it is still only natural
that in a pathological condition he should relapse into the primitive
imitative reaction. And it is equally natural that an internal, i.e. arrested,
imitation should take place in all our perceptions. After this explanation of
the universality of this phenomenon we have no further need to occupy
ourselves with the general psychology of imitation. We have here only to
take notice of its importance for the communication of feeling.
As is well known, it is only in cases of abnormally increased sensibility
—for instance, in some of the stages of hypnotism and thought transmission
—that the motor counterpart of a mental state can be imitated with such
faithfulness and completeness that the imitator is thereby enabled to partake
of all the intellectual elements of the state existing in another. The hedonic
qualities, on the other hand, which are physiologically conditioned by much
simpler motor counterparts, may of course be transmitted with far greater

perfection: it is easier to suggest a pleasure than a thought. It is also evident
that it is the most general hedonic and volitional elements which have been
considered by the German authors on æsthetic in their theories on internal
imitation (“Die innere Nachahmung”). They seem to have thought that the
adoption of the attitudes and the performance of the movements which
usually accompany a given emotional state will also succeed to some extent
in producing a similar emotional state. This assumption is perfectly
legitimate, even if the connection between feeling and movement be
interpreted in the associative way. And it needs no justification when the
motor changes are considered as the physiological correlate of the feeling
itself.
Everyday experience affords many examples of the way in which
feelings are called into existence by the imitation of their expressive
movements. A child repeats the smiles and the laughter of its parents, and
can thus partake of their joy long before it is able to understand its cause.
[114]
Adult life naturally does not give us many opportunities of observing
this pure form of direct and almost automatic transmission. But even in
adult life we may often meet with an exchange of feeling which seems
almost independent of any intellectual communication. Lovers know it, and
intimate friends like the brothers Goncourt,[115] to say nothing of people
who stand in so close a rapport with each other as a hypnotiser and his
subject.[116] And even where there is no previous sympathetic relation, a
state of joy or sadness may often, if it is only distinctly expressed, pass
over, so to say, from the individual who has been under the influence of its
objective cause, to another who, as it were, borrows the feeling, but remains
unconscious of its cause. We experience this phenomenon almost daily in
the influence exerted upon us by social intercourse, and even by those
aspects of nature—for instance, blue open sky or overhanging mountains—
which naturally call up in us the physical manifestation of emotional states.
The coercive force with which our surroundings—animate or inanimate—
compel us to adopt the feelings which are suggested by their attitudes,
forms, or movements, is perhaps as a rule too weak to be noticed by a self-
controlled, unemotional man. But if we want an example of this influence at
its strongest, we need but remember how difficult it is for an individual to
resist the contagion of collective feeling.[117] On public occasions the
common mood, whether of joy or sorrow, is often communicated even to

those who were originally possessed by the opposite feeling. So powerful is
the infection of great excitement that—according to M. Féré—even a
perfectly sober man who takes part in a drinking bout may often be tempted
to join in the antics of his drunken comrades in a sort of second-hand
intoxication, “drunkenness by induction.”[118] In the great mental epidemics
of the Middle Ages this kind of contagion operated with more fatal results
than ever before or afterwards. But even in modern times a popular street
riot may often show us something of the same phenomenon. The great
tumult in London in 1886 afforded, it is said, a good opportunity of
observing how people who had originally maintained an indifferent attitude
were gradually carried away by the general excitement, even to the extent
of joining in the outrages.[119] In this instance the contagious effect of
expressional movements was undoubtedly facilitated by their connection
with so primary an impulse as that of rapine and destruction. But the case is
the same with all the activities which appear as the outward manifestations
of our strongest feeling-states. They all consist of instinctive actions with
which every one is well familiar from his own experience. It is therefore
natural that anger, hate, or love may be communicated almost automatically
from an individual to masses, and from masses to individuals.
Now that the principle of the interindividual diffusion of feeling has been
stated and explained, we may return to our main line of research and
examine its bearings on the expressional impulse. We have seen that in the
social surroundings of the individual there is enacted a process resembling
that which takes place within his own organism. Just as functional
modifications spread from organ to organ, just as wider and wider zones of
the system are brought into participation in the primary enhancement or
inhibition, so a feeling is diffused from an individual to a circle of
sympathisers who repeat its expressional movements. And just as all the
widened “somatic resonances” contribute to the primary feeling-tone
increased strength and increased definiteness, so must the emotional state of
an individual be enhanced by retroactive stimulation from the expressions
by which the state has, so to say, been continued in others. By the reciprocal
action of primary movements and borrowed movements, which mutually
imitate each other, the social expression operates in the same way as the
individual expression. And we are entitled to consider it as a secondary
result of the general expressional impulse, that when mastered by an

overpowering feeling we seek enhancement or relief by retroaction from
sympathisers, who reproduce and in their expression represent the mental
state by which we are dominated.
In point of fact we can observe in the manifestations of all strong feelings
which have not found a satisfactory relief in individual expression, a pursuit
of social resonance. A happy man wants to see glad faces around him, in
order that from their expression he may derive further nourishment and
increase for his own feeling. Hence the benevolent attitude of mind which
as a rule accompanies all strong and pure joy. Hence also the widespread
tendency to express joy by gifts or hospitality. In moods of depression we
similarly desire a response to our feeling from our surroundings. In the
depth of despair we may long for a universal cataclysm to extend, as it
were, our own pain. As joy naturally makes men good, so pain often makes
them hard and cruel. That this is not always the case is a result of the
increased power of sympathy which we gain by every experienced pain.
Moreover, we have need of sympathetic rapport for our motor reactions
against pain. All the active manifestations of sorrow, despair, or anger
which are not wholly painful in themselves are facilitated by the reciprocal
influence of collective excitement. Thus all strong feelings, whether
pleasurable or painful, act as socialising factors.[120] This socialising action
may be observed at all stages of development. Even the animals seek their
fellows in order to stimulate themselves and each other by the common
expression of an overpowering feeling. As has been remarked by Espinas,
the flocking together of the male birds during the pairing season is perhaps
as much due to this craving for mutual stimulation as to the desire to
compete for the favour of the hen.[121] The howling choirs of the
macaws[122] and the drum concerts of the chimpanzees[123] are still better
and unmistakable instances of collective emotional expression. In man we
find the results of the same craving for social expression in the gatherings
for rejoicing or mourning which are to be met with in all tribes, of all
degrees of development. And as a still higher development of the same
fundamental impulse, there appears in man the artistic activity.
The more conscious our craving for retroaction from sympathisers, the
more there must also be developed in us a conscious endeavour to cause the
feeling to be appropriated by as many as possible and as completely as

possible. The expressional impulse is not satisfied by the resonance which
an occasional public, however sympathetic, is able to afford. Its natural aim
is to bring more and more sentient beings under the influence of the same
emotional state. It seeks to vanquish the refractory and arouse the
indifferent. An echo, a true and powerful echo—that is what it desires with
all the energy of an unsatisfied longing. As a result of this craving the
expressional activities lead to artistic production. The work of art presents
itself as the most effective means by which the individual is enabled to
convey to wider and wider circles of sympathisers an emotional state
similar to that by which he is himself dominated.
We propose in the next chapter to indicate the way in which art in its
various forms has served the expressional craving.

CHAPTER VII
DEDUCTION OF ART-FORMS
In the science of art many hypotheses have been advanced as to the order
in which the different art-forms have made their appearance. We do not
intend to bring forward any new arguments on this much-debated question.
Even if our knowledge of prehistoric man were so complete and trustworthy
as to entitle us to draw any conclusions as to the earliest stages in art-
development, such an appeal to history would in the present connection
constitute a grave confusion of standpoints. As long as we are occupied
with that abstract datum, the purely artistic activity, we cannot possibly find
any support for our reasoning in existing works of art, concerning which the
question may always be raised whether the motive was or was not a purely
autotelic art-impulse. We shall therefore in the following pages entirely
ignore the question of historical sequence and restrict our attention to the
various degrees of theoretical priority. Starting from the interpretation of
artistic activity which was postulated, but not yet proved, in the preceding
chapter, we shall consider those art-forms as most primordial which stand in
the closest connection with the expression of feeling. By comparing those
manifestations of art-activity which are from our standpoint elementary,
with the non-æsthetic expression of emotional states, we shall try to isolate
the peculiarly artistic qualities in their simplest possible form. If the result
of such a treatment prove consistent with general æsthetic ideals, as
exhibited in the literature of art, this fact will naturally go to the credit of
our explanation.
The purest and most typical expression of simple feeling is that which
consists of mere random movements. Those activities, whether of the whole
body or of special parts,—the larynx, for instance,—which follow
immediately upon, or rather accompany, a state of pleasure or pain, are in
themselves entirely non-æsthetic. Thus it is impossible to see anything
artistic in the spectacle of a man leaping or shouting for joy. Yet the lowest
kind of lyrical music and lyrical “gymnastic” dance may be almost as
directly connected with the original state of feeling as these purely

expressional activities. The only difference is that in music and dance the
movements have been limited and restrained by the adoption of a fixed
sequence in time. This fixed sequence in time—the rhythm—must
therefore, from our point of view, be considered as the simplest of all art-
forms.
If we were to give a complete account of the psychology of rhythm, it
would be impossible not to resort to a sociological and historical mode of
treatment. By Dr. Wallaschek’s researches on primitive music it has been
conclusively shown how important a part rhythm, as a means of facilitating
co-operation, has played in the struggle for existence.[124] And this
utilitarian explanation has recently been carried even farther by Professor
Bücher, who points out the invaluable saving of effort which the individual
obtains by regulating his movements in a fixed sequence of time.[125] We
may think that Professor Bücher has stretched his point too far in
endeavouring to derive almost all music and poetry from the economical
exigencies of labour;[126] but there can be no doubt that in whichever way
the ultimate origin of musical arts be explained, their development is largely
due to the practical advantages of rhythm. These considerations, however,
which will be developed in the following chapters, need not detain us here,
where we have to do with the presumably non-utilitarian and purely
æsthetic work of art. If the practical advantages of economy and co-
operation can be eliminated,—if we can imagine a dance and a song which
has not for its aim the facilitation or regulation of some form of work or the
stimulation of some effort, which, in short, has its sole aim and purpose in
itself,—then the art-element in this dance or song must be explicable
without reference to “foreign” purposes.
The only explanation we have been able to find is one which brings us
back to the standpoint of the last chapter. Looking upon art as an essentially
social activity, we naturally bestow our main attention upon rhythm as a
factor of unification. But as we are not allowed to take into account its
importance for practical co-operation, we can only interpret it as a means of
bringing about emotional community. And it is evident that the fixed
sequence in time, when used for the purpose of communicating a state of
feeling, must produce the same effect as when it serves the purpose of
diffusing and regulating the impulses to work.

This fact can also be observed in all cases of social expression. The most
general and simple states of emotional excitement, such as a festive mood
or a warlike intoxication, may indeed be diffused with sufficient efficacy by
simple contagious imitation. But even with regard to such eminently
infectious feelings, if a great mass of men is to be collectively and
simultaneously stimulated by a common execution of the appropriate
expressive movements, these movements must be regulated by the adoption
of a rhythm. On the other hand, as soon as the expression is fixed in
rhythmical form its contagious power is incalculably increased. By its
incessant and regular recurrence, the rhythm takes a ruthless hold of the
attention, and thereby compels even the most recalcitrant to yield to the
power of the transmitted feeling.[127]
As evidence of the irresistibility with which a rhythmical expression may
rouse an audience to an almost unvoluntary imitation, one may refer to the
familiar effects of the southern dances. The tarantella, as is well known,
often entices the unwilling as well as the willing to join in its wild
movements. And the same is said of several other Spanish and Italian
dances. We need only refer to the apologue of the Fandango, so often used
as a motive of ballets, in which the dance, brought into court for causing
disturbance, compels judge and jury to yield to its temptations and dissolve
the sitting for a fierce gambade.[128] Such stories give an exaggerated yet
typical example of the great influence which the sight of dancing exercises
on the lively Latin nations. An impassive Northerner can indeed always
master the impulse to join actively in a wild dance. But even he cannot
avoid sharing the excitement by internal imitation.
It is, however, impossible to decide with any exactitude whether the
effects which a dance-performance exercises on the spectators are mainly
due to the movements themselves or to the rhythm by which they are
regulated. In order, therefore, to estimate at its proper value the importance
of time, it is necessary to examine it as it appears when isolated from bodily
movement. The lowest types of music, in which the element of melody is of
no importance, show us rhythm in its simplest and purest form. Such
instruments as drums, tom-toms, and castanets may serve as a most
effective means of emotional excitation. The same exaltation or depression,
which in a dance is conveyed by a series of varied expressive movements,
may be transmitted with almost equal effectiveness by a simple sequence of

sounds. Any group of acoustic impressions following each other in a fixed
rhythm may, independently of their character, arouse in the listener the
same modifications of functions and activities, and hence also the same
emotional state, as was originally expressed by this particular time-
sequence. Thus pure feeling, as it appears when abstraction has been made
of all intellectual elements, can be as it were exteriorised in rhythmical
form. And, which is of still greater importance, a pure feeling can in this
exteriorisation be fixed down for future repetition. Even in its simplest
manifestations art is thus capable of raising an emotional state beyond the
limitations of space and time.
It is most natural, when speaking of the connection between feeling and
rhythm, to refer to dance and the simplest vocal and instrumental music.
But it goes without saying that the effects are the same in kind, although
less in degree, when the time-sequence is impressed upon our mind in some
more indirect way. Thus, by appropriating the element of rhythm, which
enters into all poetry, we may in reciting or reading a verse partake of an
emotional state in the same way as we do when joining, actively or
“internally,” the movements of a dance. Similarly, the formative and
decorative arts may, by compelling our eye to follow a regular arrangement
of lines and figures, transmit to us an emotional excitement by the
mediation of rhythm. Ornament, that purely popular art, may therefore be
compared as to its psychological effects with simple popular dances and
melodies.[129]
In these three logically most primordial arts, viz. gymnastic dance,
geometric ornament, and unmelodic, simply rhythmical music or singing,
the unmotived “objectless” feeling is expressed in a medium which directly
conveys to us its accompanying modifications of activity. Notwithstanding
the meagreness of their intellectual content, these purely lyrical forms, if we
may so call them, are therefore emotionally suggestive to a high degree.
General and indistinct moods, such as a feeling of ease, of liberation from
restraint, of assurance and power, etc., may by them be transmitted with
unsurpassable fidelity. But their expressive power is also confined to such
purely hedonic states. Whenever, therefore, the feeling forms a part of a
differentiated and fully formed emotion, the impulse to social expression
must avail itself of some more adequate means of transmission.

In point of fact there will nearly always, even in the most impulsive
outburst of pleasure or pain, enter an element of simple dramatic
representation, by which some of the mental qualities distinctive of the
various emotions are communicated. With regard to dancing, for instance,
we can only speak in the abstract of any simply “gymnastic” forms.[130]
Even if the movements originally aim at nothing but enhancement or relief
for an indistinct emotional state, they will unavoidably take the character of
such movements as have been connected with some emotion, and thereby,
in spectators as well as in performers, awaken some faint revival of this
complex state of feeling. This process can be very clearly observed in the
case of the pseudo-pantomimes which are so general among lower tribes.
When a savage is in a high-strung state of feeling, he generally resorts to
the same movements which have served him to express the greatest and
most frequent excitements of his life. Among warlike tribes the dances of
joy, as well as their developments, salutation dances, and complimentary
dances,[131] generally have a distinct military character.[132] No doubt it may
be contended that the particular character of these pantomimes was
originally a result of political considerations. In a military state of society it
is perhaps simply a measure of safety to receive strangers with threats. But
however important this utilitarian aspect may be, it seems more probable
that a great part of these apparently unmotived pantomimes, which are
executed when we should expect only a simple outburst of joy, are best
interpreted as real instances of borrowed expression, necessitated by the
limitations of our means of expression and furthered by associative
processes.
In the life of self-contained educated men we do not generally meet with
this phenomenon in so distinct a form. But even here the fragmentary
pantomimes into which a man often falls when mastered by a quite
indistinct feeling—we need only refer to the erotic character of embraces
and other gestures of joy—show us that expression always adds an element
of definiteness to the psychical state expressed. When treating of the
reactions consequent upon bodily pain, we have already had to take into
account the species of imaginative materialisation, as though pain were a
concrete thing, a shirt of Nessus, by which a sufferer is generally induced to
explain his automatic movements. Here we need only point out that a
similar, so to speak, mythogenic influence, a natural tendency to

personification, results not only from reactions to pain, but also from all
expressive activities. An indistinct mood of pleasure thus generally passes
over into a joy—that is, a feeling which is referred to some cause,
imaginary or real—when the functional enhancement has reached our
voluntary muscles. An oppression, which in its origin may be purely
physiological, is transformed, when the bodily modifications become more
differentiated,[133] into fear of something unknown—for instance, some
impending danger.
Since it is so difficult for the individual himself to perceive a mental state
as one of pure sensation with no element of thought, we need not wonder
that his expression always transmits to the spectator something more than
the mere excitement or depression of simple feeling. However strictly we
try to isolate the pure rhythm of a lyrical performance, there will always
slip into it an element of mimetic expression—we do not know of a better
adjective—which suggests a mental state, distincter and better defined than
that of pure feeling. In reality, therefore, the dramatic forms of dancing are
no less primordial than those purely rhythmical manifestations which the
necessities of treatment have compelled us to consider as a separate group.
[134]
It is also evident that the dramatic or mimetic element will increase in
importance as the endeavour to represent mental states and transmit them to
outsiders becomes more conscious and deliberate.
We have dealt at sufficient length with the transmission of emotion by
mimetic expression. A striking instance of this process has already been
found outside the domain of art in the contagiousness of collective states of
mind. When art adopts emotional transmission as an end in itself, this
contagiousness is naturally increased. On the side of the executant we have
to suppose a conscious endeavour to make the mimic expression as easily
appropriated as possible; on the side of the spectator an increased readiness
to partake of the expressed feeling. A theatrical audience, indeed, unlike a
riotous mob, does not generally go so far as to imitate its leader, the actor,
by actual movement. Conscious of the fictitious character of the
performance, the spectators are able to resist the sub-conscious volitional
impulses which they receive. But while thus controlling their outward
activity, those who attentively follow the acting may nevertheless
appropriate in an almost direct manner the feelings represented. Although
they remain passive spectators and preserve an appearance of immobility,

they are apt to follow, in a kind of abridgment, the attitudes and facial play
of the performers. At the most critical stages of a popular melodrama the
audience always falls into an unconscious pantomime, which, as Engel
remarked, to the psychological observer is of far greater interest than that
enacted on the stage.[135] In the higher forms of dramatic art this direct
transmission of feeling no doubt loses a great deal of its importance. But we
believe that every attentive playgoer has occasional opportunities of
observing, in himself if not in his neighbours, faint traces of an unconscious
and involuntary imitation which follows all the movements of the
performers. Such imitation will, of course, become more and more
pronounced the more the dialogue gives place to pantomimic action, and
the more vividly and convincingly this action is represented. As an example
of the power with which a good mimic may compel even the most critical
spectator to participate in emotional moods, we cannot quote anything
better than the description of Garrick in Lichtenberg’s Briefe aus England.
“His facial expression is so powerful as to invite imitation. When he is
grave his audience is grave. When he frowns the house frowns, and it
smiles when he smiles. In his hidden pleasure, and in his intimate manner,
when, in an aside, he gives the audience his confidence, there is something
so winning that one’s whole soul goes out to this fascinating man.”[136]
It may be thought that the above described processes occur only in those
arts which can be called dramatic in the proper sense of the word. If this
were the case, the principle of emotional transmission by direct imitation
would of course be of very restricted æsthetic importance. We think,
however, that a histrionic element can be noticed, with greater or less
distinctness, no doubt, in all the various forms of artistic production. It
certainly enters into literature, where popular authors, especially of the
sentimental class, always possessed the secret of suggesting feelings by
representing their manifestations in “contagious” description. And it plays
an important part in all the arts of design, formative as well as decorative.
We may often catch ourselves faintly imitating movements or attitudes
represented in sculpture. And this influence of suggestion is felt not only, as
Professor Lange thinks, in the case of melodramatic sculpture—expressive
of the most violent passions—it contributes also, in no slight degree, to our
enjoyment of the forms which represent the gentler moods.[137] However

calm and impassive the facial expression of a statue may be, the attitude of
the body will always communicate to us a feeling of some kind, of strength
and assurance, or perhaps of settled melancholy.
In the art of painting this mimetic principle tends to be lost among the
descriptive elements. The direct transmission of feeling is replaced by an
indirect and associative one. Still, there are few works, if any, in which the
histrionic factor is entirely lacking. It may be detected with especial
clearness in sentimental or comic figure-painting, which often literally
infects us with the emotions it represents. When looking at a Japanese
caricature, for instance, of the gods of happiness, we often laugh with the
laughter of the picture long before we have realised the cause of it, or
formulated any judgment as to the artistic merits of the representation.
It is true that pictorial art has many branches in which the human figure
does not appear at all. But this absence does not by any means entail a
complete loss of mimetic suggestiveness. As our perceptions, whether of
animate or inanimate objects, are always accompanied by a complete or
abortive imitation, any kind of form or movement may call forth in us
activities distinctive of some emotional mood. Just as a rhythmic series of
simple acoustic or visual impressions may occasion in us the functional
modifications accompanying simple feeling, and thereby arouse in us the
mental state of which this rhythm is an exteriorisation, so the mimic
movements which are the physiological counterparts of distinct emotion
may be, so to speak, translated into lines and forms, by which the emotion
is reproduced in other minds. Thus even an object of handicraft—a vase, for
instance—may, by the suggestiveness of its shape, affect our emotional life
in an almost immediate way. And geometric ornament has an equal, if not
even greater, power of conjuring up in us emotional states, which we read
into the angles and volutes. Finally, the concrete objects of nature are full of
“expressive qualities” which make them available as a means of conveying
our feelings. The whole world of visual reality can thus be used in a kind of
indirect mimetism,—a dramatic expression, so to speak, in which natural
and abstract forms replace the human body.
The course of our argument has led us to emphasise the lyrical and
dramatic elements in artistic activity. But we do not by any means wish to
underrate the fact that it is only a very small minority of works the nature of

which can be exhaustively described by these two qualities. With increased
importance of the intellectual elements accompanying the emotional states,
direct emotional suggestion must unavoidably appear an inadequate means
of communication. A joy or a sorrow, together with a notion of some
objective cause of it, rapture or admiration, anger, hate, or despair,—all
these and similar states can be completely conveyed to an outsider only in
so far as they have been accounted for to his intellect. As the theoretically
latest manifestation of the craving for social expression there will thus
appear an impulse to represent or describe objective events or things, by
which a feeling similar to that of the producing artist may be called forth in
his audience. And thus in almost all art-forms, in ornament and music as
well as in painting and novels, there will be found an imitation of nature
which serves what in the widest use of the term we may call an epic
purpose.
The intellectual justification of a feeling by representation of a cause and
the orderly form of its direct or secondary expression are, however, in
themselves insufficient to secure a response; the attention and goodwill of
the audience must first be conciliated. A sympathetic rapport always
presupposes a state of compliance in at least one of the parties involved.
When seeking by means of a work of art to obtain a response to an
overmastering feeling the artist is thus constrained to exercise persuasion
upon his real or fictitious public. As M. Sully-Prudhomme has finely
remarked, it is only by first caressing our senses that art rouses our feelings
and awakens our thoughts.[138] Besides that element of beauty which can be
immediately derived from the expressed content, and that element of
gracefulness which follows as result of the psychical freedom attained by
expression, there are in nearly all works of art qualities whose aim is
exclusively to please. If we may risk a somewhat audacious parallel, we
may say that the work of art, in the same way as a living organism, an
animal or a plant, entices the attention and charms the senses with the
beauty of its “means of attraction,” not for the sake of these attractions
themselves, but for the secret they at the same time conceal and disclose.
All these allurements might easily cause a superficial observer to lose sight
of the simple fact which lies at the bottom of the artistic work, viz. the
feeling-state which demands expression and response. We thus see why the

impulse to attract by pleasing has been considered as synonymous with the
art-impulse.
As has already been remarked, such an interpretation cannot account for
the coercive force of the artistic impulse. And equally with the theories
based upon the epic or descriptive elements in art, it is incompatible with
the principle of the unity of art. If the logical evolution of the art-forms is
conceived in the way we have described, all the various manifestations of
artistic activity can be derived from one common principle. And by the aid
of this one principle we are able to explain the force of that impulse which,
with similar coercive force, urges to creation within the various art-forms.
However much the artistic impulse may become differentiated with the
progress of culture, its innermost nature will always remain the same.
However complex its manifestations, their aim is always to secure a faithful
response to an overmastering feeling. The more accomplished the work of
art, the more its creator will become independent of the chance audience,
which by its sympathetic expression produces an enhancing retroaction on
his feeling. He learns to give his mental states an embodiment which
facilitates their reproduction in wider surroundings. Thus the expressional
impulse directs him to place himself in sympathetic rapport with a fictitious
public. He creates, that is to say, expresses himself, for an ideal spectator,—
for posterity or for himself. With a proud indifference to his most
immediate social environment, he may thus consider his own production as
perfectly exempt of any social motivation. The aphorism of Mill, “All
poetry is a soliloquy,” would no doubt be accepted by many of the most
eminent poets. But the psychological observer cannot help remarking that in
such soliloquies the ego serves as a substitute for an external public. The
artist has in a sense a double capacity; and artistic creation in solitude may
be always explained by the fact that the creator exists also as his own
spectator.
The production of even the most individualistic and most isolated artists
can therefore be explained only by sociological considerations. And the
same is the case with those artists who work only for posterity. It would be
wrong to say that art in any one of its higher manifestations aims at
transmitting a feeling. Its purpose is far rather an immortalisation. But this
very desire to perpetuate a mental state, this desire which constrains the

artist to strive indefatigably for the attainment of a form, capable of
imparting to all men of every country and every age the same enhancement
and the same rapture which he has himself experienced—this highest
manifestation of the expressional impulse—can be fully explained only by
reference to the enhancing and relieving power of social expression. In
whatever light the art-impulse may appear to the reflecting consciousness of
the producing artist, this is the only consistent interpretation at which we
can arrive by an examination of the artistic activity on psychological
grounds.

CHAPTER VIII
ART THE RELIEVER
In the endeavour to secure the transmission and perpetuation of a feeling,
the expressional activity gradually loses its purely impulsive character.
From an almost reflex outlet for abnormal nervous pressure, it is more and
more transformed into deliberate artistic production, which is conscious of
its aim as well as of the means for attaining it. The elaboration of a work of
art, in which the expression of a feeling-state is to be concentrated, and
concentrated in a way which not only facilitates but even enforces in the
spectator the assimilation of this state, is a complicated operation which
cannot of course take place without the effectual co-operation of intellectual
and volitional activities. And their co-operation, on the other hand, must
evidently exercise some influence on the primordial feeling.
It is a familiar observation, duly emphasised in all psychological
handbooks, that strong feelings make clear thought impossible. Everyday
experience, as well as scientific experiment, gives unmistakable evidence of
the influence which abnormal excitement or depression exercises, not only
on our ideas and their associations, but even on the perceptions. The
converse has perhaps not been stated so often. Still, it does not admit of
doubt that intensified intellectual activity may, in some cases, even more
effectually than motor reaction, overcome the tyranny of a hypernormal
feeling. It is true that every mental state becomes more distinct as a
phenomenon of consciousness when our thoughts are directed towards it.
Feelings of low and moderate intensity may even be enhanced in their
purely emotional aspect if we let our intellect play on them. But as soon as
a greater intensity of feeling is reached, this relation is reversed. Joy which
is so great as to be a burden, “Die Noth der Fülle,”[139] and numbing
despair, must inevitably decrease when there is an increase of distinctness
in their intellectual elements. The more we can compel ourselves to
contemplate with cool and clear attention the causes and manifestations of
such high-strung states, the more we are also able to master them. It is a
familiar experience to everyone that strong fear can be vanquished, if only

we can succeed in diverting all our attention to its objective source, and
“stare the danger in the face.” When the attention is concentrated and
intensified to the utmost degree, it may even, as in the case of fascination,
entirely prevent, to our own danger, the very rise of this self-preserving
emotion.
In artistic creation we are not concerned with an intentional or
unintentional effort to overcome feeling. On the contrary the aim is here to
keep the strongest possible hold of it in order to give it the most effective
embodiment. So irreconcilable, however, is the conflict between emotional
excitement and intellectual activity, that the latter, even when it expressly
serves the purposes of emotional enhancement, must neutralise the excess
of feeling. A state of strong pleasure or pain can never be rendered
intelligible to outsiders, unless its expression is bridled and disciplined by
thought. By being thus embodied in a fixed form the feeling gains in
conceivability as well as in infectious power. But while the effect on
spectators and listeners is in this way increased, the artistic form influences
the feeling subject himself in a quite different way. Its very clearness and
distinctness necessarily brings something of that calm which all excitement
seeks as relief.
The immediate reaction which the work of art exercises on its own
creator is of course most easily seen and understood in the “higher” art-
forms with their pronounced intellectual elements. Literary instances of the
“poetic cure” for harassing or oppressing emotion are too numerous to be
mentioned. The only point we need dwell on is the question how these
instances are to be interpreted. When a poet seeks to give shape and form to
his own sufferings by means of fiction, the relief he obtains is no doubt in
part an effect of the diversion of activity into the channels of expression.
But to a still greater degree it may be a result of the healthful influence
exercised by the contemplation of objective reality in the finished work of
art. Such an influence is unmistakable in the most illustrious instance of
artistic production as a life-preserving expedient: Goethe’s Leiden des
jungen Werther. In his memoirs the old poet frankly and unreservedly
describes how, when lacerated by the conflict between hypochondriac,
suicidal thoughts and an ineradicable love of life and cheerfulness, he
resorted to the old homely remedy of writing down his sufferings. He lays
especial stress on his desire to give definite form and body to his vague

feelings of distress. And as we read that afterwards, when the work lay
finished before him, “bound in boards, as a picture in its frame, so as to
prove the more convincingly its individual and concrete existence,” he
could feel “free and joyful, and entitled to a new life,” we cannot but
explain this renewed courage to live as a result of the sensation of security
and support which the beholding of external form affords.[140]
Thus, to begin with, by its character as a palpable, objective reality, the
work of art may diminish the subjective disturbance in which it originates.
This influence is supplemented by the retroaction of the æsthetic qualities,
in the narrowest sense of the term, such as beauty, symmetry, and the like,
by which an artist always seeks, intentionally or unintentionally, to arrest
the attention of his public. The more therefore the work grows in
definiteness in the thought and under the hand of the artist, the more it will
repress and subdue the chaotic tumult of emotional excitement. The
Dionysiac rapture, as the ancients would have said, gives place to Apolline
serenity. In language pruned of mythological symbolism, this only means
that art is better able than any of the immediate expressional activities to
give complete and effective relief from emotional pressure. And it further
implies that however earnestly an artist may strive to communicate to his
public the exact feeling he has himself experienced, the emotional content
expressed in his work will always be of another and more harmonious
character than the mental state by which his production was originally
called into existence. To the extent that artistic form appears in a given
work or manifestation there will also be present, independently of the
subject,—cheerful or sad, passionate or calm,—a sense of mental liberation,
which atones for the excesses of emotional excitement.
In a final and exhaustive treatment of æsthetic problems this influence of
artistic form would need to be traced through all the departments of art-
activity. And it would be one of the most interesting parts of such a research
to estimate the relative power with which art in its various branches is able
to assuage at the same time as it excites. We need not here undertake such a
thorough comparative examination of the different arts. What has been said
about literary creation may be applied in substance to formative production
as well. And it even remains true with regard to those most lyrical and
immediately expressive arts which seem to be altogether destitute of
objective form and intellectual content. Although it has often been said that

the lowest kinds of music are purely emotional manifestations, we may still
discern an element of form in the rhythm which regulates even the simplest
songs and dances.[141] And the creation of this form undoubtedly requires a
certain amount of conscious intention and intellectual activity. It is therefore
natural that the intensest and most abnormally enhanced feeling should
exclude the possibility of rhythmical movement. Exalted joy and violent
despair are in their external manifestations not only inharmonious and
ungraceful, but also unrhythmic.[142] But by subjecting the expression to the
yoke of a fixed time order we may succeed in harmonising it. And while the
regular recurrence of intervals facilitates our movements—which thereby
gain in ease and gracefulness—the vehemence of our feeling will be abated.
Thus it is possible that although rhythm powerfully reinforces musical or
dramatic excitement, it may at the same time exercise a restraining
influence on hypernormal feeling. And its effects in music and dance show
us, in the simplest and most comprehensive of all examples, the importance
of artistic form. The musical katharsis or relief to sensation always involves
stimulation, but it may nevertheless affect us as a sedative. The more the
form-element and attention to form gain in prominence, the more effectual
also is the relieving influence of art. Where the stimulative element is
predominant in a work of art, there the relief is less complete.
This contrast, which can be observed at all stages of artistic development,
is eminently conspicuous in ancient art, where high and low forms are often
to be found in close juxtaposition. The superiority of Greek music over
Phrygian music was a favourite topic of the old writers on art, and the
legend of the contest between Apollo and Marsyas served as a mythological
variation on the same theme. Lyre and flute stood as symbols for two
different classes of art, of which one was violent, orgiastic, and barbarous,
while the other was calm in its Olympian serenity.[143]
But the contrast expressed in these parables by the ancient authors and
some of their modern followers is not so sharp in reality. Even the lively
notes of a flute may, to use the old metaphor, by their bound time exercise a
kind of restraining influence on the passions. And on the other hand the
sedative power of soft music is by no means so great as has often been
contended. While acting hygienically as a cure for excess of passion or
sorrow it cannot produce any moral result properly so called. As M.

Combarieu has pointed out in his acute criticism of Cardinal Perraud’s
Eurythmie et Harmonie, it is an incontestable fact, which has only too often
been overlooked by Platonising philosophers, that even the most immoral
feelings may be expressed in perfect melody.[144] The musical, and still
more the merely rhythmical, form cannot change the quality of these
feelings; it can only deprive them of their dangerous intensity. The mental
state thereby gains in pure and unmingled pleasure; it becomes ennobled as
enjoyment, but it is by no means moralised, at least not according to
modern views. It is only from the standpoint of a purely hedonic system of
ethics that music, or any other art, can be said to exercise an immediate
moral influence.

When trying to summarise our researches on the differences between
artistic and non-artistic expression of emotional states in a comprehensive
conclusion, we are again led to that eminently illustrative instance—the
Bacchantic condition of the ancient Maenads. We have seen that in their
description of Dionysiac mania the classical authors enumerate almost all
the various orgiastic manifestations which can be found in all periods in
different parts of the world. And if ancient literature affords us an epitome
of the various expedients to which the expressional impulse resorts in its
endeavour to enhance and relieve an emotional state, the force of this
craving for expression, on the other hand, nowhere appears with such
convincing clearness as in the Dionysiac monuments of classical art.
The frieze around the Bacchic candelabra in the Louvre proves better
than any psychological analysis to how great a degree the Dionysiac state is
alloyed with pain and the longing for relief. If these Maenads be compared
with the figures on the great vases in the British Museum and with the
various Agave reliefs, it will still more conclusively appear that it is real
distress which compels the dancers to seek in ever-increasing excitement
deliverance from the burden of their feelings. No movement could be more
eloquently expressive of the corresponding psychical state than the peculiar
toss on the head and the backward curve of the upper trunk which can
always be recognised in the most violent of the dancers. An approach to this
attitude (“opisthotonos”) sometimes appears, as Spencer remarks in his

essay on the Physiology of Laughter, in movements of great joy, which has
not been able to find expression by the usual channels of discharge.[145] But
there is no doubt that, however pleasurable the quality of the original state
may have been, its tone must have been radically transformed before it
could produce these strained postures. A feeling which distorts the body by
its efforts to find relief, which is not satisfied with the wild cries, the
dances, and all the madness of the Bacchic intoxication, must in its
abnormal exaggeration be perceived as a pain. The pathological character of
this feeling appears further from the fact that the very same movement may
be observed in Pierre Breughel’s paintings of hysteric patients and in M.
Charcot’s photographs from La Salpétrière.[146] And this same backward
toss of the head may be seen in sculptures of witches, the mediæval
Bacchantes, where it sometimes gives an impression of proud and insolent
defiance, sometimes one of profound melancholy.[147] But in the reliefs
representing Bacchic orgies, side by side with the dancers whose distorted
attitude and violent movements betray the pain underlying the appearance
of revel and riot, there may always be seen the figures of women moving
with easy and graceful step. The freedom of their motion shows that they at
least have found deliverance from the oppression of overstrung feeling. The
nervous tension which in their companions manifests itself in unrhythmic,
inharmonious leapings and withings, has in their case found relief and given
place to a feeling of rest and calm. This expression of peace in their faces,
attitudes, and draperies affords an instructive comment on the Greek notion
of Dionysos, the god of music, who, with all his wildness is none the less
able to still the tempests of overpowering feelings.
This god of music, as conceived by those who gave him a place among
the Olympians, was not a symbol of dissolute pleasure. On the contrary, the
myths tell us how those who oppose his ritual themselves fall victims to a
mania even more violent than the Bacchic frenzy itself. His devotees, on the
other hand, receive from the stirring notes of his flute and cymbals a
determinate form and mould for their otherwise vehement and irregular
expression-movements. Their joy loses its defiant and barbaric character,
their black despair is dissolved into gentle sadness. Rightly, therefore, was
Dionysos saluted as a deliverer when, with his merry crew, he marched
from village to village. Like him art moves among men, ennobling their joy
and blunting the edge of their sufferings.

CHAPTER IX
THE WORK OF ART
According to an old theory the classical drama originated in the
Dionysiac cultus.[148] The artistic development of savage and barbarous
tribes supplies many analogies which strongly support this view. The
simplest drama and the most primitive poetry have in most nations been
connected with orgiastic rites which, from the psychological point of view,
closely resemble the Bacchic ceremonies. But we may go still further. It has
been contended on good grounds that even the formative arts made their
earliest appearance on the occasion of great public festivals.[149] It might
seem that if this view could only be corroborated by a sufficient body of
ethnological evidence, there would be no need of any further argument in
favour of the emotionalistic interpretation of art. Granted that the simplest
manifestations of all the different arts served primarily as means of
heightening a festive mood, then the psychological origin of the artistic
activity ought to be ascertained by an analysis of high-pitch feeling. The
same mental causes and conditions which called forth the most primitive
manifestations of art, and determined their character, may naturally be
assumed to have influenced in greater or less degree the higher forms as
well. And thus in further support of our view we might simply refer to the
study of a typical exaltation with which the preceding chapter was
concluded.
We have here an apparently easy solution of the problem before us. But
by resorting to it we should expose ourselves to the risk of mistakes which
is inherent in every historical method. Not only is it impossible, as has
already been remarked, to make any positive assertion as to the purely
æsthetic and autotelic character of a given manifestation: it is almost
equally difficult to quote a rite or practice the interpretation of which, from
the emotional standpoint, is clear and undisputed. Even the wild antics of
the Maenads, in spite of the numerous analogies to them presented by the
diseased mental states of modern man, have been explained by some
archæologists as a stereotyped ritual. The self-wounding and the tearing up

of living animals have been interpreted as different forms of a sacrificial
cult; the frantic gestures and songs as dramatic representations of ancient
myths.[150] It would require too cumbrous an apparatus merely to state and
criticise existing theories on this point. And even if we could prove that the
Bacchantic manifestations may be explained without reference to religious
or commemorative intentions in the dancers, as purely emotional activities,
grave objections would still remain to be answered. From the medical point
of view it might be maintained that the Dionysiac state, as well as all
analogous conditions among savage and civilised nations, is a purely
pathological phenomenon.[151] By connecting artistic production with these
states we should therefore expose ourselves to the accusation of treating art
as an abnormality. And it would be of no use to appeal to Nietzsche’s
brilliant but unconvincing defence of the position that the ancient Dionysiac
orgies ought really to be considered as splendid disorders of health and
overflowing vigour.[152]
It is therefore necessary to state explicitly that what we have said about
the Dionysiac state must by no means be taken as referring to actual historic
facts known about the bacchanals. The descriptions of Euripides and other
classical authors are valuable as expressions of the predominant notions of
art quite independently of the reality which may or may not have
corresponded to them. The corybantic mania afforded to the Greek mind a
typical simile by which to illustrate that state of formless excitement which
precedes the artistic creation. In the mythical descriptions of the
melancholia of the Thyiads, and in the sculptural representations of their
dances and extravagances, it was easy to recognise—more by instinct,
perhaps, than by reflection—the same dissatisfaction and the same longing
for fuller and deeper expression which compels the artist to seek in æsthetic
production compensation for the deficiencies of life. And the feeling of
liberation, which in the artist, upon the attainment of artistic form,
supersedes overmastering and inharmonious excitement, seemed explicable
by the analogy of the relief which the mythical Dionysus bestowed upon his
devotees. At a time, therefore, when dancing occupied a prominent place
among the arts, it must have been quite natural to consider the god of dance
and music as an embodiment of the feelings and impulses of artistic
creation. For modern times, however, this poetic parable has scarcely even
an illustrative value. It would be too far-fetched to treat the simple, lyrical

dance and song as a general type of art, seeing that in real life dancing has
long ago been almost entirely superseded by more complicated forms of
artistic activity.
It is, however, only in such direct manifestations as the simplest song,
dance, and poetry that the artistic activity itself is accessible to our analysis.
With regard to those higher forms of art in which the dramatic and epic
elements play an important part, it may indeed be contended that even they
originate in an emotional craving for expression. And it can be proved, as
we have tried to show in the preceding chapters, that such a theory gives us
the best explanation of the life-preserving influence of artistic creation. But
it is not to be concealed that, as far as painting, sculpture, and the higher
forms of poetry are concerned, this view is exclusively based upon
hypothesis. It cannot be considered as established so long as we have no
authentic information on the feelings and impulses which direct a sculptor
or a painter in his work. The only competent witnesses who can give us this
information—namely, the artists themselves—have generally paid too little
attention to theoretic problems to make any observations on their own
mental states during the task of creation; and even when they do so they are
deterred by a natural sense of propriety from making any public revelations
on a matter which affects their most intimate emotional life. All the more
impertinent would it be for an outsider to make a priori assertions on the
psychical motives for their work. While entitled to speak with some
confidence on the simple, universal arts, the theoretical observer cannot,
with regard to the specialised crafts, rely upon either experience or
sympathetic understanding. The only safe point of departure is here the
objective work. Our interpretation can be considered as conclusively
established only if we are able to show that the distinctive qualities of the
work of art, as met with in the highest manifestations of art, are such as to
provide some emotional state with the most adequate and most convincing
expression.
The work of art has been the subject of theoretical investigation to a far
greater extent than the artistic impulse. When examining its distinctive
qualities we can therefore constantly avail ourselves of the researches of
earlier writers on æsthetic. There is no need to search for the problems to be
solved nor to justify the scheme of inquiry. We have to show that our
interpretation of the artistic activity is consistent with the general principles

according to which the value of art-works is estimated. These principles, on
the other hand, can evidently be discovered only by studying the judgments
on art which have been embodied in æsthetical literature. Owing to the
mutual contradictions between the several æsthetic systems, such a study is
indeed not an easy one. But if minor differences are disregarded it is not
impossible to find a common standard on which almost all writers agree.
For while the theories on art, as different from other departments of life,
have been based upon varying philosophical assumptions, the ideal of
excellence in art has, at least in the case of all real æstheticians, been
developed under the influence of a close familiarity with the best
manifestations of living art. Notwithstanding the ever-varying currents of
taste and the individual predilections which affect even the most impartial
judgment, it is thus possible to point to a common fund of simple and
catholic principles of criticism.
As far as the lyrical forms of art are concerned we need not dwell at any
length on the æsthetic requirements which they are generally expected to
fulfil. It is easy to understand that, however one may explain the purpose of
artistic activity and the impulse which leads to it, the accomplished work of
art must always possess some element of sensual beauty which may attract
and hold the attention. If we were attempting a complete treatment of all
æsthetic problems we might attempt to prove that such qualities appear to a
very great extent as unintentional by-products of artistic expression. The
perfect gracefulness, for example, which forms the distinguishing merit of
all genuine art, is seldom a result of conscious endeavour. As, according to
its nature, pleasure is necessarily accompanied by facilitated conditions of
life, an artistic manifestation will generally be graceful in the same degree
as it expresses pure and unmingled joy. And even if the feeling which
originally called forth a dance, a song, or a drama is one of pain, its
expression will unavoidably acquire under the influence of artistic form an
element of ease. The freedom, and, still more, the unconsciousness, that
characterise the “inspired” creation may thus clothe with a peculiar grace
even the representation of such mental states as in real life manifest
themselves in the most inharmonious forms.[153] In the same way dignity,
the quality complementary to grace, may be deduced directly from the
emotional conditions of artistic activity.

This explanation does not apply, however, to such special qualities as, for
instance, symmetry and proportion. Neither can it be denied that these
qualities may be of incalculable importance in art as means of heightening
the effectiveness of the work. But we hold that a problem like that of
symmetry belongs to the science of beauty rather than to the theory of art.
By a symmetrical arrangement of its parts, or by a right proportion between
them, an object may indeed become a thing of beauty; but it acquires an
artistic character only in so far as this symmetry and proportion perform or
assist the function of expression. Even among the most authors who lay
most stress on the paramount importance of form there are few who
contend that these abstract qualities can by themselves bestow the title of
art upon a work or a manifestation.
Quite different is the case of those æsthetic laws which have been
deduced from the arts of description. As the majority of writers on æsthetic
have restricted their attention to works of art in which nature has been
imitated or represented, it is only natural that artistic merit should be
thought to depend on the relation of the copy to the original. The most
simple explanation is undoubtedly that which is adopted by a large section
of the public, viz., that an artistic manifestation is perfect in proportion as it
gives a faithful rendering of objective nature. For all that has been
contended by the opponents of the realistic movements which predominated
in the eighties, we do not think that many producing authors have been
guided in their work by such narrow notions. In æsthetic literature at least
so radical a realism has been upheld only by a few isolated authors.[154]
Ever since Aristotle’s time it has been laid down that a work of art must be
something other and better than a mere copy. And æsthetic science from its
first beginning has in the main agreed upon the general principles by which
artistic imitation attains perfection. These principles, formulated with
varying clearness in the earlier systems, have found their most
philosophical elaboration in the works of Vischer and Taine. In his Hegelian
terminology the German author puts it that the work of art must show us, in
an æsthetic semblance, the full and whole presence of an idea which is
underlying the things represented. In the philosophy of Taine, which, by
making science its point of departure, differs so greatly from Hegelianism
and yet resembles it so strikingly in general character, the same thought has
been expressed in the doctrine of dominant qualities.[155] If these criteria are

divested of the technical garb which makes them so inconvenient to handle,
they appear to rest ultimately on a simple observation which may be
repeated in all æsthetic experience. We find in all descriptive art-works a
subordination of qualities supposed to be of inferior importance to what
philosophers of Taine’s school term “la faculté maîtresse.” In most works
too there may be found a relation of the represented thing to the rest of
nature, which in a Hegelian mind may awaken the notion of a general idea
behind the individual phenomenon. But, as we have already observed, it is a
mark of excessive intellectualism to assume that the desire to discover
predominant qualities or hidden ideas is the impelling force in art-creation.
And we shall now endeavour to show that it is equally one-sided to consider
the enjoyment of art as conditioned by increased intellectual knowledge of
individual or universal phenomena and ideas.
The defects of intellectualistic art-theories are perhaps most manifest in
the system of Taine. Taine himself seems to believe that the “faculté mère”
really exists, and that it can be not only represented by an artistical
treatment of nature, but also discovered by scientific study; he is
consequently unable to make any proper distinction between the
departments of science and art.[156] And, on the other hand, his own critical
studies show us how incompatible is the principle of dominant faculties
with a purely scientific conception of reality. Too often, in the attempt to
deduce every manifestation and every personality from a determinate, all-
explaining and all-conditioning quality, he loses sight of the rich variety of
life, and gains instead merely a brilliant formula. Thus, however suggestive
his criticisms may be, they are seldom scientifically exact. There is none,
however, of all his admirers who would wish to have anything changed in
his writings on art; for we know that by this very one-sidedness, which is
the source of his scientific shortcomings, he has at the same time attained
his greatest, though perhaps unintentional, triumphs as an artist.
In illustration of this we need only refer to one instance: his celebrated
description of the lion.[157] Objections may be raised from the zoological
point of view to his selecting the lion as a representative of animal strength,
and from the anatomical point of view to his deducing its whole
configuration from the structure of its jaws. But it is impossible to deny that
precisely by such a one-sided and exaggerated portrait Taine has succeeded
in giving an expression to his admiration for elementary force better than

would have been possible by a scientifically faithful description.
Accordingly Taine’s lion, in spite of its faults from the point of view of
science, remains a classical illustration of the æsthetic importance of
dominant qualities.
If we try to explain why it is that the subordination of all characters under
one “faculté maîtresse,” although unfavourable to scientific comprehension,
is nevertheless so useful for artistic representation, we shall be unavoidably
led to that distinction between scientific and artistic purposes which has
been overlooked in the intellectualistic systems of æsthetic. The work of art
does not claim to give us, nor do we expect to receive from it, increased
knowledge as to the real nature or predominant characters of things and
events. We only wish to get the clearest and strongest impression of the
feelings with which an object has been contemplated by the artist. It is
therefore to the psychological conditions for conveying a feeling-state by
help of intellectual mediation that we should look for the explanation of
those laws of artistic composition which Vischer and Taine have interpreted
in a manner exclusively intellectualistic, and therefore unæsthetic.
The desire to fix a passing emotional state—in order to facilitate either
the revival of the same state or its transmission to outsiders—by help of
intellectual elements with which the feelings have been associated, is not
restricted to the purely artistic mental processes. In religion and in love this
endeavour to evade the transience of feeling is especially evident. And here
we may observe a selection of the intellectual elements and a mode of
treating them, which, although it cannot be called artistic, is nevertheless
somewhat analogous to the selective treatment of nature which takes place
in artistic representation. The institutors of religion have all been well aware
of the fact that it is not immaterial what kind of ideas and sensations are
chosen to embody a feeling. They have understood how impossible it is to
impress an emotional state on the mind by the mediation of complex
conceptions, which, to be fully apperceived, necessitate a particular activity
of the intellectual functions. When seeking a means of conveying and
perpetuating their deepest teaching, they have always, more instinctively
perhaps than by any process of conscious search, been led to intellectual
notions of the simplest possible kind. A single impression of sight, touch, or
even of taste, may thus, by artificial association, be made the bearer of an
emotional content which could not possibly be conveyed with anything like

the same fulness by a less concentrated medium. In virtue, therefore, of
their very simplicity, the vehicles and symbols of religious ritualism are the
most powerful of all means of emotional suggestion. They offer us a simple
impression which we can easily embrace with our senses, and by the aid of
which we can infuse into our mind a rich complex of all the moods, such as
reverence, ecstasy, and awe, which enter in the religious state.
In its most abnormally exalted developments love may give rise to a
fetichistic adoration of objects connected with the beloved which is
psychologically analogous to the cults of religion. And the same tendency
to select some single representation or object as vehicle of a psychical state,
which is so manifest in the case of these high-strung emotions, may also be
noticed in connection with feelings of lower intensity. In all departments of
psychical life we may thus find a corroboration of the assertion, which was
already expressed by Hemsterhuis in his speculations on our desires, which
always aim at “un grand nombre d’idées dans le plus petit espace de temps
possible.”[158] We need only consult our memories—for example, of
landscapes we have seen—to find that the emotional element of the
recollection, our admiration, is always closely bound up with some single
feature of the impression. We may indeed be able to revive the visual image
itself by allowing the mind’s eye gradually to pass along all its details. But
the subjective feelings in which we appropriated the impression and made it
our own will not be resuscitated until we arrive at one particular detail—a
single tree, or perhaps a figure—and concentrate our attention upon that.
The experience of this law of emotional mechanics teaches us to look with a
selective attention on everything of which we wish to preserve a vivid
remembrance. The more emotional our intuition of a given whole, the
greater is always our desire to concentrate it upon a single impression
which supports and reconstitutes the original vision. The art of arranging
great complexes of intellectual and emotional elements around single focal
points, so to speak, may undoubtedly be greatly developed by exercise. But
the procedure itself does not presuppose any conscious intention. It occurs
almost as an instinctive expedient for escaping the incompatibility between
diffused intellectual attention and strong feeling. On purely psychological
grounds, therefore, we may adopt the aphorism of Teufelsdröckh: “For the
soul, of its own unity, always gives unity to whatever it looks on with
love.”[159]

As the artistic representation of nature, according to our view, expressly
serves the purpose of perpetuating an emotional state, we should expect to
meet with such a unity in every work of descriptive art. And this
assumption may be amply corroborated by reference to art-history. We need
not go for examples to such extreme schools as that of those modern French
painters who endeavour to make every line in their pictures converge
towards a point or a sharp angle. Within the domain of universally
recognised art we may observe how the artist always tries to create a centre
of gravity by accentuating some single feature in the event, the landscape,
or the figure which serves as his model. The principle is the same as that of
which we avail ourselves when endeavouring to preserve an emotional state
in our memory for future enjoyment. But the procedure must necessarily be
somewhat changed when the task is added of enabling outsiders to partake
of the moods we have experienced. It is not then a matter of indifference
which particular detail of a complex impression we single out as focal, and
in which way we arrange the bulk of the impression around this focus.
Indeed, any random quality, if it is given prominence and emphasis, may
serve as a means of attracting attention to the work. But if one wishes to
impart to spectators the exact emotional mood, of which a given fragment
of nature acts as a representative, it is not sufficient to attract the attention
of the spectators. We must also induce the spectators to look upon the whole
of our model from our point of view. Instead of the casual connection by
which in our own mind emotional memories may be bound up with some
single sensation memory, we must try to introduce a causal connection
which persuades the outsider to agree with our choice of the focal quality.
The features selected for accentuation are to be made central, not only in
the technical, but also in the logical sense. Figuratively speaking, it is not
enough that the lines in a picture should converge towards a certain part;
this part must also appear to the spectator as the one in which all other parts
have their cause and their explanation. Thus the artistic imitation of nature
will necessarily be connected with a search for a predominant quality, and
an endeavour to represent this quality as a “faculté mère.” The things and
events which are selected for the embodiment of a given emotional state
become displayed in such a way that their whole being appears to be
derived from the one quality which is most suited to represent this
emotional state. The imitation is transformed into a construction, or rather

reconstruction, by which objective nature is adjusted so as to harmonise
with the subjective point of view.
Such a process of adjusting nature to the requirements of emotional
transmission need not always lead to any definite and concrete work of art.
It may also, as an unrealised tendency, accompany our intuition. And it is
only by virtue of this creative element that the feeling for nature may be
placed on a level with artistic production. If we are to explain, with Richard
Wagner, the æsthetic attention of the layman as the result of a natural poetic
gift (“Natürliche Dichtungsgabe”), we cannot possibly—as he does—base
the artistic value of this attention on the fact that it is “concentrating” and
“isolating.”[160] For so is necessarily every emotional way of looking at
things. Artistic treatment of nature, on the other hand, whether abortive or
carried to completion, always involves an endeavour to make the
concentrated and isolated view acceptable to others. As we cannot explain
the creation of concrete works of art without reference to a craving for
social expression, so we cannot distinguish the artistic from the non-artistic
intuition without assuming a tendency—unconscious and unintentional it
may be, but none the less powerful—to socialise the emotional content,
which is connected with a given intuition. The potential poet or painter,
whose embryo work is bound to remain for ever a fact only of his own
experience, is seldom apt to realise the purpose of his endeavour; he is not
aware that he is composing a poem or a picture for himself as spectator or
audience. Instinctively, however, he pursues in the adjusting of his intuition
an end which is essentially similar to that of the actually creating artist. In
both these cases of creation the impelling motive is, we believe, an
emotional one. And in both cases the creative activity aims at making an
emotional mood independent of the accidental and individual conditions
under which it originally appeared. Instead of an intuition, the emotional
content of which is concentrated in a conventional symbol, comprehensible
only to the initiated, or in arbitrary centres of association, significant only
for those by whom they have been selected, the artistic imagination tries to
construct an intuition which, if embodied in external form, would by its
own force impress itself, with all its accompanying emotional elements,
upon any spectator. It tends, in short, whether consciously or unconsciously,
to perpetuate and to transmit a complex of feeling.

We may now understand why it is that the artistic activity has so often
been interpreted in an intellectualistic spirit. The search for an all-
conditioning and all-explaining “faculté mère” by the help of which to
convey in the most forcible way a representation of things and events, may,
of course, easily be taken for an endeavour to discover the real nature of
these things and events. And, in point of fact, every artist who has a true
and keen eye for nature and life will necessarily light upon qualities which,
while affording the most appropriate centre of gravity for his representation,
are, also in the intellectualistic sense, explanatory of the subjects
represented. By making every feature of his model converge towards this
selected quality, he may thus produce an imitation which, even if it deviates
from the visible reality, may appear truer than this reality itself. In
proportion as his representation thus convinces us of its conformity with the
actual or essential nature of things, it will, other things being equal, elicit a
readier response from the spectator. It is only natural, therefore, that the
very works which have exercised the most powerful influence on mankind
should afford apparent support to the views of intellectualistic philosophers.
Nor can it be wondered at that critics, in apportioning censure and praise,
have attached so great an importance to the degree of exactness with which
a work of art represents things or ideas.
Such an attitude on the part of art-judges becomes the more explicable
when one takes into account the historical conditions under which the
several forms of descriptive art have developed. Poetic and pictorial
representation have both been extensively used for intellectual purposes.
And it cannot be expected that the essential aims of artistic activity—as
they appear to us when we theoretically distinguish this activity from other
forms of life—should be clearly comprehended as long as the concrete
works serve a non-æsthetic purpose. In proportion, however, as more exact
and convenient methods replace the poetic and pictorial means of thought-
conveyance, art will become freer to realise its own ends and consequently
be judged more and more on its intrinsic merits. As rhythmic form and
rhyme gained in distinctly artistic character from the time when the
invention of systems of writing relieved them from the mnemonic task of
preserving a record of events, so an æsthetic emancipation of the formative
arts will necessarily follow as a result of increased efficiency in the
mechanical means of recording sights. And in point of fact recent

movements in art have already shown us how painting has grown more
conscious of its essential aims, from being compelled to give up
competition with instantaneous photography.
It is only the most narrow forms, however, of naturalistically imitative art
that are thus made superfluous by scientific inventions. Those artists whose
aim is, not to attain the level of nature by servile imitation, but to rival it by
idealisation, will always be able to point to their task of representing
essential qualities as one which remains for ever a prerogative of artistic
production. But there are other signs which make us believe that even this
form of intellectualistic purpose will gradually lose importance for creators
as well as for spectators. The currents of thought which now prevail are
scarcely such as to favour the continuance of professedly or covertly
metaphysical doctrines of art. And even if philosophical opinion, which,
after all, only has to do with the secondary justification of feelings and
impulses, had remained unchanged ever since Hegel’s time, the changes
which have taken place in the very personality of modern man could not but
exercise an important influence on the production and estimation of art.
The intellectualistic illusion that every artistic representation has
something to teach us about the essential nature of the things represented,
can only arise on condition of there being a certain agreement between the
world-view of the artist and that of his public. It presupposes a certain
uniformity in the intellectual make of the individual creators and spectators.
This condition, however, is fulfilled less than ever in modern life. By the
influence of the increasing division of labour, characters become more and
more differentiated; and these different characters naturally develop
different ways of looking at things. The deviations from actual nature which
are to be met with in the work of an individual artist have therefore a poor
chance of convincing each individual spectator that they are in conformity
with essential reality, as he is apt to conceive it from his individual point of
view. Instead of the “eternal truths” so often spoken of in earlier æsthetic
literature, we now read about the “illusions particulières” of the several
artists. This sceptical attitude would of course exclude all vivid æsthetic life
if the motives of artistic production and enjoyment were such as
intellectualistic authors declare them to be. It cannot be observed, however,
that the changed conceptions of art-activity have exercised any influence on
the practice of artists. The same eagerness with which works were created

when they were thought to represent the essential nature of things is now
displayed by those who are endeavouring to produce works which often do
not even pretend to give more than their personal impressions. And the
critical public has shown itself ready to adopt a corresponding attitude in
estimating the value of artistic manifestations. It no longer lays the chief
stress on the intellectualistic requirement that artistic representation should
be true to nature. It demands before all that the work of art should give a
faithful rendering of the feelings with which the represented fragment of
nature has been comprehended by the artist. Sincerity, as involving poetical
truthfulness, thus becomes the chief claim which is set up for a work of
modern art.
It may be objected that the principles of art-criticism which now prevail
are too closely bound up with a transient movement to be adduced as proof
in a discussion of art in general. When the contemporary current of
subjectivism has been succeeded by new schools of art, the claim for
objective veracity may again acquire greater importance. We have no desire
to contend that such an evolution would be wholly regrettable. It is
impossible in estimating works of art to put aside all logical and ethical
considerations; and attachment to truth is too ineradicable an ethical instinct
not to influence—consciously or unconsciously—our æsthetic judgments.
But although it is neither possible nor desirable to exclude regard for
intellectualistic elements, it may be theoretically advantageous to emphasise
the distinct character of the æsthetic judgment. Modern criticism, as it has
developed under the influence of modern subjective art, exhibits, we
believe, the essentially artistic way of enjoying and estimating art. Although
this attitude, owing to different influences, has been now more, now less,
strictly maintained in various periods of art history, it has always been
adhered to by all who enjoy art for its own sake. Whenever we regard a
work of art without any secondary motive, we are not concerned with the
objective realities which it depicts. We are not interested in the historic
Laura whose praises we read in a poem. For all we care she may in reality
have been lame, and red-haired, and hump-backed. We are quite contented
if we receive a faithful impression of the beauty with which she charmed
her poet.
When it has been proved that the rules governing the artistic adjustment
of reality, which have been stated and vindicated on the basis of

intellectualistic theories, may be equally well deduced from an
emotionalistic interpretation, the argument can easily be extended so as to
cover the principles governing the selection of subjects and motives for
artistic representation. It is required in the Hegelian æsthetic that every
single phenomenon which is represented in a work of art should suggest the
presence of a greater and more universal idea.[161] In Goethe’s theory of
style in art we meet with the same claim—which is closely connected with
his general philosophy of nature—that every individual form or movement
should have something to tell us about the world-process.[162] And when
Taine tries to lay down a scale of gradation for the relative value of works
of art, he assigns the highest place to those works in which the qualities
exhibited are, firstly, as remarkable and essential as possible, and in which,
secondly, these remarkable and essential qualities have been made as
predominant as possible.[163] It can easily be seen that the reasoning which
is here applied to the choice between different things is exactly the same
which was used with regard to the different features of the same thing; and
the psychological interpretation is, therefore, also the same in both cases.
As the craving for the fullest and most adequate expression of an emotional
state influences the artist in his representation of a given fragment of nature
or life, so this craving must also influence his selection of the model to be
represented. Owing to variations in temperament and æsthetic predilections
the relative significance of these two aspects may be differently estimated
in different art-schools. But the main principle cannot be invalidated by the
fact that, for example, in French art and French æsthetic the definiteness is
emphasised at the cost, perhaps, of richness, while in English art
suggestiveness is often allowed to make up for lack of concentration.[164] A
catholic theory must necessarily account for all the varying æsthetic ideals
which have influenced artistic production. Although it must be considered
as essentially non-æsthetic to contend, as Mr. Ruskin did at one time, that
“that art is greatest which conveys to the mind of the spectator by any
means whatsoever the greatest number of the greatest ideas,”[165] it must, on
the other hand, be admitted that an individual thing is adequate as a means
of conveying the fulness of feeling only if through this individual thing
there can be suggested a multitude of other things recalled and represented.
Without assuming the philosophical principles from which Taine has
derived his theory of the ideal in art, we may therefore understand and

accept his scale of gradation of the relative value of works of art. And
similarly we may interpret in an emotionalistic way all the rules of artistic
composition and of conventionalising treatment of nature which have been
proposed by intellectualistic authors on æsthetic. The nude figure in
painting and sculpture, as well as the simple mythological themes in poetry
and literature, will thus for ever retain their pre-eminence as subjects of
artistic treatment. But this pre-eminence does not depend for its justification
upon the fact that they give us an incarnation of the philosophical notion of
the ideal man. It is sufficiently accounted for by their power of conveying a
fuller and richer emotional content than any individually defined motive.
Thus it can be explained why even spectators who have almost completely
outgrown—or, if the expression is preferred, have fallen away from—
idealistic ways of thought are nevertheless ready to appreciate the idealistic
feeling in the art of Puvis de Chavannes.
It cannot be denied, however, that those motives which in the Hegelian
æsthetic are considered as beautiful par excellence have been relatively
neglected in modern art. To some extent this circumstance may be
explained by the notion which is gaining more and more ground in the
public mind—to wit, that in every single phenomenon we may see a résumé
of the whole process of evolution. For it is evident that a spectator who has
once adopted this philosophical way of looking at things may find even a
well-represented piece of still-life quite as rich and æsthetically saturated as
a painting of the most universal motive. A more important cause, however,
is to be found in the fact that modern art, when endeavouring to convey
large and full contents by single vehicle-impressions, has learned to avail
itself of vehicles which cannot, properly speaking, be called either typical
or representative. In literature especially we may observe that authors dwell
with instinctive predilection on the description of scenes and events which
open our eyes to large views behind them. It would be impossible to
characterise all such favourite motives as beautiful; it is also often difficult
to show that there is any general idea embodied in them. But they have
invariably the quality of being emotional centres, in which a multiplicity of
feelings and sensations has been united. By this quality they become apt to
serve the purposes which are essential to the artistic craving; and by the
same quality they satisfy the requirement of fullest possible enjoyment
which is made by the spectator. What we demand of the perfect work of art

is—to resort to an often-used image—that it shall be as a shell, which we
may lift in our hand and bring to our ear, but in which, notwithstanding its
smallness, we may hear the roaring and singing of the sea.

CHAPTER X
OBJECTIONS AND ANSWERS
If the preceding discussion has been to any degree convincing, the reader
may perhaps have put to himself a question which has often presented itself
to the author—why no complete æsthetic system has been based on the
psychology of feeling. In recent times some attempts have indeed been
made to deduce the æsthetic value of art-works from their emotional
content.[166] But we do not know of any comprehensive theory in which all
the distinctive features of art had been consistently explained by reference
to an emotionalistic principle. This fact is so much the more remarkable as
the importance of feeling has been at least accidentally acknowledged by
some of the greatest writers on æsthetic, such as, for instance, Taine and
Ruskin.[167] It cannot have been without some reason that these authors
have refrained from basing their art-theories on the notion of a craving for
expression,—which would have provided a clear line of demarcation
between æsthetic and non-æsthetic activities,—and have instead explained
art as an intellectual function, which appears confused alternately with
scientific, philosophic, and ethical activity. An attempt to trace the causes of
this attitude will contribute to a further elucidation of the emotionalistic
theory of art.
It may be contended with some appearance of truth that as soon as
authors, who are themselves artists, have pronounced their opinion on the
purposes of their own art, those who are not artists have no call to continue
the discussion. But this would be to overlook the fact that the pure artist, as
well as the purely artistic activity, must be considered as an abstraction. The
bent of Goethe’s genius, for example, was perhaps by nature quite as much
towards science, particularly philosophy, as towards art. Thus, although an
artist may himself lay the chief stress on the intellectual or ethical elements
in his work, his opinion should not induce us to give up the purely æsthetic
criteria which we need for the theoretical definition of art-production as an
activity to itself.

It is again only natural that intellectualistic elements should occupy the
foremost place in the practical art-ideals which artists place before
themselves and each other. Technical perfection is the only quality which
can be consciously and intentionally aimed at. In works, therefore, which,
like Herr Hirth’s Physiologie der Kunst, are written from the point of view
of the executive artist, this quality has received special attention.[168] For
those who teach it or learn it, art must unavoidably appear as being chiefly a
power and a skill. But for the theoretical observer it is evident that no kind
of technical accomplishment, however wonderful it may be in itself, can
impart to a work that purely æsthetic merit, art-value. The differences in the
opinions of artists and theorists may therefore to a great extent have their
ground in the different aspects of art, differently emphasised by either side
to suit its own purposes.
It may, however, be objected that in the case of many artists and
æstheticians it has been more than a negative cause which has deterred
them from the emotionalistic interpretation. Goethe’s zealous championship
of the intellectualistic elements in art was no doubt part of his crusade
against prevailing sentimentalism.[169] There are many expressions in the
æsthetic writings of Schiller which in their exaggeration would appear quite
incomprehensible if we did not take into account the polemic position
which he maintained towards the romantic currents in art.[170] In more
recent times the reaction against the sentimental ideals has given rise to
theories which are still more intellectualistic than the maxims of German
classicism. By their dislike of that art which exhibits all the personal and
most intimate emotions of the artist, the French Parnassians have been led
to deny completely the part of feeling in all genuine art; and the mere
existence of such a poetic school may be thought to prove the inadequacy of
the interpretation of art which has been put forward in the preceding
chapters.
The noblest expression of the personal pride that compels the artist to
conceive his production as a purely intellectual function may be found in
Leconte de Lisle’s sonnet “Les Montreurs,” where the poet refuses to be a
beggar for the gross pity or laughter of the crowd.

Dans mon orgueil muet, dans ma tombe sans gloire,
Dussé-je m’engloutir pour l’éternité noire,

Je ne te vendrai pas mon ivresse ou mon mal,
Je ne livrerai pas ma vie à tes huées,
Je ne danserai pas sur ton tréteau banal
Avec tes histrions et tes prostituées.[171]
Nothing could indeed be further from our intentions than to enter the lists
against the so-called Parnassian ideas. At a time when intimate confessions
seem to be the most sought-for things in literature, we have reason to value
every appeal to the dignity of the artist. But it is only a confusion of ideas
which can lead any one to think that this dignity would be in any way
infringed by the adoption of an emotionalistic art-theory. We have been
especially anxious not to be misunderstood on this point, and this is the
only reason why in the preceding chapters we have taken so much pains to
disentangle the psychology of feeling, especially the relation between
simple feeling and emotions. The word feeling, as it is used colloquially,
generally involves only the fully formed emotions, especially those which
are painful. Owing to this narrow and inadequate usage, every one who
speaks of the importance of feeling for art exposes himself to the accusation
of sentimentalism. But it is sufficient to point out, with regard to such
misconceptions, that even pride, joy, elation, and all the other pleasurable
states, may be quite as emotional as any sorrow or melancholy. The poem
of Leconte de Lisle, quoted above, may therefore, in spite of all that the
author himself may have objected against such an interpretation, be
considered as an expression of feeling. And we can in the same way point
out that in every one of the most orthodox Parnassian poems some
emotional state has been expressed by the poet and conveyed to the reader.
It is only by virtue of this element that the poems of this school have
attained to their high poetical quality.
Within the department of the pictorial arts want of precision in the use of
terms has given rise to a confusion which is even greater than that which
prevails with regard to poetry. It has been a natural result of intellectualistic
views that in every painting the subject, the situation represented, has been
considered as the most important element. As the endeavour to give an
explanatory representation of external things and events has been assumed
as essential to the artistic craving, so the essence of the artistic work, its real
content, has been looked for in the things and events depicted. Especially
when paintings are designated by a descriptive title, spectators will be apt to

turn their attention solely to those situations or impressions which can be
subsumed under the title. If they cannot find any emotional element in the
subject, they declare the whole painting to be devoid of feeling. And for this
misconception they may even find support in the utterances of the artists;
for there are many painters who, fearing lest they might be confused with
the melodramatic sensation-mongers, have emphatically pronounced their
abhorrence of all emotional suggestion. For the unbiassed observer,
however, it is evident that the painter’s joy over a colour or a nuance, or the
melancholy which can be expressed, without any anthropomorphic element,
by a mere relation between light and shadow, may be as emotional states as
those which are embodied in the humorous or sentimental subjects of genre-
painting. Every artistic representation, whether landscape, figure, or still-
life, always conveys to us some emotional mood of the painter. If this
feeling element has been conveyed in some pictures with greater
distinctness than in others, this fact must not prevent us from
acknowledging that it enters into every kind of art. We do not say, therefore,
with Professor van Dyke, “Art to Phidias was a matter of form; to Titian a
matter of colour; to Corot a matter of feeling;”[172] but we say, Art to
Phidias was a matter of feeling expressed by form; to Titian a matter of
feeling expressed by colour; and to Corot a matter of feeling expressed by
lights.
In the essential unity of all feeling we may thus find the point in which
all forms of art, notwithstanding their different subjects and materials, have
their unity. By laying the chief stress on the emotional mood which in every
work is conveyed from creator to spectator, we save the trouble of dividing
the works into different classes. We need not then assume any peculiar
principle of admiration for technical skill to explain the enjoyment of Dutch
painting or of Greek sculpture. Nor need we put ourselves to the pains of
deciding whether the subject or the execution is to be considered more
important. The problem of content and form, so much debated throughout
intellectualistic æsthetic, does not exist for the emotionalistic interpretation,
which sees the essence of art in the feeling embodied, sometimes in a great
and important subject, sometimes in some insignificant feature of nature or
life. And the element of technical perfection becomes acknowledged in its
proper light when interpreted as the indispensable condition for effectually
achieving such an embodiment.

It would be impossible, however, to explain as merely a confusion of
standpoints the fact that certain schools of art have been considered entirely
unemotional. To some extent, no doubt, the deficient appreciation of purely
pictorial art is the result of the disastrous influence which has, especially in
England, been exercised by prevailing currents of criticism. By
systematically diverting the attention of the public from the essential
element in painting, the leaders of taste may, no doubt, accomplish great
things in deadening the art-sense of nations. But it is scarcely probable that,
even if he knew better than to look for a “story” and literary interest in a
work of pure painting, the general spectator would be able to enjoy the état
d’âme which is expressed in an intérieur of Ver Meer or a landscape of
Whistler. To him a painting the whole subject of which is sunshine, and the
figures of which have no mission but that of absorbing or reflecting the
light, would appear inane and cold. “Pictorial ideas,” which may represent
such a wealth of feeling for the initiated, are thus to the artistically
uneducated devoid of any emotional content.
Though emphasising as much as possible the unity of art, we are
compelled to admit that the feelings which are conveyed in its higher and
lower forms may be essentially different. While meeting in the “lower” art
of our own and earlier times with an expression of the most general
emotions and instincts which, by the very vehemence of their pathos, may
awaken the aversion of the refined critic, we partake, in the higher art-
forms, of feelings that can be derived only from a dispassionate
contemplation of nature. This difference between higher and lower
manifestations, though especially marked in painting, can be observed in all
forms of art. We have no wish to deny the necessity of discriminating
between these “æsthetic feelings” of the higher art-forms and the
elementary affections, which form the content of the sentimental, or, as the
German philosophers would say, pathological art. The moods of æsthetic
contemplation are, on the contrary, of so great significance that we can
easily understand why they have been made the basis of so many systems of
art-philosophy. From the point of view of the present work, which does not
pretend to lay down a detailed criterion of perfection in art, but which only
aims at explaining the most general social and psychological aspects of art-
activity, it is necessary to adhere to the element which is common to all art,
higher as well as lower, primitive or barbaric as well as civilised. And we

can only, in passing, indicate the direction in which we believe an
explanation is to be sought for the development of æsthetic attention and
refined art-sense—those great problems which could be properly treated
only in a separate work.
It has been pointed out by several authors on æsthetic, and even
emphasised to excess, that a certain independence of the struggle for life is
a condition for the appearance of a higher art. It is indeed a current fallacy
that art must be the growth of culture and prosperity. But it is nevertheless
incontestable, that the peculiar art-sense, the artistic intuition par
excellence, can be developed only in nations and individuals who—be it by
success in the struggle for life, by advantageous circumstances, or simply
by a natural lightheartedness of their own—have grown superior to care for
life’s necessities. This factor, however, is only a negative condition. By
itself mere independence of wants could never have taught any one to
derive an ever deeper and stronger pleasure from a thing which stands in no
immediate relation to the primary emotions or the primary desires of the
beholder or the artist. The æsthetic education of mankind, its growth in
artistic refinement, could not have been accomplished without the influence
of more positive factors.
In looking for such factors we unavoidably come to that datum which has
been carefully excluded from the present part of our research, namely, the
concrete work of art. Whatever may have been the conditions of their
origin,—whether utilitarian or not,—poems, paintings, and sculptures must
all have occasioned exercise of that interest and attention which is
independent of the most immediate utilitarian interests. Even if poems, for
instance, were written with a purpose primarily historical, they must have
afforded both to the poet and to his audience the opportunity to consider
them as pure works of art. Just as moral feelings have been gradually
developed under the influence of actions which may originally have been
quite non-ethical, so the refinement of æsthetic sense has been promoted by
works of art, which may themselves have served entirely non-æsthetic
purposes.

CHAPTER XI
THE CONCRETE ORIGINS OF ART
By explaining the art-impulse as a form of social expression we have
accounted for art-creation and art-enjoyment as activities which have their
end in themselves. The emotionalistic interpretation supplied us with a
principle, which we were able to apply to all stages, the lower as well as the
higher, of art-development. Without committing ourselves to any definite
statements as to the purely æsthetic and autotelic character of the individual
works of art, we felt ourselves to be right in assuming that a desire of
“expression for its own sake,” or rather for the sake of its immediately
enhancing or relieving effects on feeling, may have operated as an art-factor
on all stages of culture, and thus have given an autotelic value even to the
lowest manifestations of art. The driving force in art-creation became
comprehensible by this assumption; and the most distinctive features of the
creation itself could be deduced from this psychological principle. In
attempting, however, to explain the refinement of artistic attention, we
could no longer proceed with purely psychical factors. We were compelled
to appeal to the influence exercised by the concrete work of art. The
psychological demonstration proving inadequate, it was necessary to
supplement it by an historical argument.
It may be thought, however, that in referring to the educative effects of
the work of art we need not desert the domain of a strictly æsthetic and
psychological inquiry. There is nothing improbable in the supposition that
the products of an activity of themselves influence this activity, so as to
bring about gradually a thorough change of its character. From the
expressional impulse, which in the lower stages of culture gives rise to
crude and simple manifestations, there might thus be derived, by the
retroactive effects of these manifestations themselves, an increasingly
refined form of expression. But such a sequence of tendency, however clear
and consistent it may appear at the outset, cannot possibly be thought of as
unsupported by outside influences. The more we examine it, the more we
shall find that the series of causes is insufficient to explain the series of

effects. This view, to which we are necessarily led by investigating any
period of art-history, forces itself upon us with particular cogency when we
turn our attention to the earliest stages of art-development.
Before the first work of art had been created, the art-impulse as well as
the art-sense must necessarily have been in a very undeveloped state. The
æsthetic cravings cannot possibly have gained any consciousness of their
purposes ere they had realised themselves in some objective works. Of
these objective works, on the other hand, it is only the simplest forms that
can be derived solely from the pure art-impulse. We may consider a lyrical
dance, or even a lyrical song, as direct outbursts of an emotional pressure,
which, if unrelieved, would prove dangerous to the system. But we can
scarcely imagine that any human being should be able to invent, say, a fully
formed drama simply in order to convey in the most efficacious manner the
feeling by which he is dominated. And it is yet more difficult to understand
how the craving after social expression could have created, merely for its
own satisfaction, such highly developed art-forms as painting and sculpture.
While we are able to derive the mental compulsion which forces the artist to
production, and the æsthetic qualities which give their distinctive character
to his productions from the psychological notion of the art-impulse, we are
compelled to look elsewhere for the origin and development of the concrete
technical medium of which he avails himself in fulfilling his purpose.
As in this investigation we are no longer concerned with the abstract and
ideal work of art, it seems that we may now reasonably appeal to those
theories which we before found inadequate only because they did not
account for the purely æsthetic qualities of artistic activity. The play-
impulse, the impulse to attract by pleasing, the imitative impulse, etc.,
although they give us no information as to the essentially artistic criterion,
may nevertheless have called into existence works and manifestations
which fulfil the requirements of the several art-forms. Man may have
composed dramas, may have painted pictures, may have made poems, in
play, or out of the desire to please, or out of the inborn taste for mimicry. In
particular the play-impulse must, as we have already admitted in the first
part of this work, be dealt with as a factor of incalculable importance in the
history of art. In his conclusive researches on animal and human play
Professor Groos has succeeded in showing that the chief classes of art-
forms are already foreshadowed in the various forms of experimentation—

that most general and most important kind of play which can be observed
not only among children, but even among the higher animals.[173] In the
outcome of this simple and common activity we have, it may be said, a
sufficient bulk of raw material of which the art-impulse, when once fully
developed, can avail itself in order to fulfil its own essentially artistic
purposes. And it would therefore seem as if there were no further problem
to be solved with regard to the evolution of art.
Adherents of this view may, moreover, point to the fact that, apart from
all the motive factors represented by the various non-æsthetic impulses, the
development of art has been favoured by influences of a more passive or
static character. It has evidently been of vital importance to the evolution of
architecture and decoration that things of useful nature have provided these
arts with a kind of concrete frame within which to display their
manifestations. The effects of this material condition are so much the
greater because with his constitutional conservatism man—whether
civilised or primitive—always allows himself to be bound by old forms
long after he has relinquished the technical procedures which have
originally called these forms into existence. By the scientific “biological”
researches on decorative art it has been conclusively shown how great a
portion of the ornamental “store” consists of lines and combinations of lines
which have quite automatically been borrowed from an earlier technique.
Decorative motives, which to the uninitiated observer appear as products of
spontaneous artistic activity, thus reveal themselves to the historical student
as unintentional by-products of work. Where earlier investigators assumed
an æsthetic composition, modern researches refer to the force of mental
inertia and the cravings of expectant attention.[174]
There is no intention here to undervalue the methods which are nowadays
employed in the study of decorative art, and which, indeed, the writer
himself has endeavoured to apply in some earlier studies on art-theory. In
the present research, however, it would be inappropriate to trace in detail
the evolution by which forms originating in mere utility—as in basket-work
—are gradually transformed into patterns or other artistic decorations; for
this process, however fertile in effects it may be considered, cannot account
for that phenomenon which, above all, constitutes the main object of our
investigation. Although the psychical causes adduced above undeniably
have called into existence some of the most familiar ideas in decoration,

they cannot possibly explain the importance which decoration itself has
attained in the various human societies. And the same remark evidently
applies to all the other psychological sources from which art may be
derived. The play-impulse, for example, no doubt suggests a concrete
source, but it can in no way explain the important position which art
occupies as a leading factor in social life. In order to understand why even
in the lowest stages of development art has been acknowledged as a
purpose worthy of being seriously pursued, we must investigate this activity
in its connection with the most important biological and sociological
purposes of life.
We propose in the following chapters to examine the most powerful non-
æsthetic factors that have favoured the origin and development of the
several art-forms. And while we are keeping in view especially such
utilitarian requirements as those of intellectual information, of stimulation
for work or war, of sexual propitiation or of magic efficiency, we shall be
compelled to leave out of consideration all distinctively æsthetic factors and
conditions. Accordingly we shall not be able to maintain in this historical
and ethnological inquiry the strictest æsthetic distinctions. But we hope that
the unavoidable vagueness in our terminology will not obscure those
limitations and demarcations which have—perhaps even too laboriously—
been laid down in the first part of this work. To preserve consistency
between our inquiries into the abstract and the concrete origins of art, it
need only be stated, once and for all, that the several works and
manifestations, as they are to be treated hereafter, are, strictly speaking,
only the raw material of art, if art is to be considered in the purest sense as
an autotelic activity.

CHAPTER XII
ART AND INFORMATION
It is well known that, in the earlier classical times, philosophy, history,
and science were inseparably connected with poetry. And it is as familiar a
truth that pictographs and ideograms were used for writing before phonetic
signs had been invented. But it is not enough to recall that poetry and the
arts of design have in this way been serving the requirements of intellectual
information; it can also be shown that among primitive tribes every one of
the lower art-forms—the dance, the pantomime, and even the ornament—
has been of great importance as a means of interchanging thoughts.
When attempting in this chapter to take a cursory survey of the various
art-forms as used for purely intellectual purposes, we find it most
advantageous to start with the dramatic examples. It is true that the art of
the theatre, in the modern sense of the word, must be considered as a late,
perhaps even as the very latest, result of artistic evolution. A literary drama,
which fulfils all the claims of a work of art, is possible only on a highly
advanced level of culture, and it has consequently by most authors on
æsthetic been considered as the latest of all art-forms.[175] When dealing,
however, with the productions of primitive tribes, we have to adopt a lower
æsthetic standard. Although we do not meet with any tragedies, nor even
with any real comedies, at this stage of evolution, we can at least point to
the fact that simple farces, pantomimes, and pantomimic dances are to be
found among tribes which have so far been unable to create any kind of
epics, and whose lyrical poetry is restricted to a few rhythmical phrases
with no intrinsic meaning. And if we use the word in its widest sense, so as
to include every representation by action, drama can be spoken of as the
very earliest of all the imitative arts. It was certainly in use long before the
invention of writing, either by pictures or letters; perhaps it is even older
than language itself. As an outward sign of thought, action is more
immediate than words. Dramatic communication does not even presuppose
any conscious intention nor any common consent. It may appear on the side
of the “speaker” as the unchecked result of the “Einhaltsstreben,” the

universal impulse to put into gesture any idea of action which is distinctly
conceived—for instance to clench the fist at the thought of striking—and it
may be comprehended without any effort by the audience, which by
unconscious imitation partakes of the communicated thoughts.[176] Such
pantomimic forms of intellectual exchange seldom indeed occur in civilised
life. The “Einhaltsstreben” in a civilised man is generally lost during the
transfer from thought to word. Pantomimic display, which involves an
unnecessary waste of force and time, was doomed to disappearance with the
growing development of conventional language. Moreover, the rules of
propriety tend to confine, at least in educated society, the language of the
body within as narrow limits as possible. But as soon as, by pathological
influences, these conditions are annulled, even civilised man necessarily
falls back upon pantomimic language. In the extreme forms of aphasia we
may thus observe how strong the mimetic impulse is when unchecked.
There is the more reason to consider these pathological instances as in some
degree typical of the primeval methods of communication, as it is only by
assuming an earlier system of impulsive, self-interpreting signs that we can
explain the subsequent development of conventional word or gesture-
language.[177]
We cannot, however, argue from cases of mental disturbance as to the
original language of primitive man. For example, even if aphasia could be
considered as a case of atavism,[178] we could scarcely compare the mimic
capabilities of modern man with those of the unknown, wordless being
whose system of expressive signs, although he were compelled to rely
exclusively upon it, cannot possibly have been brought to any great degree
of perfection. Illustrations from deaf-mutes and from the isolated specimens
of “homo sapiens ferus”—Mr. Kipling’s Mowgli—are for the same reason
inadequate.[179] As long as ethnology is ignorant of any wordless tribes, our
notions as to the assumed dramatic language rest entirely upon
psychological deductions.[180] But the probability of these deductions is,
more or less, supported by what we know about the lowest tribes now
existing. It is true that the information on this point is even more
inconsistent than is usual in ethnological evidence. But although due
allowance must be made for the errors into which a deficient knowledge of
the primitive custom and languages has led the various authors, there will
nevertheless remain a sufficient body of facts proving the important part

which pantomimic communication plays in the lower stages of mental
evolution. Bushmen, Australians, and Eskimos show us a highly developed
dramatic language.[181] In some parts of Australia it has been noticed that
the store of gestures is richest among tribes which have enjoyed the least
contact with Europeans.[182] And a further ground for considering this mode
of thought-conveyance as old and primitive is afforded by the fact that,
according to Mr. W. E. Roth, its “use is strictly enforced on certain special
occasions, such as some of the initiation ceremonies.”[183] Mr. Fraser also
believes that gesture-language is taught at the Bora ceremonies.[184]
It would, however, be presumption to see in every instance of dramatic
thought-communication a rudiment of an old and primitive language. There
are many causes which favour the adaptation and elaboration of mimic
language even after a system of phonetic signs has been established. In a
passage which has already been quoted Mr. Roth observes that pantomimic
ideograms must be very advantageous “on the war-path or the chase, where
silence is so essential an adjunct to success.”[185] Another reason still more
important is the fact that pantomimic action can be understood by people
who speak different languages. Among civilised nations we may find many
instances of the high state of development which gesture-language has
attained in border countries where different peoples must necessarily often
meet.[186] And it is significant that among primitive tribes gestures and
motions are nowhere so full of significance and intellectual expressiveness
as on the plains of Australia,[187] among the savages in the interior parts of
Brazil,[188] and on the great prairies of North America,[189]—in a word, in
countries where the breaking up of a nation into small vagrant tribes has
been the cause of an extreme dialectical disseverance. Under these
conditions, however, the impulsive, self-interpreting pantomime is apt to
develop gradually into an elaborate system of conventional signs. The
gesture-language of the North American Indians, for example, which
consists almost entirely of abbreviated “moves” of indication and
delineation, is no doubt eminently adapted to fulfil the practical
requirements of comprehensibility and explicitness. But it has not much to
do with dramatic art in any sense of the word.
Of a more immediate importance for art-history are the pantomimics
which accompany public speaking. In a state of society where every

member is entitled to take part in the common deliberations, oral language
will often prove an inadequate vehicle of thought. Only through displaying
his speech in action is the chief or the priest capable of making its purport
comprehensible to the large audiences at a popular meeting. Rhetoric,
therefore, is still among many primitive tribes what it used to be in classical
antiquity—a dramatic as well as a literary art.[190]
A pantomime will, of course, by virtue of its greater vividness, convey its
content of thoughts and feelings with a far greater efficiency than a merely
spoken oration. It may, when especially infectious, induce the audience to
join in it as a dramatic chorus. And even when the imitation which it calls
forth remains purely internal, this imitation, nevertheless, enables the
spectators to appropriate the text of the acted oration in a way which is
deeper and far more complete than could ever be possible with regard to an
oral speech. As a natural sign of emotion pantomimic language opens, as
Home would say in his quaint way, “a direct avenue to our heart.”[191] It is
no wonder, therefore, that dramatic performances on all but the highest
stages of culture have been used for political agitation as well as for
religious edification.[192]
We shall in the following pages, when treating of the religious and
political aspects of art, obtain a fitting opportunity of examining these
forms of drama. In the present connection we need only refer to them as
means of further emphasising the utilitarian aspect of mimic representation
in the intercourse between savages. After having realised how on the lower
stages of culture practical advantages as well as social and religious
considerations concur in favouring the development of this early language,
we may understand the surprisingly high dramatic ability of primitive
peoples. But while psychological as well as sociological reasons thus
confirm us in considering dramatic action as the earliest means of
conveying intellectual information, we are nevertheless compelled to admit
that even in primitive stages the other art-forms also may have served this
purpose. In reality it is impossible to draw any sharp distinction between
dumb-drama and primitive poetry. The pantomimic performance will in
most cases spontaneously supplement itself with a recital, spoken or sung.
In the simple representations therefore of real occurrences which

characterise the lowest forms of narrative art these two means of intellectual
expression generally appear together.
And in this connection one will also meet with an early manifestation of
pictorial art in the form of an extempore design, which serves to bring out
more fully and clearly the content of the recital. The transition from a
delineative gesture to a contour-design is indeed so direct and easy that it
must have taken place even among tribes on a very low plane of culture. In
some instances we can distinctly see how the one art grows out of the other.
Mr. Mallery has described a dialogue between some Alaskan Indians, in
which the left hand is used as an imaginary drawing board upon which lines
are drawn with the index finger of the right hand.[193] Herr von Steinen has
observed that the natives in Central Brazil, as soon as the gestures prove
insufficient for conveying an idea, fashion an explanatory design in the
sand.[194] These designs are only a projection on a different surface of the
hand-movements with which in their pantomimic language they describe
the outlines of the objects in the air. One is tempted, therefore, to find in
these transferred gestures the origin of pictorial art. And such an hypothesis
seems the more probable as in some tribes—particularly among the North
American Indians—the picture-signs for denoting things and phenomena
have evidently been derived from the corresponding gesture-signs.[195] But
it is, as Professor Groos cautiously remarks, difficult to know whether any
primitive man could ever have thought of delineating the contours of an
object had he not beforehand possessed some idea of drawing.[196] Without
endeavouring to solve this question of origins, it is sufficient for our
purpose to state that a kind of extempore design, almost as spontaneous and
fugitive as the dramatic art, appears together with the mimic and poetic
representations. And we have now only to devote our attention to these
various means of information in so far as they may give rise to a
manifestation of art, while serving the purely intellectual purpose of
conveying or elucidating a thought-content.
It is only natural that the requirements of practical life should call into
existence various kinds of mimic, pictorial, or literary information which
have little whatever to do with art, even if this notion is conceived in its
widest sense. There is no reason for us to delay our argument by
enumerating pantomimics, gestures, or paintings which aim at

communicating notices of trivial importance, such as directions about the
way to be taken by travellers, warnings with regard to dangerous passages,
etc.[197] Even as a purely technical product a work is of little interest as long
as its subject is so poor and insignificant. We feel justified, therefore, in
restricting our attention to such manifestations as present in their contents
some degree of coherence and continuity.
The simplest examples of purely narrative art which fulfil the technical
claims of a complete work will of course appear when the text of the
narration consists of some real occurrence which is represented with all its
episodes and incidents. Primitive life affords many inducements to such
relation. The men who have returned from war, or from a hunting or a
fishing expedition, will thus often repeat their experiences in a dramatic
dance performed before the women and children at home. Although in
many cases there is reason to suppose that even these performances may be
executed to satisfy some superstitious or religious motive, they have
undoubtedly, to a certain extent, been prompted by the desire to revive and
communicate the memories of eventful days. Other incidents that have
made a strong impression upon the minds of the people are in the same way
displayed in pantomimic action. It is sufficient here to refer to the elaborate
dramas “Coming from Town” performed by Macusi children, in which all
the episodes of a journey are reproduced with the utmost possible
exactness,[198] to the Corrobberrees in Queensland, in which incidents of
individual or tribal interests, such as hunting or war adventures, but only
those of recent occurrence, are enacted,[199] and to the performance in a
Wanyoro village, where M. de Bellefond’s behaviour during a recent battle
was closely imitated.[200] At the dramatic entertainment held before some
members of Captain Cook’s expedition an elopement scene which had in
reality taken place some time previously was performed in the presence of
the runaway girl herself. The play is said to have made a very strong
impression upon the poor girl, who could hardly refrain from tears when
she saw her own escapade thus reproduced.[201] The imitation of the real
action was in this case evidently designed as punishment for the guilty
spectator; and as the piece concluded with a scene representing the girl’s
return to her friends and the unfavourable reception she met with from
them, it tended no doubt to exercise a salutary influence.

This naïve little interlude, with its satirical and moralising vein, naturally
reminds us of those old farces which candidly defined themselves as
adaptations of some “scandale du quartier.”

Là elle fut exécutée
Icy vous est representée.[202]

The wordless pantomimes and dramatic dances of the modern savages
give us no information of this kind. But there is no doubt that a closer
investigation would reveal that a great number of the comical and heroical
episodes which, are described in ethnological literature have had their
prototypes in some incidents of recent occurrence.
This opinion can only be corroborated by extending our investigation to
the other departments of narrative art. Whatever other merits one might
discover in primitive poetry, its strength does certainly not lie in invention.
When the songs contain any narrative element at all, it refers to some
simple experience of the day. Travel, hunting, and war afford the themes for
the simplest epical poems as well as for the most primitive dramatic
recitals.[203] And any event of unusual occurrence will of course be made
use of by the poets. Travellers who have learned to understand the
languages of the natives they sojourn with have often observed that their
own persons have been described in impromptu songs.[204] Sometimes these
songs have a satirical tendency;[205] sometimes they are composed as
glorifications of the white man.[206] But there is no need to assume either of
these tendencies in every case. The mere fact of his being a strange and new
thing qualifies the European as a fitting subject for the primitive drama and
poetry. And on the same grounds all the marvels of civilisation—the rifles,
steamers and so on—will often be described in poetry.[207] In the savage
mind these unknown facts will easily give rise to the most marvellous
interpretations. For an instance of such apparently fantastic products of
poetic imagination, which in reality have their origin in an unavoidable
misconstruction of an unknown reality, we need only refer to the
description of Captain Cook’s ships in the Hawaii song, which has been
taken down by M. de Varigny. The ships themselves are spoken of as great
islands, their masts are trees, the sailors are gods, who drink blood (i.e.
claret), and eat fire and smoke through long tubes (i.e. pipes), and carry

about things which they keep in holes in their flanks.[208] It is but natural to
assume that—if researches on the origins of the subjects were possible—the
seeming richness of invention in many similar poems could be accounted
for by the deficient observation and the faults of memory in uneducated
man. And by such researches the importance of actual experience would be
substantiated even with regard to the art of barbaric nations. As to the songs
of the lower savages, to which we have to restrict our attention at present, it
is, as shown by the above adduced examples, unnecessary to appeal to this
explanation.
Not less ephemeral than the literary subjects are the motives of primitive
pictorial art. In Herr von den Steinen’s account of the Xingu tribes we can
find some most typical examples of such explanatory designs by which the
poetic and dramatic recitals of battles, travels, etc., are supplemented.[209]
Owing to their fugitive character these simple manifestations can never be
reduced to a scientific account. But there is reason to believe that in all parts
of the world pictures have been drawn in the air or in the sand, of which
there remain no more trace than of the gesture that is over or of the
unwritten poem that is forgotten.
It is evident, however, that in some instances at least there have remained
traces of these ephemeral narrations. The picture might have been drawn on
some piece of bark or cloth instead of on the sand, the pantomime might
have been repeated even after its subject had lost its actuality, or the text
remembered after it had served its immediate purpose in the narration. The
fugitive recital, whether pictorial, mimic, or oral, which lives only for the
moment might in this way have become a permanent work, conveying the
contents of the narrative to future times. One would think that as soon as
such a means of preserving a record of past events had been, intentionally
or accidentally, discovered, it would have immediately been turned to
account. There is, after all, but one step between the impromptu dance or
poem, which tells of a recent occurrence, and the work of art, which
forwards the memory of the same occurrence to consecutive generations.
Ethnological science shows, however, that this distinction is by no means
a theoretical one only. There are tribes amongst the lower savages in which
the pantomimes and dances refer only to the most recent events. And if
amongst these tribes some pictures or some dances have been preserved

from older times, they appear to be quite isolated exceptions, the presence
of which one is tempted to attribute to accident rather than design. It is only
when we look to a higher degree of culture that we find a commemorative
art, in the true sense of the word, appearing.
From the point of view of comparative psychology this fact is easily
explained. The distance between an impromptu recital of a recent
occurrence and historical art and literature, as we understand them to-day,
however short it may appear, covers perhaps the most momentous progress
that man has made in his advancement towards culture. Whether
commemorative art is to be considered as retrospective with regard to
something that is past, the memory of which it endeavours to revive, or as
directed towards future generations whom the artist would wish to make
participators of the present, it presupposes a power of conferring attention
upon matters the interest in which is not confined to the immediate present.
No psychologist would include this faculty among the attributes of those in
the lowest stage of mental development. Ethnological science, on the other
hand, shows that it is as yet lacking in some of the existing tribes of the
lower savages. In an æsthetic research it is of the highest importance to
know exactly when and where this attribute appears. In the general history
of art no date can be more significant than that which marks the
commencement of a larger conception in the mind of the artist of the public
for whom he works, bringing in its train, as it does, wider aims concerning
his work.

CHAPTER XIII
HISTORICAL ART
It is exceedingly difficult to decide at what precise stage in the evolution
of mankind we can first distinguish signs of a true commemorative art. It
seems pretty evident that the lowest of the known tribes—such as the
Veddas, the Bubis, the Kubus—live exclusively in and for the present,
without any memories or traditions as to their past. When we turn our
attention, however, to tribes in the somewhat higher condition of culture we
find that the statements of travellers are not at one with regard to this. The
Fuegians are said by M. Hyades to lack any kind of history and tradition.
[210]
But, on the other hand, one of their pantomimical dances (or rather
dramas) has been explained by M. Martial, another member of the Cape
Horn expedition, as commemorating the revolt of the men against the
women, “who formerly had the authority and possessed the secrets of
sorcery.”[211] The inconsistency between these two assertions can, however,
be explained by the fact that Hyades evidently had in view only the oral
tradition. The interpretation of M. Martial again seems to be merely
hypothetical. Mr. Bridges, who is more competent than any one else to
speak about this tribe, does not allude to any commemorative element in the
“Kina,” although even he thinks that these plays, in which the parts were
formerly acted by women, are old and traditional in their form.[212]
A similar inconsistency in the use of terms has no doubt been the cause
of the conflicting reports on the traditional poetry of the Greenlanders. In
his account of their “Wissenschaften” Cranz says that they have no heroic
songs describing the doings of their ancestors. But the very wording of this
negation—“They know nothing about them except that they were brave
hunters, and slew the old Norsemen”—shows that it can by no means be
adduced to prove complete default of oral tradition.[213] And in another
passage Cranz expressly says that the Eskimos, at their sunfeasts, praise the
feats of their ancestors.[214]

It is more difficult to bring into accord the various statements concerning
the Melanesians. Mr. Codrington sees a distinguishing feature of this
ethnological group in the fact that they, in contrast to the Polynesians, are
conspicuously devoid of native history and oral tradition.[215] But this rule
is evidently subject to at least one important exception, as the Fijians are
known to celebrate subjects from their legendary history in their choral
dance-songs.[216] One is led to believe, therefore, that in some other island,
also of the Melanesian group, traditional poetry and traditional dramas may
have existed, but escaped the attention of the ethnologists. Negative
statements are never to be unreservedly relied upon, least of all perhaps in
accounts of uncivilised men. The case of the Navajo affords an instructive
and warning example, which falls exactly within the limits of the present
investigation. In spite of the statement by Dr. Letherman, who is
acknowledged to have been a “man of unusual ability,” that the Navajos had
“no knowledge of their origin or of the history of their tribe,”[217] Dr.
Washington Matthews has been able to gather his imposing collection of
historical songs and traditional commemorative customs.[218]
An incident of this kind is apt to make us sceptical with regard to the
assertion of Captain Cook, which has, however, been unreservedly quoted
by Lubbock and Spencer, that the Maoris, a race noted for old legends and
ancient lore, in 1770 had no recollection of Tasman’s visit to their island.
[219]
And one is inclined to doubt the trustworthiness of Schoolcraft’s
informant when he says that the Appalachian Indians had lost all
recollection of De Soto’s expedition.[220] Compared with the statements
concerning the Lenape and the Mohicans, who still remember Hudson, and
the Iroquois and the Algonquins, who preserve traditions of the first white
immigrants,[221] this assertion will, in any case, lose its force as a judgment
upon the whole North American race, in which sense it has, however, been
used by Lubbock.[222] On a closer investigation the Chinooks will perhaps
be also discharged from the unfavourable verdict passed upon them by
Kane, who could never hear any traditions as to their former origin.[223]
It is safest, therefore, merely to state generally and approximately that
among the lower savages the commemorative element is lost sight of amid
the prevailing impromptu productions. With higher culture the
commemorative inclination appears to become intensified. But its growth

cannot be considered as closely accompanying the general mental
evolution. Whatever great treasures of epical poetry and literature may
some day be found amongst the Melanesians, their relative inferiority in
this respect can never be contested. When a group like this, notwithstanding
its unsurpassed ability in formative art,—which, however, seems to suggest
a commemorative purpose,[224]—can be outdone in matters of oral history
and tradition, not only by the Polynesians but even, it would seem, by the
Australians,[225] there is of course no possibility of applying the general
scheme of evolution to fix the definite beginnings of commemorative art. A
priori assertions do not count in a question in which the reality defeats the
assumptions of probability in such a surprising manner. Before the
ethnological knowledge becomes more complete no statement as to
traditional art can be accepted as definite.
The scantiness of reliable information does not, however, constitute the
greatest difficulty. The facts themselves, even if their authenticity is
granted, are often liable to the most inconsistent interpretations. For an
exact appreciation of the influence which the commemorative impulse has
exercised on the history of art it is insufficient to enumerate examples,
however many might be found, of traditionally preserved works of art. The
really important thing is to distinguish works which can be considered as
genuine specimens of historical art, i.e. as the outcome of a commemorative
intention, from the mere survivals which resemble these in so confusing a
manner. In almost every artistic manifestation we can read a story of the
past. The tenacity with which the old forms and the old technical
procedures are retained lends a documentary value to every ornament,
picture, or poem. By authors with a predilection for historic interpretations
this record element is apt to be considered as intentionally aimed at. The
euhemeristic view will in this way be applied to the history of art, with
results that are often as extravagant as the mythological theories
themselves. For every detail in a dance or dramatic performance a reason
has been looked for in some event of real occurrence. This method has its
strong and sensible side—and a very sensible one indeed—in that it does
away with the idea of a rich and creative imagination in primitive man. It
can also be applied to with great advantage for the explanation of artistic
manifestation, which would otherwise be quite incomprehensible.[226] But
its use is not, any more than that of any other general theory, to be

recommended as a master-key to all the mysteries of ceremonialism and
ritual art. The shortcomings of the method are strongly emphasised by the
fact that it has failed in cases which have been chosen expressly for its
illustration.
Foremost amongst the advocates of euhemerism in the study of
ceremonial stands Captain Bourke, who has taken up and extended to the
rites and dramas of the living savages the theory of Higgins, that all
ceremonies of antiquity were created with a view of preserving to the
memory ancient learning and ancient traditions.[227] It would be extremely
unfair to accuse this indefatigable hunter after analogies of a limited
understanding. In questions of ritualistic detail, such, for instance, as those
of the flour-sprinkling customs, his comparative studies are not only
unsurpassed as proofs of learning, but are also full of valuable and
instructive suggestions.[228] The stately array of facts which he has collected
from all stages of culture does not, however, convince any impartial reader
of the correctness of the main assertions in his books. A student of
comparative psychology, for instance, will always remember the psycho-
pathological influences which everywhere and always tend to provoke the
same sort of horrid, scatological orgies, in which Captain Bourke has seen a
commemoration of some old, exceptional conditions of life.[229] As to the
snake-dance at Walpi, which forms the subject of his earliest great work, it
cannot be denied that some details in the rite and some of the ceremonial
paraphernalia are illustrative of a way of life which presumably
predominated amongst the prehistoric Pueblo-Indians.[230] From the dance
one might therefore reconstruct an epitomised history of the tribe, which
would supplement the tales that are told by the constructional details of the
“kiva” architecture and the decorative adornments of the Pueblo pottery.
[231]
But it seems unjustifiable to adduce, as Mr. Spencer has done, this rite
as a typical specimen of commemorative ancestor-worship.[232] In
attempting to explain the origin and the purpose of the rite, the later
investigators have also on good grounds neglected to appeal to the
commemorative intention. As has been conclusively shown by the
consummate researches of Mr. Fewkes, the snake-ceremonials are mainly
and chiefly to be considered as dramatic expressions of the water-cult,
which permeates every department in the life of the Pueblo-Indians.[233]
Through such an interpretation the drama is brought into close connection

with the religious system as well as with the practical necessities of the
Pueblo-Indians. Its significance as the most important of all the national
ceremonies is easily understood, when the rite in its entirety is regarded as
only an active form of the same prayer for rain, which is pictorially
conveyed in the sand-mosaics and in the painted ornaments of the tribe.[234]
Its various details, on the other hand, will find their most unsought-for
explanation when considered as contributing to the great propitiatory
purpose. Whatever value and interest an euhemeristic interpretation might
have for a student of the prehistoric Pueblo-life, the psycho-sociological
conditions of the rite, so to speak, can be fully comprehended only when
they are investigated in connection with the ideas of ritual magic and
religious propitiation. The same view holds good, we believe, with regard to
almost all the religious ceremonies of uncivilised man, although it may be
impossible to prove it in every individual case, as the facts themselves
generally are entangled in a most exasperating manner. They must be
detached not only from the theoretical constructions of the anthropologists,
but also from the euhemeristic interpretations of the natives themselves.
The native dogmatism will often be even more misleading than that of the
scientists.
It is a well-known phenomenon, which often repeats itself, that when a
higher stage of culture is reached the original significance of a rite or a
custom falls into oblivion. The custom itself, will, however, with the
tenacious conservatism that characterises man, be rigorously maintained
long after its origin has been forgotten. Amongst the lower savages no other
justification of these ceremonies—incomprehensible to the participants
themselves—is necessary than the oft-quoted “our fathers did so before us.”
But with increased intellectual development there must arise a craving for
some reasonable explanation. The semi-civilised man never cares to admit
to how great an extent his actions are automatical. Hence the rationalisation
of rites and customs,—familiar to every student of Christian theology,—
which has its beginnings even in the higher stages of savagery. The
rationalisation most readily adopted by tribes without developed
philosophical or ethical notions is the historical one. The simple and honest
argument “because our fathers did so” is replaced by the fictitious motive of
keeping up the memory of the doings of the fathers. When once this
reasoning obtains full power it will soon cover the whole field of ritual life.

Every incomprehensible feature in ceremonies or customs will be explained
through reference to the past. And when knowledge of events falls short of
affording such an explanation, popular imagination will always be prone to
substitute itself for the missing reality.[235] In this way a commemorative
excuse can easily be found for every apparently illogical action in life.
In fact, the creation of “etiological” or justificatory history and
mythology is by no means limited to the department of religious ritualism.
Even more trivial actions, such as games and pastimes, will, amongst tribes
with developed historical tendencies, be connected with imaginary
occurrences, which latter will be found to account for every detail in such
games and pastimes. With the Cherokee Indians, for example, we find a
most intricate animal story, in which the action of the bat, the eagle, and
other creatures closely correspond to the movements of the different
participators in the national ball-play.[236] Although much may be said in
favour of the ingenious hypothesis of Professor Groos, who suggests that
military games, such as chess and draughts, may have been developed from
dramatic narratives of real battles, supplemented perhaps with maps drawn
in the sand and simple symbols—stones, pebbles, etc.—representing the
various armies and soldiers;[237] and although it may reasonably be assumed
that the beasts in the animal story of the Cherokees represents the totems of
some old Indian chiefs,—a story like this must be considered as secondary,
in its details at least, to the play. More artificial still it sounds when the
Moondahs in Bengal affirm that their popular Easter-game of pushing eggs
the one against the other in reality serves as a means of commemorating the
feats of Sing Bonga, who, with a single hen’s egg, crushed the iron globes
of his rivals.[238]
Unfortunately, it is but seldom that the commemorative motive shows its
fictitious nature with so much evidence as in this game. In most cases there
will always be a doubt as to whether the religious drama, poem, or design
was originally intended as a means of conveying knowledge of some real or
legendary event, or whether the idea of these events was derived from a
simple game, a propitiative poem, or a magical design. We have quoted
some instances in which the historical interpretation is secondary only. But
there could easily be adduced other instances in which the opposite is the
case. Ancient poems, whose historical and legendary character is quite

incontestable, may often be used as charms in magical ceremonies.[239] It
seems quite impossible therefore to pronounce any definite judgment as to
priority between myth and ceremony without special investigation of every
single case. In the department of pictorial art it is scarcely less difficult to
separate the genuinely commemorative elements from the close
interweaving of different motives, which call into existence a work of art.
Foremost in rank amongst all the works of design and sculpture that have
influenced artistic evolution stand the likenesses of a deceased person
which are placed by the relatives on his grave or in his home. To civilised
man it is most natural to look upon these effigies as tokens of loving
remembrance by which the survivors endeavour to keep fresh the memory
of the departed. It is also easy for us to understand that the pious feelings
extended towards such effigies may acquire an almost religious character.
There is something to be said therefore on behalf of the view that
commemorative monuments have been the predecessors of idols proper.
Lubbock, who interprets Erman’s description of the Ostyak religion[240] in
this way, quotes in further corroboration The Wisdom of Solomon, in which
work there is to be found a detailed account of the evolution of idolatry
from memorial images.[241] The probability, however, is that in pictorial as
well as in dramatic art the purely commemorative intention belongs to the
latter stages of culture. It seems in most cases to be beyond doubt that
among the lowest tribes the images serve as paraphernalia in the animistic
rites. They are either taken to be embodiments of the ancestors’ soul, or
receptacles in which this soul, if properly invoked, might take up its abode
for the occasion. And similar superstitious notions are entertained, not only
with regard to the monuments proper erected on the graves of powerful
ancestors, but also with regard to such minor works as, e.g., the dolls which
are often prepared by West African mothers when they have lost a favourite
child.[242] The vague and indistinct character of these images shows us also
that no intellectual record of the individual has been aimed at. No more than
the poetic effusions of regret with which the pious survivors endeavour to
propitiate the names of the deceased, do these formative works of “pietas”
give us any information as to the personality of him whom they pretend to
represent.

This general notion, however, must not be allowed to prevent us from
admitting that among sundry tribes of mankind the images may be
historical. This is asserted with regard to the Bongos by Schweinfurth, and
with regard to the Gold Coast negroes by Cruickshank. The wooden effigies
on the Marquesas Islands are described by Herr Schmeltz as “constructed in
memory of celebrated members of the tribe.”[243] The Melanesian
sculptures also, according to Codrington, are chiefly commemorative. It
must be observed, however, that according to his own description a sort of
religious respect is paid at least to some of them.[244] More undeniably
commemorative examples are to be found in New Zealand. Although no
attempt to reproduce likenesses is made in these colossal wooden statues,
they nevertheless more nearly approach the idea of monumental
commemorative portraiture than any similar works of primitive art. The
patterns of tattooing, that infallible means of identification amongst the
Maoris, render it possible to preserve the memories of the individual
ancestors through pictorial representation.[245]
Not less problematic than ancestral sculptures are the much-debated
rock-paintings and engravings that can be found in every part of the world.
Herr Andree finds a sort of learned bias in the general tendency to look for
some serious, sacred, or historical meaning in every petroglyph. He points,
very sensibly as it seems, to the prevailing impulse of the idle hand to
scratch some figures, however meaningless, on every inviting and empty
surface. Especially at much frequented localities—such as meeting-places,
common thoroughfares, and places of rest for travellers—where the
drawings of previous visitors call for imitation, this temptation must be
looked upon as a very strong one.[246] There is no reason for regarding the
savage and the prehistoric man as devoid of an impulse, which, as we all
know, shows its strength among the very lowest and most primitive layers
of civilised society. It is unnecessary, therefore, to find anything more
remarkable in the petroglyphs than is to be found in the familiar pictures on
walls, trees, and rocks which have been wantonly decorated by the modern
vandal. This common-sense explanation is undoubtedly sufficient to
account for the origin of many much-debated works of glyphic art. But
however sound within its proper limits it cannot be extended so as to give a
general solution of the petroglyph problem. It is not likely, as Mr. Im Thurn
observes, that pictures such as the rock-engravings in Guiana, to produce

which must have cost so much time and trouble, should have their origin in
mere caprice and idleness.[247]
But even if the serious aspect of the petroglyphs is granted there still
remains the difficulty of determining their special purpose. The historical
explanation, although it would appear the most natural for us to adopt, is
not to be taken unreservedly with regard to tribes on a low degree of
development. What to us seems a sort of picture-writing might possibly
serve a purpose anything but communicative. The so-called ideograms of
the Nicobarese have, for example, according to Herr Svoboda, for their
object the distraction of the attention of the malevolent demons from their
houses and implements[248]. When investigating the ritual, especially the
funeral ceremonies, one meets with various specimens of similar
ideography, the thought-conveying purpose of which is deceptive.
By the above examples the ambiguous character of primitive art-works
has been proved almost ad nauseam. It appears that every single conclusion
based upon isolated ethnological examples only is liable to be upset after a
closer study of the facts. In order, therefore, to make any positive assertions
as to the commemorative element in art we need some safer and more
reliable grounds of argument than the inconsistent stories of travellers. We
have, in other words, to investigate the social and psychological conditions
which, in the respective cases, speak for or against the assumption of a
commemorative impulse as a motive for art-production. Owing to our
deficient knowledge of primitive life we are not able to rely upon these
social and psychological data in every individual case. But we may
nevertheless arrive at some broad results which in the main tally with, and
corroborate the evidence afforded by, the majority of ethnological facts.
It is easy to understand why historical art holds no high place among the
lower—that is, the hunting and fishing—tribes. Even if, as is the case in
Australia, every unusual occurrence is represented in art with a view of
keeping up its memory,[249] these accidental interruptions in a monotonous
life cannot possibly contribute to the development of an historical interest—
that is to say, a commemorative attention in the people. When, on the other
hand, we meet, in barbaric and semi-barbaric tribes, with a flourishing
traditional art, we can also, in most cases, point to some peculiar features in
their life which have called for commemoration. In a general survey of

traditional poetry one cannot but be struck by the great prevalence of
legends about migrations.[250] As travels and incidents of travel were found
to provide a favourite subject for the pantomimes and poems described in
the preceding chapter, so these experiences have also exercised an
important influence on the songs that have been preserved by oral tradition.
And as we meet with numerous instances of improvised drama and poetry
called forth by so eminently interesting an occurrence as the visit of some
white people, so we can also trace the same theme in manifestations of
historical art from dim and distorted narrations up to richly detailed
descriptions like those of the Hawajian songs or of the Mangaian “Drama of
Cook.”[251] The influence which these motives have exercised on the
history of art is only in accordance with the universal laws of psychology.
Tribal memory, no less than individual memory, is dependent for its
development on some favourable external influences that stimulate the
attention.
It must not surprise us, therefore, that the varying experiences of war
have everywhere acted as a strong incentive on the commemorative
impulse. In this case, however, we have to count with a factor of still greater
importance in the directly utilitarian advantage which military nations
derive from historical art. Through recounting or representing the exploits
of earlier generations, the descendants acquire that healthy feeling of pride
which is the most important factor of success in all brutal forms of the
struggle for life. So it has come about that historic art has everywhere
reached its highest state of development amongst nations who have had to
hold their own vi et armis against neighbouring tribes, or in the midst of
which antagonistic families have fought for supremacy. The more the social
institutions have been influenced by the customs of war, the more important
is usually the part which commemoration plays in public life. It is highly
prominent in semi-feudal Polynesia,[252] where domestic warfare was at all
times of regular occurrence; it has developed to some extent in warlike Fiji,
[253]
notwithstanding the Melanesian indifference for the past; and it has
obtained the position of a state function in military despotisms, such as the
barbaric kingdoms of Central and South America and Western Africa.[254]
In isolated tribes, on the other hand, whose whole struggle has been one
against nature, historical art is generally to be found at a very low ebb.

That bygone events have been preserved in history and art chiefly for the
sake of their effect in enhancing the national pride can also be concluded
from the way in which humiliating incidents are treated. There are, it is true,
a few isolated and unhappy tribes which keep up some dim traditions of
their inglorious past.[255] Generally, however, defeats are totally ignored in
the earliest chronicles. If, however, an unsuccessful battle should have
provoked artistic manifestations, these aim at masking the humiliation.[256]
The ancient history of Greece affords the most curious examples of myths
and inventions by means of which the popular imagination contrived to
conceal disagreeable truths. The fate of Phrynichos, who was fined for
having revived the memory of the defeat at Miletus, shows that Greece,
even at a much later period, preserved the same primitive ideas as to the
raison d’être of historic art. It is needless to point out to how great an extent
similar conceptions still prevail amongst all warlike nations, civilised and
barbarous alike.
We must not overlook the fact, however, that defeats are often
represented in unmasked form for the purpose of stirring up a revengeful
spirit. But this apparent exception only proves the rule. By appealing to the
wounded dignity of the people, poems and dramas of this kind serve the
cravings of collective pride as effectively—although, no doubt, indirectly—
as manifestations of the opposite order. An increased attention to the past,
with a corresponding richness of traditional art, can also generally be found
in nations where revenge is considered as a sacred duty bequeathed to
descendants by their ancestors.
When historic art is regarded as a means of handing down to posterity a
knowledge of the present, a connection with the same group of emotions is
easily discoverable. The great works of commemoration are all monuments
of boasting. By the grandiloquent hieroglyphs on palaces and pyramids and
by the extolling hymns that he orders to be sung in his praise, the exultant
hero endeavours to win from future admirers a meed of praise which shall
quench his unsatisfied thirst for glorification. Even in this case, therefore,
history, in its psychological sense—that is, the concentration of attention
upon times other than the present—has been born of pride.
By relying on this emotionalistic interpretation we can explain the
otherwise extraordinary development of commemorative art amongst tribes

on relatively low stages of intellectual development. The same explanation
also accounts for the artistic value of the primitive records. The intensely
emotional element of exultation, pride, and boasting that pervades so many
of the commemorative poems and dramas makes this kind of history an art
in the proper sense of the word.
It is needless to point out expressly that literary and formative arts may
be used for conveying thought-contents which cannot, properly speaking,
be called historical. We have restricted our attention to the unmistakably
commemorative forms, because in these alone can the purpose of
information be isolated with any degree of certainty. By tracing the gradual
development of narrative art from those simplest manifestations in which
the work is immediately connected with the real occurrence that called it
into existence, up to the more complex forms of transmitted art, in which
distant events are represented, we have endeavoured to keep our argument
within the limits of positive research. This safe ground we should be
compelled to abandon if we were to engage in the otherwise so fascinating
task of unearthing historical elements in mythological tradition.
It seems impossible, moreover, to treat of such art-forms as the nature-
myths, the tales, and the animal stories without bringing in those factors
which should especially be kept outside the present research—the art-
impulse, the play-impulse, or the delight in pure invention for invention’s
sake; whereas we are justified in treating even the highest purely
commemorative art as the development of an activity which was connected
with the utilitarian end of information.
It must not be overlooked, however, that primitive art offers some
important and purely didactic manifestations which have no historical
purpose. Thus, among savages and barbarians, dramatic performances,
poetic recitals, and pictorial representations often serve as means of
expounding religious or philosophical doctrines. We need only refer to the
most striking instances, such as the Australian miracle-plays, in which the
old men enact before the boys a representation of death and resurrection.
[257]
Although less elaborate in dramatic detail and stage-management, the
fragmentary dramas in which the Indian shaman novitiates are supposed to
be killed and recalled to life present to us a scarcely less interesting result of
the same great thought.[258] There are indeed, especially in this later

example, good reasons for assuming that the simulated death and
resurrection are supposed to effect, in a magical way, some kind of spiritual
regeneration in the novitiates on whose behalf the drama is performed. But
while admitting this, we may nevertheless take it for granted that an
endeavour to elucidate the doctrines of the shaman priesthood may be
combined with the magical rite in question. And similarly, with regard to
analogous ceremonies in other tribes, we feel justified in assuming the
presence of a didactic purpose. The more the doctrinal system becomes
fixed and elaborated, the greater need will there ensue of affording these
doctrines a clear expression in the objective forms of art.
What has been said about religious and philosophical subjects in
dramatical art refers equally to poems and paintings. We have therefore to
regard the requirements of religious instruction as a factor which has
favoured the development of art in all its departments. But we have no
means of ascertaining at what precise stage in the evolution this factor, as
distinct from other motives, began to exercise its influence. The settlement
of this special point, however, is not indispensable to a general
comprehension of the principles of art-history.
It is more important, from our point of view, to determine the influence
which the purely intellectual motive of conveying with the greatest possible
clearness a thought-content, be it historical, religious, or philosophical, has
exercised on the artistic representations of life and nature. Although of itself
essentially non-æsthetic, this purpose has nevertheless called into existence
some most important æsthetic qualities. Especially in narrative painting we
may often observe how the virtues of exactness, explicitness, and
comprehensibility give a character of beauty to representations which may
have originated in a purely practical intention. As has been clearly pointed
out by Mr. Walter Crane, the Egyptian hieroglyphs have reached their
“wonderful pitch of abstract yet exact characterisation” precisely because
they had the character and the purpose of a “decorative record.” The same
necessity, viz. that “every object had to be clearly defined so as to be
recognised at once and easily deciphered,”[259] is undoubtedly to a great
degree responsible for the element of beauty which is to be found in the
pictography of North American Indians. Practical utility has in this way
subserved the development of an attention to the picturesque side of things.
But one has only to look at the more symbolical systems of ideographic

writing, such as the Assyrian, the Mexican, and the Chinese, in order to
understand that the intellectual requirement by itself never would have
created an artistic representation of nature.[260]
This distinction is especially indispensable for a right conception of the
intellectual elements in poetry. It is undeniable that some of the most
important qualities in literature were developed during the time when it was
used chiefly as a means for conveying information. The practical
considerations therein have undoubtedly influenced the form of the oral
narrative. It is evident, for example, that the metrical and rhythmical recital
must have proved the more serviceable whenever a thought-content was to
be preserved for futurity. But this fact gives no authorisation to those
curious theories according to which poetry was invented and developed,
thanks to its merits as a mnemonic device. It is, as was long since remarked
by Brown,[261] difficult to understand how rhythm, numbers, and verse
could have been devised as assistance for the memory, supposing nothing of
that kind to have been existing before. And even if we admit that they could
have been invented by accident, it is plain, when we fix our mind on the
essential qualities of poetry, that the use of rhythm and metre to aid
memory could only have supplied a mechanical condition to facilitate the
development of poetic art.

CHAPTER XIV
ANIMAL DISPLAY
In a treatment of the relation between art and sexual life the facts must
necessarily be classified under two different headings, namely, the influence
of artistic activity upon sexual selection and the importance of erotic
motives in works of art. These two points of view have indeed often been
confounded with each other. But it will soon appear from the following how
indispensable it is to maintain the distinction between them.
In modern literature there has scarcely appeared any treatise of the same
importance, not only for the theory of art, but also for æsthetic proper, as
the chapters on sexual selection in The Descent of Man. As is well known,
Darwin supposes a necessary connection between beauty and art. He takes
it for granted that music, poetry, drama, and the rest chiefly aim at pleasing.
When he sees that activities and forms, which at least technically
correspond to the various kinds of art, are to be met with not only among
the lower tribes of man, but even among some of the higher animals, he
therefore explains these forms and activities as emanating from a conscious
or unconscious endeavour to please through beauty. And for this endeavour
he finds a reason in the necessity of gaining preference in the favour of the
female. By endowing the female with æsthetic attention and æsthetic
judgment[262] he has been able not only to explain the appearance of art
amongst savages and animals, but also to account for the importance of
beauty in life.
In the foregoing arguments we have already with sufficient clearness
pronounced our dissent from Darwin’s primary supposition. In the chapter
upon the art-impulse we have tried to show that this tendency in its essence
is something quite different from the tendency to “attract by pleasing.” But
with all this theoretical argumentation it has of course not been proved that
the endeavour of the males to win the favour of the females by singing,
dancing, and other similar performances has exercised no influence on the
history of art. However little these activities may have to do with real art,

they might, however, have afforded a raw material to be used by the art-
impulse proper for its own purposes. In this connection it is necessary,
therefore, to discuss the question, To what extent has æsthetic choice,
exercised by either of the sexes in selecting a mate, favoured the
development of artistic activities in the other sex?
The æsthetic theory of Darwin has its chief interest in the fact that it can
be applied to the activities of animals as well as to those of men. Darwin
himself has chosen the majority of his examples from bird life, and his
critics have generally restricted the discussion to the zoological application
of his thesis. As the data of animal psychology are less complicated than the
corresponding facts in the mental life of man, it is in every respect
advantageous to begin with this supposed animal art. When the illustrations
are chosen from bird life the argumentation can, moreover, be handled with
a freedom which would be impossible in discussing the delicate questions
of human erotics and sexual life.
The theory of an appeal to some primordial æsthetic appreciation in the
hen birds is one which, however well it may account for the beautiful
plumage of some species and for the melodious singing of some others,
necessarily must arouse objections from the point of view of comparative
psychology. Æsthetic judgment presupposes a certain development not only
of intellectual qualities, but also of moral self-restraint. In other words, it
might be said that attention to beauty, whether manifested in forms or
colours or sounds, always is what Ribot calls an “attention volontaire.”[263]
It is hard to believe that the hen really has reached such a state of spiritual
freedom that, when looking at the finery and the antics of her rival suitors,
she could be able to bestow her attention upon the æsthetic qualities in the
display. One has only to work out into all its details and consequences the
idea of a bird who approves or disapproves the performance, and who, after
balancing the merits of the various competitors, awards her prize to the one
nearest her ideal of beauty, in order to realise the improbability, not to say
the absurdity, of this avian connoisseurship. M. Espinas, who describes in
detail the dilemma of the anxiously hesitating arbiter, has added nothing to
the theory of æsthetic selection. But it may safely be said that his
illustration of the thesis acts as a caricature of it.[264]

The improbability of an æsthetic judgment is yet more palpable when one
considers the state of mind in which the hen is likely to be on the occasion.
It has indeed been contended with regard to some species—as, for instance,
the satyr bird—that the hen behaves with a perfect calm and indifference
during the display of the cock.[265] But it would be undoubtedly too rash to
form any general conclusion on the ground of her outward show in some
single instances. Amongst the wood-birds, on the other hand, the hens are
known to be so excited during the “Balz” that they can easily be caught
with the hands.[266]
To all these a priori objections there may also be added the remark of
Geddes and Thomson, that if the females of insects and birds had really
called into existence all the detailed patterns on the dresses of their
respective males by the exercise of æsthetic selection, they would possess
more discrimination than is shown in their predilection for any sort of
gaudy-coloured objects, such as pebbles, slips of paper, and rags.[267]
However great the psychological improbability of the supposed æsthetic
selection, there is still more reason to take exception to it from an
evolutionistic point of view. The female appreciation for gaudy and
gorgeous dresses must necessarily, as Darwin himself remarks, in many
cases give rise to a plumage, as a result of which the males become
encumbered in their movements and easily discovered by their enemies.[268]
Æsthetic judgment, which is in itself so incomprehensible, would thus have
been developed in a continuous conflict with natural selection. This
circumstance, more than anything else, makes it indispensable to look for
some more utilitarian cause of the secondary sexual characters and
activities than the hypothetical necessity of satisfying a sense of beauty in
the female sex.
By the theory that has been advanced by Wallace, and further developed
by Westermarck, the nuptial dresses of the males have indeed been
accounted for in a simple way.[269] Reference to the need of recognisable
marks for every different species can explain the most prominent
characteristics in male plumage without any appeal to an æsthetic sense.
This need, together with the equally great indispensability of protective
colouring, must necessarily give rise to precisely such brilliant coloured
spots on a monotonous or plain surface as are so often found on the bodies

of the northern birds. The gaudier coloration of the tropical species, on the
other hand, appears as a result of their more brilliant surroundings. Even
here protective colouring often leaves to the colour of recognition only a
narrow and limited space, on which this has to develop itself with so much
the greater intensity. In this way one can find a reason not only for the
decorations, which are beautiful according to our standard, but also for the
inharmonious and glaring colour-combinations.
An adherent of sexual selection can, however, easily object that these
theories, however sound and sensible they may be, still leave the main point
in Darwin’s thesis quite unaffected. When trying to prove the existence of
an æsthetic judgment in birds, he did not lay so much stress upon decorative
plumage itself as upon the fact of its being displayed in the presence of the
hen. If secondary sexual characters had their only purpose in facilitating
recognition between individuals of the same species, then these elaborate
performances would be quite superfluous. And this argument can of course
be further strengthened by reference to the musical and dancing
entertainments given by the males. Any theory which leaves these activities
unexplained must therefore be regarded as incomplete.
In Mr. Wallace’s Darwinism due attention has indeed been paid to pre-
nuptial performances. But his explanation, viz. that the dancing and singing,
etc., are only the effect of an inner impulse to movement and activity which
accompanies sexual maturity,[270] can but incompletely unriddle the
problem. For the purpose of affording an outflow to a surplus of vigour or
of discharging a nervous tension, activities of a far simpler character would
have been sufficient. As, however, amongst birds with gorgeous plumage
every movement in the display tends towards exhibiting their splendour
with the greatest possible éclat, an influence upon the hen cannot be argued
away. It is, as Darwin remarks, impossible to believe that the Argus
pheasant, for instance, should have developed precisely such a curious and
peculiar sort of dance, through which his beautiful dress is so effectively
shown forth, if this dance had been of no effect upon its spectators.[271] This
effect cannot, as has been shown above, be considered an æsthetic one. It is
also difficult to believe that the hen, as it has been suggested, should
appreciate the secondary sexual characters as signs of greater or smaller
vital force, and thus prefer not the most beautiful, but the most vigorous and

ardent mate.[272] Whether it is founded on an æsthetic judgment or on an
estimation of the force displayed, her conscious choosing seems to be alike
improbable.
But if it is difficult to believe that the display of the males could call forth
an intellectual activity in the hen, such as that of comparing and valuing the
merits of the rival suitors,[273] one can safely assume that it might influence
her emotional and instinctive life. And for the production of such an effect
there is no need to suppose any intervening æsthetic activity. Considering
the close parallelism which shows itself in the development of either sex, it
would only be natural if a colour and voice alteration in the cock, which
undeniably is dependent upon sexual ripening,[274] should directly and
almost physiologically imply a reaction in the sexual life of the hen. The
more energetically the male forces himself upon the attention of the female
by the conspicuous visual and acoustic signs of his sex, the more powerful
must necessarily be the emotional response in her.
If secondary sexual characters are interpreted in this way, as signs, by
which the sex of the male is manifested in an unmistakable manner, then
one can easily understand the influence of a prolonged display. When the
cock is exhibiting his plumes or pouring forth his notes, and thereby
impressing upon his female listener the notion of his malehood, he cannot
but produce in her an enhanced inclination for pairing.[275] She needs no
æsthetic appreciation or intellectual judgment in order to comprehend the
simple text of all his utterances. With all her instincts and impulses she can
at once grasp the only thing she wants to know—the thing that is brought
home to her with a greater and greater clearness during the continuation of
his performance, namely, that the passionate actor in front of her is a mature
representative of the other sex. And besides this, the secondary sexual
characters and activities tell another tale of no less importance. If the
colours and the tones of the cock, as Westermarck has shown, are of great
consequence for facilitating from a distance recognition between members
of the same species,[276] their biological significance is perhaps yet greater
when they, during the display before the hen, accentuate the community of
species. By virtue of her inherited constitution, the instinctive life of the hen
will be deeper stirred the more the male is able to show that he “wears the
feathers of her tribe.”

It is evident that the effect upon the hen must be greater in proportion as
the sex marks and species marks of the male are more clearly defined, and
therefore easier to perceive. Not only as means of recognition, but also as
instruments for sexual incitement, colour-patterns with lucent points must
be more advantageous than any other system of decoration. It is easily
understood that a design like that on the tails of pheasants and peacocks is
eminently capable of attracting the female attention to the displaying cock.
But it would be stretching the theory too far if the marvellous “balls on
sockets” were explained as nothing but conspicuous signals, the meaning of
which the hen is able to decipher by help of her inherited instincts. The
influence of the display is amongst these species undoubtedly strengthened
by an action which is quite independent of any sexual associations. Besides
accentuating the sex and kind of the cock, these luminous spheres will,
moreover, in virtue of their very smallness and brilliancy, provoke a
stimulation in the mind of the hen before whom they are vibrated. To
understand this effect, it is necessary to investigate the more general
question of animal appreciation of brilliancy.
The powerful attraction exercised by lucent things can be sufficiently
proved by numerous instances from the life of insects and fishes as well as
of higher animals. It is needless to dwell upon the various means by which
man has availed himself of this disastrous predilection in order to entice
animals within reach of his weapons.[277] More important in this connection
is the mania for collecting lustrous objects that has been noticed in the case
of ravens, jays, magpies, jackdaws, goldfinches, chiff-chaffs, sea-pies, etc.
[278]
It has scarcely ever been suggested that the thievish jackdaw is
prompted by any æsthetic liking for brilliant plate. But as it shows itself
amongst the atlas birds and the bower birds, this exaggeration of the
appropriative impulse has been regarded as an indication of artistic
inclination. It has been contended that these birds not only appreciate
shining and gorgeous objects, but even understand how to arrange them
according to a decorative plan.[279]
No one will deny that structures, such as, for instance, the gardens of the
atlas birds, which have been depicted by Beccari, are most wonderful
specimens of animal industry.[280] But it is undoubtedly misleading to speak
of them as artistic. As far as can be judged from the descriptions—which

are seldom complete—the arrangement of the objects seems to be quite
accidental. Darwin has indeed collected some most eulogistic accounts of
the decorative taste of the Australian bower bird. But he has also, candidly
enough, illustrated them with a picture, on which an irregular heap of shells
and bones is to be seen in front of the bower. And the description he
borrows from Mr. Strange is yet more significant. To judge from this
account, which is further corroborated by the statement of Captain Stokes,
the chief interest of the birds seems to be not the arranging of their
treasures, but the playing with them. It has been noticed that the cock of the
great bower bird amuses himself by flying to and fro in the bower carrying
a shell in his bill, which he picks up on one side and carries to the other.[281]
On an anthropomorphic interpretation such a behaviour would perhaps
indicate a desire of trying some new decorative effect. But it seems more
natural to assume that brilliant objects, even after they have been stored up
in the nest, still exercise their irresistible attraction, and thereby tempt the
birds to repeated trifling with them. If the supposed redecorations of the
gardens be accounted for in this manner, then there is no reason for
considering the collecting impulse in the Australian birds as anything more
than a higher development of the same tendency which shows itself in our
common magpies and jackdaws.
By the Australian instances, however, the general predilection for
brilliant objects is brought into connection with the pairing dresses of
pheasants, peacocks, and humming birds. The small and brilliant objects
with which the bower birds play during their pairing season remind us
irresistibly of the “balls on sockets” and of the ocelli designs of the colibri.
[282]
It is true that the pheasants carry on their tail what the Australian birds
keep in their bill. But apart from this unimportant difference, the display
seems to be the same in both cases. In Mr. Strange’s letter it is said that the
cock, when performing the exalted antics that precede pairing, “runs to the
bower, picks up a gaudy feather or a spotted leaf, pours forth some peculiar
notes, and runs through the pavilion.” It is not quite clear from this wording
whether the objects really are exhibited before the hen. But one may safely
assume that she in any case has paid some attention to her consort’s
performance. She has decidedly not, any more than the pea-hen, received
any sort of æsthetic impression from the display. But the brilliancy has
undoubtedly stimulated her, as it stimulates all the other birds quoted in this

connection, in a purely physiological way. This action, on the other hand, is
sufficiently explained by recent researches on the physiological effects
which the contemplation of concentrated lustre produces on animal
organisms. It is also well known that objects with exactly the same qualities
as the ocelli on the peacock’s tail play an important part in hypnotic
experiments. And the primitive shamans as well as the modern cultivators
of “crystal-gazing” are acquainted with the peculiar effects of prolonged
gazing on glass-balls or the shining surface of water. More familiar still is
the fascinating influence exercised by that lustrous little globe, the human
eye.
In all these various examples the smallness of the object fetters the
attention, and thereby makes the mind a defenceless prey to the images,
feelings, and impulses which for the moment invade it. The lustre, on the
other hand, will, to use the language of M. Binet, strengthen the intensity of
these mental images.[283] There is no reason why these effects, which
presuppose no sort of intellectual activity, should not take place in animals
as well as in man. In the case of the peacock, therefore, the idea “male” will
imprint itself with greater and more efficacy upon the mind of the hen when
she is exposed on every side to the twinkling eyes on the expanded tail of
her mate.
Even in the very cases that have been regarded as the most incontestable
proofs of a taste for the beautiful, the influence on the hen can thus be
explained as one which directly, i.e. without any æsthetic mediation, has
served the interests of pairing. But it may still be asked, Whence the need of
strengthening and intensifying the emotions in the female, which must
already have been awakened by the mere presence of the male? This
objection, however, is easily met by a reference to the psychological aspects
of pairing. Throughout the animal kingdom the males have to conquer a
resistance from the side of the females. This instinctive coyness, the
importance of which for the maintenance of the species is incalculable and
self-evident, constitutes by itself a sufficient cause for the supposed
æsthetic characters and activities of the males.[284] It has made it necessary
for them to have a stately carriage, which makes them bigger and more
pompous than ever, and to display their bodies in flying tricks, or dances
and antics,—in a word, to emphasise their sex as energetically as possible
by colours and tunes and movements. And this necessity has, by means of a

natural selection, called forth a colouring which is not only easily
recognisable from a distance, but which also forces itself on the senses
when seen at close quarters.
The æsthetic judgment of the hen forms the pivot of the whole Darwinian
theory. When it has been eliminated, it is therefore quite superfluous to
controvert the assertion, which Darwin himself would not positively defend,
that the performances of the males have originated in an artistic endeavour.
[285]
Once granted an instinctive coyness in the hen, which must be
overcome by every possible means, one can easily understand that
secondary sexual characters and activities would gradually appear in the
males. The expressive movements in which they seek to relieve their
nervous tension afford a material out of which natural selection will shape,
as the most effective means of incitation, the various forms of display, or
dance, or song. As is well known, Wallace,[286] Spencer,[287] and
Hudson[288] have even contended that emotional pressure, or, as they put it,
overflowing vitality, by itself constitutes a sufficient explanation of the
“Balz.” In the above treatment of the question, which in its main points
accords with the conclusive researches of Professor Groos, we have
endeavoured to show that the various sorts of display never could have
reached their special and differentiated forms if it had not been for the
necessity of overcoming female coyness. But, on the other hand, this
necessity could never have created out of nothing all these complicated
activities. It is difficult—perhaps even impossible—to make any general
assertions about the relative importance of these two explanations.[289] The
only point which it is necessary to bring out in this connection is that a sort
of nuptial performance would have appeared amongst the males even
independently of its influence upon the hen. The hygienic need of an
outburst is one reason, and a very strong one indeed, for such motor
manifestations. But it seems also as if their purpose ought not to be
restricted to this cathartic effect. The “lek” of the wood-birds tends no
doubt to increase nervous force at the same time as it relieves the tension.
M. Espinas thinks that the males, when collecting in great numbers during
the pairing season, are led by an unconscious desire to stimulate their
feelings by the view of other equally excited fellow-males.[290] Such an
unconscious desire of enhancing nervous force probably lies also behind the
inclination for brilliant objects and the trifling with them in the bowers.[291]

That a sort of artificial stimulation really is necessary may perhaps be
concluded from Brehm’s general remark about the sexual life of birds: “The
pairing is often repeated, and still more often ineffectually attempted.”[292]
In a private communication to Groos, Professor Ziegler, the eminent
zoologist, also refers to the increased nervous activity which is necessary
for pairing, and the passionate preludes which precede it in so many
animals.[293]
By these two principles, viz. the necessity of overcoming the instinctive
coyness of the hen and that of stimulating the nervous system of the cock, it
is, we believe, possible to account for all the secondary sexual characters
and activities which in Darwin’s theory necessitated the hypothesis of an
animal æsthetic. When the directly physiological importance of the nuptial
preludes is acknowledged one can also, without appealing to the effects of
association, explain the occurrence of a “lek” in birds who have already
made their choice of mate.[294] And, on the other hand, we need not give up
any one of the general results at which Darwin arrived in his researches.
Although conscious selection on the part of the hen must be denied, the fact
that she consents to couple only with the cock who has been able to stir her
feelings better than any other, constitutes a kind of unconscious choice. It
may seem unnecessary, therefore, to lay so much stress upon the theoretical
inappropriateness of Darwin’s language. The æsthetical terms in The
Descent of Man could easily be exchanged for more physiological ones
without any important alteration in the main thesis of the book. And it must
even be conceded that, owing to the extreme cautiousness which was such a
remarkable peculiarity of Darwin, this substitution would not be required in
more than a few passages. He himself often speaks of ornamental plumage
as a means of “exciting,” or “charming,” or “fascinating” the females;[295]
once he even restricts himself to saying that the hens “prefer, or are
unconsciously excited by, the more beautiful males.”[296] From the
biological point of view it would therefore be pretentious to claim any
importance for this reformulation of the Darwinian theory. But, from what
must be the dominating point of view in this work, it is by no means
unnecessary to disentangle the confusion between æsthetic appreciation and
physiological stimulation. The æsthetic corollaries, which are the most
important in this connection, will be greatly modified as soon as the more

physiological interpretation is applied to the various manifestations of
animal art.
When Darwin chose to endow the hen with an aboriginal æsthetic
judgment he was at once confronted by a difficulty which was perhaps even
greater than that of locating the beginnings of art in the animal kingdom.
The facts compelled him to admit that in some species this æsthetic
judgment seemed to be a very bad one indeed.[297] When secondary sexual
characters are regarded as signs by which the kind and sex of the males are
accentuated, this apparent inconsistency is easily understood. The harsh cry
and the inharmonious colouring of the macaw[298] tell their tale as
eloquently and convincingly as any of the æsthetic characters of the other
birds. The roaring of the battle bump,[299] the disagreeable miauling of the
peacock, and the bleating call-note of the greenfinch[300] no doubt cause as
great a pleasure in their respective hens as is ever caused by the song of the
nightingale in his mate. That the secondary sexual characters of the birds on
the whole are so much more beautiful than those of the mammals is not the
result of any originally higher standard of beauty with their respective
females. The superiority of the birds is quite sufficiently accounted for by
the peculiar conditions of their life, which necessitate and call forth graceful
shape as well as graceful movements. Their gorgeous colouring, on the
other hand, is undoubtedly—as has been shown above—to some extent at
least conditioned by the gaudy colouring of the tropical landscape. It must
be remarked, moreover, that notwithstanding their undeniable splendour,
the dresses of the birds by no means generally fulfil the claims of tasteful
composition. When appreciating the plumage and the songs of the birds, we
usually look upon them as pieces of nature. We admire them as we admire
the woods and flowers and every other manifestation of nature and life.
This attitude must necessarily be given up as soon as a conscious tendency
is assumed in “animal art.” When we regard the secondary sexual characters
in the manner of Darwin—as results of an æsthetic choice—we cannot help
missing all the æsthetic qualities of harmony and composition, which are
never expected, and therefore never missed, in the objects of nature. If the
proper distinction between art and nature is maintained, it will be possible
to combine an unabated admiration for the marvels of beauty in bird life
with a denial of “animal art.”

CHAPTER XV
ART AND SEXUAL SELECTION
The explanation which we have given in the preceding chapter of the
pairing dresses of the birds can of course be equally well applied to the
secondary sexual characters of man. And it holds good also, we believe,
with regard to the most primitive voluntary alterations in the appearance of
either sex. It is true, indeed, that artificial embellishments or deformations,
the work of the individual himself, never can appeal so strongly to the
instincts of the other sex as those alterations which are physiologically
connected with sexual development. But when, as is the case with most
primitive tribes, the so-called means of attraction have remained almost
unchanged during innumerable successive generations, one may safely
conclude that the instincts of either sex will gradually grow prompt to react
with eminent force upon impressions received from such individuals as
exhibit these conventional signs of their sex and tribe. Whether the acquired
qualities are considered as hereditary, or whether the consistency in the
predilections of all the members of the same tribe be explained—in the
Weissmannian or the neo-Darwinian way—as a result of selection, there
will always be found in either sex a sort of constitutional liking for certain
fixed qualities in the appearance of the opposite sex. An appearance and a
behaviour which, in the ancestors of an individual, male or female, have
stirred the instinctive life of the opposite sex through generations past by,
must needs improve his or her chances in courtship. The more a suitor
approaches the ideal which unconsciously, and one may say
physiologically, is embodied in the inherited impulses of every female, the
more helplessly is she exposed to the fascination of his charms. And when,
at a certain higher state of development, the males begin to practise a
selection between rival females, they will undoubtedly be influenced in
their choice by the same sort of inherited predilections. And there is no
reason why these predilections should be restricted to anatomical qualities
—why artificial adornments, perhaps even detached gems, which have only
been traditional during some generations, should not influence sexual
preferences in the same direct way—that is, without any intervention of an

æsthetic judgment, as secondary sexual characters proper influence them.
This circumstance justifies us in treating the outward physical appearance
and the conventional means of embellishing it in conjunction with each
other. An outward sign, whether natural or artificial, which has often
enough been connected with the impression of the other sex will necessarily
tend to awaken sexual feelings.
For such an effect it is of course not indispensable that these signs should
have originated in an endeavour to charm the sex. As in the foregoing
chapter, we have to keep the question of influence upon the other sex apart
from the question of the positive causes—that is, conscious or unconscious
motives, which have called forth the various secondary sexual characters
and activities. For convenience of exposition it is advantageous to begin
with the first-mentioned phase of the problem.
Without as yet pronouncing any definite views as to the aims the pursuit
of which has led to the different systems of adornment, we may safely
maintain that any conspicuous garments, independently of their ornamental
qualities, which have served to distinguish the adult and marriageable
individuals from other members of the tribe, have been of importance as
means of attraction. According to the ingenious explanation of Dr.
Westermarck, even clothing was originally invented not to conceal nudity,
but to set it off.[301] There is room, as will be shown later on, for objecting
to any definite statement with regard to a question such as this, the answer
to which is to be sought for in several directions at once. But there can be
no doubt about the fact that the simplest dresses, and especially those which
have been interpreted as indicating a sense of modesty, practically
accentuate the things they technically conceal. At a stage of development
where nudity is the normal state, veiling must necessarily suggest the same
emotions as unveiling in a civilised society. As Dr. Westermarck has been
able to show, dresses are adopted by a majority of tribes on the attainment
of puberty and on the occasions of great feasts; it is therefore natural that
they should act as powerful sexual incitements.[302] And this view receives
additional support from the arguments of its opponents. The large collection
of facts that Dr. Schurtz has quoted in proof of his assertion that clothing
originally aimed at “the concealment of sexual differences” may of course
be interpreted with equal and, we believe, with greater probability in the

inverse sense.[303] One has only to look, for example, at some of the richly-
embroidered cinctures of the Guiana natives in order to understand that
these coverings, whatever may have been their original purpose, can never
have acted as an effective means of diverting the attention.
The differences between the sexes will, however, be emphasised not only
by the special garments for which Dr. Schurtz proposes the above-
mentioned explanation, but also by every article of dress or ornament. For
the intellectualistically prejudiced observer it is undoubtedly most natural to
consider the various kinds of fixed or detached ornament, such as paintings
and tattooings, ribbons, laces, collars, and so on, as means of influencing an
æsthetic sense in the spectator. But it is evidently more in accordance with
the principles of comparative psychology to assume that all these garnitures
originally had their main significance not as beautifying things or as things
of beauty themselves, but as marks by which the personality of the
decorated man or woman was distinguished. To illustrate this argument it is
not necessary to go back to the primitive stages. Even among civilised men,
gems and jewels, when seen on a member of the opposite sex, have chiefly
a symbolic value. In the string of pearls which encircles a woman’s neck, or
in the gay feather of a man’s hat, the charm and fascination of a whole
human being are concentrated to a single focus. To the lover’s attention
everything that has some connection with the beloved shines with a
borrowed light. We all know that handkerchiefs and shoes can be adored
with an almost fetichistic devotion. All the more must a gem which is
conspicuously carried on the body be able to imbibe and exhale the charms
of its wearer. The lyrical poetry of all ages is there to prove the emotional
value which can thus be attached to lifeless things. And the psychology of
the emotions in its turn gives a simple explanation of the fact that loving
imagination always dwells with predilection upon some single part of the
attire of the beloved. A small and conspicuous object which can easily be
embraced by the senses affords a vehicle which can carry into the mind the
whole complex of feelings and impulses that are attached to the notion of
the beloved. Well knowing this law of emotional mechanics, an intelligent
woman who is anxious to please does not cover herself with jewels and
ornaments. She prefers some single brilliant gem, which does not so much
call for admiration itself, as draw attention to her charms and heighten the
impression which they produce.

It may seem very far-fetched to explain the primitive means of attraction
by reference to the art of pleasing among modern men. But however much
the forms of courtship may have been changed by higher development, their
psychological basis is still the same at all stages of culture. There is no
need, as far as purely erotic purposes are concerned, to embellish the
appearance; what is wanted is only to enable the appearance itself to
produce its most effectual impression. When this point is kept in mind, it is
easily understood that ornaments such as a simple piece of glass in the hair
or a band of shells twisted around the neck can be as charming in the eyes
of primitive man as any of the gems that are used among civilised nations.
And there is no reason to doubt that the savage beaux and belles really have
increased their chances by putting wooden slabs in their lips and ears, or
pins of bone through their nose.
In the last-mentioned cases the effect has, moreover, been strengthened
by the appearance of strangeness that is given to the face by deforming
adornments. Eyes that might pass by with indifference an accustomed
impression, are unavoidably arrested by any extraordinary character. As
amongst the birds and mammals, horns, accrescences, and gorgeous
plumage, independently of their possible æsthetic qualities, assist the males
in courting the females, so also amongst men any means of correcting the
normal appearance, be it through flattening the head, filling, extracting, or
blackening the teeth, elongating the ears or compressing the waist, will, in
virtue only of its singularity, act as an effectual instrument of charming.[304]
For the marriageable individual it has evidently been advantageous to be
distinguished by these extravagant transformations, which, as is well
known, are usually inflicted at the very time of puberty. And, on the other
hand, among individuals so distinguished, those who extort an interest for
their person by the most singular qualities ought to have an increased
chance of charming the opposite sex. In the discussion of sexual
preferences there has been much talk of a supposed constitutional
predilection for novelty and variation. But it is undoubtedly more in
accordance with the strictly psychological position to doubt whether, in the
primitive stages, novelty really has been appreciated for its own sake, or
whether it is only by facilitating the attention, and thereby intensifying the
impression, that it has gained the favour of the opposite sex for one
particular male or female.

Whichever formula may be preferred in the interpretation, it remains as
an indisputable fact that even in some of the higher animals an exceptional
appearance gives an advantage in courtship. It is needless to point out to
how great an extent in civilised communities man is influenced in sexual
preference by a bias for a peculiar appearance which distinguishes the
chosen one from any other man or woman. This predilection, however, is
always neutralised by a repugnance for everything that deviates too much
from the common characteristics of the group. The two principles which
have regulated the development of secondary sexual characters—to wit, the
necessity of marks for accentuating sex-distinction and that of tribal signs—
are thus brought into conflict with each other. This conflict is particularly
conspicuous in the lower stages of development. Owing to the peculiar
conditions of life which prevail here, the second principle will generally be
of especial importance among the savage tribes of mankind.
The observation has often been made that too great uniformity of work
impedes the development of individual characters in physical appearance.
In savage communities, where the division of labour is almost unknown, all
men must necessarily be more or less like one another.[305] Especially if the
home of the tribe be some closely defined area of uniform climatic
conditions, there will be within the tribe almost no material for selection.
Where endogamic marriage prevails, the conception “lover,” which is
transmitted from mother to daughter, and which, by “objective heredity,”
becomes imprinted on the mind of every girl that grows up in this narrow
milieu, must therefore be one with a very restricted content. Alongside of
this increasing predilection for a fixed and narrowly circumscribed type of
the opposite sex there will, as its complementary feeling, develop a strong
antipathy to every feature that diverges from this type. For the evolution of
national ideals this negative influence has been of perhaps even greater
importance than the positive preferences.
It is evident that strictly endogamous marriage customs could never be
upheld in tribes which have any intercourse with their neighbours if the
social institution were not supported by a real psychological aversion to
outsiders. It has therefore been congruous with the advantages of society to
promote in the youth the feeling that any man or woman outside the tribe is
a being with whom no emotional exchange is to be thought of. To make this
feeling possible, on the other hand, it is necessary that everything which is

connected with the foreigner should be held up to contempt. Their dress,
their language, their manners, and so on, have thus been considered as
something to be kept at a distance. It is needless to point out that marriage
systems are not alone responsible for the development of this feeling.
Religious differences, so important in primitive communities, have
undoubtedly often given rise to the common notion that people outside
one’s own tribe do not, properly speaking, belong to the human species.
Continual war induces a feeling of contempt, which in the stronger tribe is
mingled with pride and in the weaker with bitterness, and which in both
cases extends to the smallest details of physical appearance and behaviour.
And apart from all regard to these social causes, the primitive man, in
civilised as well as in savage nations, is always apt to look upon everything
unusual with a feeling of scornful disdain. No doubt such a disdain can
even be coincident with exogamous marriage customs. But it seems evident
that it must everywhere have strongly influenced sexual selection during
those unknown endogamic periods in which the racial and tribal differences
were developed and fixed.[306] And it may even now be observed among
living tribes of man to how great a degree antipathy to every detail in the
outward appearance of foreigners precludes union between members of
different tribes. The national and parochial dresses of modern peasants no
doubt exercise a great influence on the love-life of the respective boys and
girls. The most telling example that could be quoted in this connection is
the case of Savakot and Äyrämäiset in Eastern Finland. When examining a
Savakko youth as to the reason why none of his tribe had ever chosen a
wife from among their neighbours, Ahlqvist[307] received the characteristic
answer: “Se kuin on heillä Äyrämäisillä niin hirveä vaatteen manieri niin
siihen ei meidän pojat uskalla puuttua”—that is, As these Äyrämä girls have
such horrid dresses, our boys do not dare to approach them.
This instance, although it is one of modern times and refers to relatively
civilised individuals, can no doubt be considered as illustrative with regard
to the distinguishing marks and dresses of primitive men. The outward signs
of the tribe not only exercise a strong attraction upon all its members; they
are also for outsiders associated with a repugnance which is perhaps equally
strong. In the same way as it has been advantageous for the young of both
sexes to have an appearance which appeals as powerfully as possible to the
instinctive predilections of the opposite sex, it has been necessary for them

not to exhibit qualities which could be confounded with those of the alien.
The individual who endeavours to attract attention for his person by a
conspicuous and extravagant appearance is, therefore, narrowly restricted
within the boundaries prescribed by tribal sympathies and antipathies. The
safest expedient by which to distinguish himself from others without
outraging the national idea is, therefore, that of exaggerating the common
characteristics of the tribe.
These theoretical reasonings can be amply corroborated by ethnological
facts. As early as 1814 Humboldt observed and commented upon the fact
that the deformations which appear most arbitrary generally only tend to
carry into excess some natural peculiarity of the tribe.[308] And since his
time, numerous instances have been adduced in the ethnological literature,
all pointing in the same direction. In the case of people who blacken their
teeth it has been remarked that the dental enamel is naturally darker than
usual; where heads are artificially deformed, it is found that there exists a
general disposition to develop pointed or flat crania; where the hair-growth
is scanty, baldness is artificially produced; and so forth.[309] By
exaggerating and accentuating in their own appearance the common
qualities of the tribe, the individual males or females have thus created a
more and more differentiated tribal type. And the inherited predilections
and aversions of the opposite sex have, on the other hand, by continuously
influencing positive and negative choice, contributed to the fixing of these
types as tribal ideals, not of beauty, but of sexual attractiveness.

CHAPTER XVI
THE ORIGINS OF SELF-DECORATION
It is evident, as might be proved by more numerous and detailed
references than it has been possible to adduce above, that precisely such
bodily deformations, such systems of distinguishing ornament, and such
conspicuous articles of clothing and decoration as are most generally found
among both the primitive and the cultivated tribes of mankind have been of
especial importance as means of sexual attraction. Nothing could be more
natural, therefore, than to explain the various forms of cosmetics as so
many endeavours to work upon the preferences—whether arising from the
æsthetic sense or from associated ideas of sexual excitement—of the
opposite sex. Such an explanation, moreover, derives support from the
assertion of the primitives themselves, who often positively state that they
dress and array themselves for the purpose of winning the love of their
women. And it has on its side the merits of simplicity and unity. By
bringing together under one head all the different forms of self-decorative
art it disentangles the different questions of primitive æsthetics in a most
plausible manner.
However alluring this uniform explanation may be for lovers of clearness
and theoretical consistency, it must nevertheless be abandoned upon an
impartial examination of the ethnological facts. It is no doubt conceivable
that a more or less conscious desire of acquiring the favour of the opposite
sex should have called forth all the various means of attraction. As was
shown above, they could in such a case have scarcely developed a more
effectual conformation than they really have done. But from the effect we
are not entitled to draw any conclusion as to the intention. When
considering all the various motives, often almost incomprehensible to the
civilised mind, which govern the activities of primitive man, one loses the
confidence that is necessary in order to accept any general explanation,
however probable it may seem. A careful and impartial examination can
only lead to the result that scarcely any form of dress or ornament can be

quoted which could be considered with certainty as an outcome of the
impulse to attract and charm the opposite sex.
To begin with the class which stands in the closest connection with
sexual life, we have already shown that all the various coverings by which
primitive man conceals his nakedness, by attracting the attention are likely
to produce a sort of sexual stimulation in the primitive spectator.[310] In
some cases,—for instance that of the dancing girdles, which are especially
put on for the occasion of erotic dances and festivals,—this stimulation is
evidently intentional.[311] But it seems impossible to assume that a
knowledge of this effect can have been the motive for the use of those
phallocrypts which are worn by the Amaxosas in South Africa, by the
natives of Central Brazil, by the Melanesians in the Admiralty Islands and
on the north-western and south-western coasts of New Guinea, by the
Australians of north-western Central Queensland, and by the Polynesians of
the Marquesas Islands.[312] As far as we know, it is only in Australia that
these things are especially employed at corroborees and public rejoicings.
[313]
Nor is there anything that could attract the eye in all the simple
bamboo sheets that can be seen at the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin.
In some cases they have perhaps been worn for the purely practical purpose
of protecting a sensitive part against insect bites.[314] But it seems more
probable, on an examination of their shape, that they really are intended as
means of concealment in the proper meaning of the word. There is of course
no reason why they should not be considered as fulfilling the requirements
of modesty. But even if such be their purpose now, it is difficult to assume
that they were originally called into existence by a feeling which, from the
evolutionist point of view, one rather would consider as a product of clothes
than as their cause.[315]
This difficulty, however, is easily avoided by reference to another feeling
which in psychical evolution has probably preceded the appearance of
modesty. It is perhaps impossible to decide at what stage sexual life began
to be surrounded with feelings of shame,—in other words, in what instances
one is entitled to speak of modesty and conscious chastity. But there is no
doubt that even among the lowest savages the facts of generation are
regarded with a wonder which sometimes approaches awe, and sometimes
rises to religious respect.[316] Since at a somewhat higher degree of

development phallic symbols occupy so dominant a place in religious
systems, it is only natural to suppose that the realities represented by these
symbols have been regarded by the primitive with superstitious feelings. It
is probable, therefore, that there are many primitive tribes which, in the
same way as the aborigines of the New Hebrides, cover themselves in the
most scrupulous manner, “not at all from a sense of decency, but to avoid
Narak, i.e. magic influence,” the sight even of another man’s nakedness
being considered as most dangerous.[317] The large prevalence of phallic
motives in amulets and magically protecting paintings,[318] the supposed
effective sorcery of indecent gestures, so widely used even now by the
modern Italians,[319] indicate that the organs of generation have been
universally considered as the seat of a powerful and dangerous magic.
Perhaps this superstitious idea has even been the original source of the
notion that exposure involves the gravest offence against the honour of the
beholder.[320] Sometimes, on the other hand, dread of this supposed
mysterious power may have prompted the evolution of moral institutions,
and thus indirectly furthered the moral feelings. But it is evident that even
before any such transformation took place regard for public safety may
have induced the males to conceal the seat of so dangerous an influence.
The reproductive organs, however, are not only, in virtue of their
connection with the mysterious miracle of life, objects of superstitious awe:
they themselves, owing to the same consideration, need more than anything
else to be protected against dangerous influences. Fear of the evil eye has
thus, as Ratzel suggests, had something to do with the origin of male and
female dress.[321] And the notion of malignant looks is only one of the
superstitions that keep the savage man in a state of constant fear. All the
innumerable spirits that populate his atmosphere constitute so many
dangers, against which he has to protect himself by every possible means.
This necessity is probably even greater for the female sex than for the men.
In Messrs. Spencer and Gillen’s work on Australia there is one passage
which suggests another possible cause for the origin of female dress. When
speaking about the souls of ancestors, which, for the purpose of
reincarnation, try to find a way to the bodies of young women, the authors
say that “spirit children are also supposed to be especially fond of travelling
in whirlwinds, and on seeing one of these, which are very frequent at

certain times of the year, approaching her a woman will at once run
away.”[322] Now, this notion that the wind is capable of bringing about
impregnation is by no means confined to the Australian aborigines. Mr.
Hartland has been able to adduce testimonies of its occurrence not only in
savage tribes, but also among the Romans of Virgil’s time.[323] And the
Hottentots have an almost similar superstition, viz. that a pouring rain,
when falling on the naked body, promotes conception.[324] The belief in the
fertilising powers of sunshine, well known from European folklore and
frequently illustrated in literature, from the Danaë legends upwards to the
mysterious warnings of Hamlet to Ophelia, can of course be quoted as
indications of the same universal “folk-belief.”[325] It would only be natural
if the women, who so anxiously try to escape from the dangers of
fecundation that surround them on all sides in the atmosphere, had found
out the simple expedient of protecting themselves by clothing.
We cannot, of course, positively assert that the wearing of clothes was
originally due to superstitious reasons. We have only wished to point out
that such an hypothesis can be proposed and consistently defended. It
accounts not only for the especial character of the simplest dresses, but also,
which is more important, for the fact of their being adopted only when
sexual maturity is reached.
There are other reasons, moreover, why this last-mentioned circumstance,
which apparently affords so strong support to the theory of Darwin and his
followers, cannot be adduced as decisively solving the problem of purely
decorative garments. In laying so great a stress upon the time of life when
the body is decorated for the first time,[326] the advocates of the theory of
erotic propitiation seem to have overlooked that almost everywhere sexual
maturity coincides with civic majority. There is thus something to be said
for the view that tattooing, feather-dresses, and so on, are conferred upon
young men and women as outward signs of their changed status. And
similarly all ulterior decorations can be explained as indications of later
acquired rank. In ethnological literature, especially in German works, a
great body of facts has been produced which speak in favour of such an
analogy between primitive ornaments and modern signs of rank and merit.
[327]
By relying on this interpretation too we may often explain, without any
reference to the advantages of courtship, the fact that in primitive races men

are generally more decorated than women. An extreme Darwinist may
perhaps object that the proportion between the ornaments of the sexes has
been inverted since the male sex began to practise selection. But it is to be
remembered that even now in the classes for which rank distinctions are
most important, viz. in military and diplomatic circles, men generally are
more gorgeously arrayed than women.[328] And it may further be adduced
as an exception which proves the rule that on Pelew and Ponape Islands,
where mothers give children their rank, women are richly tattooed.[329]
It cannot of course be contended that man at the lowest stages of culture
could have intentionally created a fixed system of signs for denoting rank
and merit. Anything of that kind presupposes a social differentiation which
has not yet been arrived at by all savage tribes. In thus substituting
distinction-marks for the means of attraction one might therefore apparently
be exposed to the reproof of preferring the complex to the simple. Such a
criticism must, however, lose its force when applied to the theories which
try to trace the development of distinctive marks back to their most simple
and primitive sources. Von den Steinen, in whose work these questions are
subjected to a detailed study, has, with special reference to the Xingu tribes
in the interior of Brazil, succeeded in amply corroborating the theory of
Spencer that the simplest ornaments have been trophies of war and chase. In
the feather crowns of the chiefs, for example, we may thus see only a later
development of proudly arranged spoils of chase, by which a successful
hunter proclaims his achievements.[330] And the incised scars so common
among savage tribes can, in accordance with the same ingenious
explanation, be considered as imitations of the glorious wounds with which
eminent warriors have been adorned when returning from battle.[331]
In the cases where this interpretation holds true the chief aim of the
decoration is, of course, not to make the man more beautiful and charming,
but only to show off his skill and courage, and thus to inspire respect and
fear. It is needless to point out that in times of war such decorations must be
of eminent advantage by inspiring their wearer with pride at the same time
that they strike his enemies with terror. But boasting adornments are by no
means restricted to military purposes. Many apparently ornamental scars
and tattooings are probably worn as proud traces of heroic feats performed
at initiations or funeral ceremonies.[332] And, to quote instances of less lofty

pride, there is no end to the cases in which gems are worn chiefly for
producing an impression of wealth.[333] It would be absurd to suppose that
this show of valour or wealth must always be addressed to women. The
impulse to ostentation has thus undeniably, independent of sexual selection,
aided in the origin of self-decoration.
It is not necessary for the present purpose to submit to a close analysis all
the other theories of bodily embellishment which oppose an unrestricted
application of the Darwinian interpretation. Suffice it to say that facts exist
which support almost every one of these views. Thus it seems quite
unquestionable that tattooings often serve as a means of conveying
intellectual information.[334] Not only are exploits of valour which provide
an occasion for boasting ornament registered by incisions on the body, but
this primitive record may also be used in order to commemorate other
events that have made a great impression on the individual in question.
The most instructive example of such essentially commemorative self-
decoration that is known in ethnological literature is no doubt the tattooing
of Tepane, the native of the Eastern Island whom Dr. Stolpe met in Tahiti.
On his right fore-arm this highly interesting individual wore a pattern
which, although insignificant at first sight, on closer examination showed
itself to be nothing less than a pictorial description of the memorable event
when the great stone idols, now outside the British Museum, were hauled
down from their original place to the British ship which was going to take
them over sea. Among the figures on this little historical picture Tepane
himself was able to point out the first and second officer of the Topaz, who,
standing somewhat apart, watched the work of the sailors.[335] It is indeed
exceptional to meet with such complete realistic drawings among the
“motives” of tattoo. But there is no doubt that by symbolical representation
sights and events have often been recorded on the body, this most primitive
of all commonplace-books.
There is no default of instances showing that decoration, fixed as well as
detached, has been largely used as a magical protection against illness,
bewitching, or evil eye.[336] This superstitious intention appears with
unmistakable evidence in the decorations of the Xingu tribes of the interior
Brazil, where children and pregnant women, i.e. persons who particularly
need to be guarded against malignant influences, are richly decorated with

collars of beads, teeth, bones, and so on.[337] Among these Indians Professor
von den Steinen was also able to find some typical examples of the process,
which has been observed in several other tribes, by which a cosmetic
painting of the body is developed from a purely practical greasing with
earth or fat, executed in order to preserve the skin against weather or insect
bites.[338]
Perhaps more important still than any of the above-mentioned motives is
the one to which Herr Lippert has called attention.[339] In a nation where,
owing to the undeveloped division of labour, all people necessarily become
more or less like each other, the individual must, he thinks, feel a strong
desire to develop a fixed ego, a personality apart, which can be
distinguished from all his fellows. This craving may perhaps, as Lippert
thinks, have something to do with the growth of a philosophical
consciousness. But it may also be considered from a purely practical point
of view. In the same way as ornaments on weapons and implements often
serve as owners’ marks,[340] so the ornaments on the body may serve as
means of identifying, for social and political purposes, the man who is
decorated with them. The Moko patterns of the Maoris, for instance, have in
fact been used as legally recognised marks, and copies of them applied,
instead of signatures, to documents.[341] Whether the utilitarian or the more
philosophic explanation be preferred, it is evident that, even if there had
been no necessity to attract the attention of the opposite sex, the impulse to
create an appearance which is at least to some degree personal would have
led to the different systems of embellishment. Thus among people who
wear clothes any details in dresses and gems would be made distinctive;
where the naked body is lightly coloured, so as to make tattooing
conspicuous, distinguishing patterns would be incised; among darker
nations, on the other hand, simple scars would be cut; and finally, in the
blackest tribes, on whose skin not even scars stand out, modes of hair-
dressing would afford a last expedient for differentiation. And it is evident
that tribes in their intercourse with each other would be led by the same
considerations as individuals.[342] Even in a fictitious unisexual mankind
there might thus have appeared precisely the same kind of common and
fixed signs by which tribes are differentiated from each other, and of
individual signs by which members of the same tribe are distinguished by
variations from the common type. These signs must necessarily, as was

shown in the foregoing, exercise a powerful influence on the opposite sex,
and their development may therefore have been to some extent furthered by
sexual selection. But it seems impossible to contend that they have been
invented only for the purposes of courtship.[343]
We have deemed it superfluous to report in this connection all the
instances which show that among sundry tribes of mankind self-decoration
is executed especially with a view of pleasing. For copious collections of
such facts it is sufficient to refer to the works of Westermarck and Joest.
Other interesting instances have later been communicated by Finsch,
Stirling, Stoke, and others.[344] While necessarily sceptical with regard to
theories on sexual preference as a universal, art-creating influence, we have
of course no reason to doubt the accuracy of individual statements. From
the point of view of the present research we have only to emphasise the fact
that there is no possibility of deciding with any certainty in how great a
degree considerations for the favour of the opposite sex have influenced the
development of self-decoration.

CHAPTER XVII
EROTIC ART
When from the discouraging examination of decorative arts as connected
with sexual selection we turn our attention to the department of poetry and
drama, we reasonably expect to attain some less ambiguous results. In every
work of literary art one should think that the subject ought to afford some
indication as to its purpose. The dances, songs, and pantomimes of the
lower tribes are, however, in this respect not very instructive. No doubt
there can be quoted a great number of artistic manifestations in which love
is represented or described in all its phases. But we are not thereby justified
in assuming that these dramas, pantomimes, and poems were called into
existence by the preferences of the other sex. It would be absurd to adduce
the pornographic art of modern times as proof of sexual selection. And it is
equally absurd to cite in favour of Darwin’s thesis travellers’ tales of
indecent dances or ceremonies in which no mention is made of the presence
of the opposite sex.
On the other hand, it must be conceded that the influence of sex on the
evolution of art cannot, as Mr. Spencer seems to think, be completely
disproved by an appeal to the mere fact that erotic motives occupy so
insignificant a space in the most primitive art.[345] Even if there were any
certainty that the existing dearth of information on erotic dances and poems
corresponds with a real lack of erotic art, it might still be maintained that
the favour of the other sex was the aim of all the purely lyrical kinds of
music and dance. And the analogy with our own stage of culture might be
adduced as a witness that activities and manifestations which in their
original purpose are anything but erotic may still be used as effective means
of courtship. War dances, for example, in which all the qualities of the male
body are displayed must of course be eminently capable of charming the
opposite sex. Although undoubtedly called into existence by the need of
military exercise and warlike stimulation, this kind of dramatic art may
therefore have been assisted in its development by the encouraging
influence of female spectators.[346] In which cases such an influence has

operated, and how great have been its effects, can only be determined by a
close examination not only of the works of art themselves, but also, and
chiefly, of the circumstances connected with the performance of them. As
poetry and drama on primitive stages generally have reference to a
particular occasion, these circumstances ought to appear with greater
clearness than in the case of pictorial arts.
For the purposes of this research there is, however, a great deficiency of
reliable information. In the descriptions of dances and pantomimes which
can be gathered from the literature of travel the most important point is
generally omitted—whether the performances in question were executed in
the presence of the other sex or not. From the general records of savage life
one may indeed draw some conclusions bearing upon this question. But
these conclusions, even when, taken apart, they seem to be sufficiently
reliable, are, when considered collectively, full of contradiction. With
regard to a great number of tribes the strict separation between the sexes
which prevails in all phases of social life—in work as well as in
amusements—provides a negative argument against the theory of female
influence on art. This circumstance has of course been adduced by
opponents of the selection theory; and it was Mr. Gurney’s chief objection
to Wagner’s assertion that the earliest popular dances were erotic
pantomimes.[347] But the adherents of Darwin’s theory are no less able to
support their assertion by ethnological facts. This is made obvious, for
instance, by Wallaschek’s Primitive Music, which work, as far as we know,
gives the most complete account existent of primitive dances and
pantomimes. After having enumerated a great variety of tribes in which the
sexes are separated when dancing, the author says, “As a rule, however,
both sexes dance together.” And he then corroborates this statement by a
still greater number of instances in which dances, often of a decidedly erotic
character, are performed either by both sexes together or by one sex before
the other.[348] Thus facts confront facts in a most bewildering contradiction
which is indeed trying to the believer in ethnological argumentation. No
sound statistician would base any conclusions on majorities made up of
such confused masses of contradictory instances. The question of sex
influence on art would therefore be for ever undecided if there were no
expedient for classifying the units and balancing them against each other in
greater groups.

Such a classification is of course no less possible than it is necessary. But
it presupposes a close examination of every single instance quoted. Owing
to our insufficient knowledge of some of the most interesting tribes, a
satisfactory arrangement is therefore as yet involved in great difficulty. In
this work, at any rate, it would not be possible to enter into all these detailed
researches. We shall restrict ourselves to a few short indications of the mode
in which we think that this much-debated question is to be solved.
In all that has been written against Darwin’s Descent of Man there is
perhaps nothing that is so relevant to the main issue as Mr. Hudson’s
criticism. He observes that Darwin has gathered together from all regions of
the globe unconnected facts about various species without closely
examining the habits and actions of these species.[349] It goes without
saying that such an examination would be extremely difficult with regard to
animals, the social life of which is as yet so insufficiently known. For one
not a zoologist, at least, it would be too audacious to present any
classification of the instances, and therefore we did not even mention this
possibility in the treatment of animal art. In this connection, however, one
may suggest, without positively asserting, that perhaps even the animal
manifestations of dance and music may be classified in groups which
correspond to the prevailing social conditions of the respective species.
There is at least a striking similarity between the types of song, serene with
all their passion, with which the males of the monogamous songsters
entertain their mates—those mates which, if one may believe the brothers
Müller, have been chosen even before the pairing season.[350] And, on the
other hand, these graceful and harmonious utterances stand in the strongest
contrast to the vehement display of promiscuous wood-birds and
polygamous fowl.
However presumptuous it may be to draw any general conclusions from
these coincidences, it is evidently indispensable, when treating of sexual
selection in man, to look for some connection between the various forms of
courtship and prevailing social institutions. This necessity was fully
understood by Darwin himself.[351] But it has been too much overlooked by
his successors, who, when discussing his thesis, have defended or attacked
it by promiscuous collections of facts in which barbaric Malays and
degenerate Polynesians are quoted alongside primitives like the Veddas and

Fuegians. If this confusion is disentangled by a proper arrangement of the
instances according to stages of culture, the seeming inconsistency of the
ethnological evidence will be removed.
There is a prima facie ground for believing that the employment of art for
gaining the favour of the other sex is characteristic of a certain advance in
social development. The tribes in which we have most reason to suppose
that the practice of self-decoration does not rest on political or religious
grounds, and may thus aim exclusively at pleasing, are to be found among
the Polynesians, the Malays, and some of the nations of India. From
Polynesia also Berchon derived his chief support for the curious assertion—
which seems to be true of scarcely any other ethnological province—that
the patterns used in tattooing are quite indifferent, provided only that they
effectually embellish the decorated part of the body;[352] in short, that
tattooing has a purely decorative purpose. With regard to dancing, there also
is practised in Tahiti, by the dramatic society of the Areoi, a dance most
typical of the kind which aims at an erotic excitement in the spectators.[353]
As is well known, the “oriental” dancing, such as is performed in the
barbaric Negro states and in the Mohammedan communities of Northern
Africa, as well as in Persia, Turkey, China, and Japan, is mainly a gross
pantomime of physical love executed by a woman to the delight of her male
spectators.[354] In most of these cases, however, the dancers are outcast
women, who are paid with money for their performance.
Somewhat closer, it seems, is the connection between erotic dance and
sexual selection in the native population of the East Indian Islands.[355] And
finally, among the aboriginal tribes of India, the Mundaris, Rasas, Kolhs,
Sonthals, Bhuiyas, Chukmas, and Khyoungthas, courtship is pervaded by
art and æsthetic activities.[356] In some of the villages there still survives the
same kind of romantic love-making which is so well known from the old
Indian poems and tales. The Bhuiya youths pay visits to the camp of the
girls, and are received by them with dances and songs; and, says Mr.
Dalton, “after such daylong festivals the morning dawns on more than one
pair of pledged lovers.”[357] In the Bayar tribe one of the “methods of
bringing about marriage” is a dance, performed by both sexes, who face
each other in rows and exchange impromptu love couplets. Similar festivals

are also met with among the Bendkars and Khonds.[358] The Hos and
Mundaris, on the other hand, afford an example of sexual selection in its
grossest form at their yearly festivals, during which excited dionysiac
dances and obscene and blasphemous speeches are connected with wild
promiscuous orgies.[359]
In the improvised ditties that are sung during these dances Darwin would,
of course, have found the most convincing proofs of the applicability of his
theory to poetry. Among love-inspired songs few specimens can be found
which are so genuine, and at the same time so full of delicate feeling, as the
harvest antiphonies sung by the Khyoungtha boys and girls.[360] How high
an opinion of the power in poetry to charm is held by these tribes can be
judged from the fact that the Chukmas never allow any songs but those of a
religious character to be sung in their villages. Our girls would be
demoralised, they say, if boys were allowed to sing freely. When living in
the jungle, however, where the rules of morality are laxer, the Chukmas
allow their poetry greater license.[361]
It is needless to say that some kind of erotic poetry is generally to be
found in all the tribes where dancing expresses love. There have been
translated some exquisite samples of erotic songs composed by the Malay
tribes of Java and Sumatra. In some instances it is quite evident that these
songs have been used as means of winning the favour of the women. In
other cases, however, it seems safest to draw no conclusions as to their
purpose. At any rate, love occupies an important place in the poetry which
has been collected in Malaysia, not only among the Malays proper, but also
among the Tagals, Alfuras, Battaks, etc.[362]
In some of their dancing songs the Australian aboriginal poets are said to
describe the charms of their sweethearts.[363] But we know of no poems in
which they appear to be directly addressed. Neither have we found any
decisive statement as to the character of the erotic poetry in Tahiti and New
Zealand.[364]
Purer and more unmistakable examples of singing used as a means of
erotic propitiation can be adduced from some of the American nations. The
Iroquois, for whom dancing festivals are of great importance in the
intercourse between the sexes, are well aware of the powers of a serenade

when they wish to entice a girl from her hut to a meeting.[365] In old Mexico
and Peru, where erotic poetry had reached a high degree of refinement,
songs and music were undoubtedly used in courtship.[366] But with these
barbaric but not savage peoples we have already left primitive man far
behind.
It is undeniable that increased knowledge of the various tribes of
mankind may necessitate important corrections in the above review of
erotic art. There might be collected, for instance, specimens of love-inspired
poetry from the really primitive tribes, such as the Veddas, the Fuegians,
etc. Perhaps also it may be proved that dancing and singing really serve the
purposes of erotic propitiation to a much greater extent than travellers
hitherto have been able to discover. But the general conclusions are very
unlikely to be changed by any further researches. It is sufficiently obvious
that the Darwinian æsthetic has its chief support in the productions of
barbaric nations, whose social conditions have been eminently favourable
for the development of erotic art. This view might be in danger if we had no
knowledge of any artistic activity in the most primitive tribes. But as a
relatively developed religious drama, and perhaps even some traditional
mythical songs have been found among the Fuegians;[367] as the Veddas
have at least one dance, possibly religious, and various magic poems;[368] as
the Bushmen are masters of pictorial art and develop a great dramatic
power in their pantomimic imitations of animals;[369] as among the
Australians the surprisingly high development of theatrical management
and instruction[370] stands in the strongest contrast to their poor erotic lyric;
—in a word, as the religious, superstitious, and traditional forms of art
among the lower savages have such an unmistakable predominance over
those of erotic propitiation, there is no ethnological support for the assertion
that the beginnings of art were due to the impulse “to attract by pleasing.”
It may, of course, be argued that the Fuegians, the Veddas, the Bushmen,
and the rest, far from representing primitive man, are really to be
considered as degenerate types. And it may furthermore be contended that
before marriage customs and other social institutions had reached those
forms which now prevail among the lower tribes, the promiscuous
intercourse between all males and females during a fixed pairing season
must have produced an erotic art. Whatever value such reasoning may have,

it at any rate implies the admission that the art-creating influence of sexual
selection cannot be proved on historical grounds. The question how
primitive society is to be reconstructed cannot as yet be considered to be
finally solved. But even if the original marriage customs had been such as
Darwin supposes, and even if courtship at this unknown stage of evolution
had been carried on by means of art,[371] the fact that several existing tribes
appear to be quite devoid of poetic and dramatic forms of erotic propitiation
restricts the validity of Darwin’s principle in a considerable degree.

The attraction of the Darwinian theory is of course obvious. After having
realised the important part which sexual selection plays in the “artistic”
activities of animals, one is naturally tempted to apply the same principle to
all similar activities in men. The influence of erotic preferences is a
biological datum, and, as such, a principle of a more universal order, so to
speak, than any one of the social or religious motives.[372] However
advantageous it may be to apply this all-embracing explanation to the whole
field of art, a descriptive study of the facts must needs compel us to pay
attention to the sociological influences which assist or impede the operation
of sexual selection. There is no doubt that there are some secondary sexual
characters and activities which are developed under all social conditions.
And it is no less certain that both sexes are everywhere influenced by
individual predilections. But these predilections cannot, of course, be
regarded as factors of importance in a society where strictly-fixed marriage
customs allow the partners no freedom of choice. They will, on the other
hand, produce special and differentiated means of attraction where, either
from demoralisation, as in Tahiti, or as the result of institutional polygamy,
as in the Mohammedan countries, or owing to free and idyllic conditions of
life, as among the various tribes of India, competition for the favour of a
male or a female is unrestricted.
It is impossible, without transgressing the limits of the present work, to
give a complete account of the influences of society on erotic art. An author
who should be able to embrace in his treatment all stages of evolution, the
latest and most highly developed as well as the earliest, would undoubtedly
contribute an interesting chapter to art-philosophy if he were to explain in

detail and with examples how, e.g., lyric poetry has changed with changed
marriage customs. Taking the art of historic nations, the contrast between
the literature of polygamous Orientals and that of Europeans, whose notions
of love are influenced by marriage institutions at least officially
monogamous, would afford an opportunity for most suggestive
comparisons. And even within the limits of modern art a comparison
perhaps equally instructive may be made between the different classes of
society with their varying forms of sexual life. No task could be more
interesting than that of finding out to how great an extent the marvellously
refined and differentiated expressions of romantic love which characterise
some schools of modern poetry are dependent upon the peculiar forms of
sexual life prevailing among the upper classes. As social factors of
powerful, though never sufficiently recognised influence, the veiled
polyandry and polygamy which lie at the bottom of modern society have
undoubtedly influenced æsthetic notions as well as artistic activities. By
causing a division of the sexual impulses these conditions have facilitated
the development of an ideal and æsthetic love-literature which never would
have appeared, and cannot even be understood, among nations where this
division does not exist. On the other hand, the same causes have, as it is
needless to point out, produced a literature and an art which, by their
deliberate grossness, stand in the strongest contrast not only to the romantic
utterances of civilised nations, but even to the more naïve products of
primitive tribes.
We cannot in this connection do more than indicate these general views,
the validity of which may be easily tested by the reader by application to
modern art. Within the boundaries of ethnological art—that is, between the
stages of evolution represented by Tierra del Fuego on one side and ancient
Mexico at the other end—there can, however, be found sufficient proofs of
the general law which manifests itself more fully in the richer and more
highly differentiated products of modern art. Love, although fundamentally
one and uniform as a feeling, is in its utterances ever changing with
changing conditions of life. If its ground is biological, its nuances are
always determined by sociological influences. Without taking into due
account all these nuances it is impossible to assert anything about the
influences of sexual selection on art.

The considerations adduced in this chapter have led to results which, by
their negative character, may seem to be very unsatisfactory. It was shown
first of all that artistic activities, in so far as they emphasise the qualities of
either sex, must necessarily exercise an attractive influence on the opposite
sex. From a psychological point of view we tried to prove that the various
forms of self-decoration, such as are to be met with among primitive tribes,
must have been eminently effectual as means of such attraction. But we
were, on the other hand, compelled to admit that the primary origin of dress
and ornaments in many cases could be quite as well explained without any
reference to the relation between the sexes. Thus it became necessary to
examine closely the dramatic and poetic art for the purpose of ascertaining
in which tribes competition for the favour of the opposite sex can be
assumed as a cause of the art. The ethnological evidence, as quoted in the
works on sexual selection, appeared too incomplete and inconsistent to
admit of any general conclusions being drawn, and it seemed indispensable
to sift the information as well as to classify the instances. Instead of one all-
explaining principle, which could be applied in all the various cases, we
were confronted by a multitude of causes and conditions, all of which
needed to be investigated separately and weighed against each other. A
reader who thinks every discussion fruitless which leads to no dogmatic
conclusion might perhaps object that our re-examination of this much-
debated question has utterly failed in its purposes. We may, however, be
allowed to point out that although our investigation has not led to any
definite estimate of the importance of sexual preferences for the
development of art, it may perhaps have contributed in some degree to the
elucidation of the connection between art, beauty, and sex.
We have seen that even in the conditions which are the most favourable
for its influence, sexual selection can never by itself create any quality of
beauty. What kind of ideal the preferences of either sex are able to call into
existence is sufficiently shown by the hideous deformations of the body
which are to be found among primitive tribes as well as among the most
civilised nations. Wherever, through favourable conditions of life and work,
beauty, i.e. grace and harmony, is developed in the human body and its
movements, there these qualities will often be enhanced by the selection
that is exercised by either sex. But this selection can, of course, be of
influence only where the sexes enjoy freedom of choice. This inquiry thus

leads to the general conclusion, which, we hope, will be confirmed by the
reasoning of all the following chapters, that the problems of beauty and art
can never be separated from the general problems of social life.

We have endeavoured to show that sexual selection has only called forth
artistic activities in uncivilised man when the conditions have been
especially favourable. As a cause of artistic activity, sexual selection does
not operate everywhere. But even where there is no competition between
rivals, sexual emotions may still find an artistic expression. In short, sexual
selection is a cause of erotic art, but it is not the only cause. With less
freedom of choice for the females, there is, of course, less need for the
males to develop especial activities for the purpose of erotic propitiation.
But even where the female is thus deprived of the signal influence which
she, through her favouring or rejecting selection, can exercise on the
appearance and the activities of the race, her instinctive coyness may
necessitate some means of erotic persuasion. This purpose is already served
by the various kinds of caressing movements which are to be found not only
among men, but also among many species of animals.[373] But it is also
probable that primitive man, in the same way as the birds, may have
resorted to song and dance as a mode of winning the female’s consent.
These activities, which are preliminary to pairing, cannot, of course, be of
the same importance to evolution as those which aim at securing preference
in the selection of mates. But they may none the less attain a high degree of
development. In degenerate tribes especially, erotic dancing is no doubt
used as an effectual aphrodisiac.
It is not necessary, however, to seek for biological advantages in erotic
dances, pantomimics, and poems. The strong emotional tension which
accompanies pairing must of itself give rise to some mode of seeking relief
by sound or movement. These manifestations, on the other hand, will by
association revive the pleasurable feelings with which they have been
connected. As, moreover, among primitive men sexual exaltation is one of
the strongest—in peaceful tribes even the strongest—feeling which occurs
in their life, any other rapture will borrow the form of its expression from
this elementary passion. It is well known that even in civilised nations

intense delight tends to express itself in erotic gestures. In some cases, as,
e.g., that of abnormal religious exaltation, one might think that a state of
high-strung emotion, by suspending all intellectual life, does in fact leave a
man at the mercy of overwhelming animal impulses. The exaggerated
devotion of all emotional religions sets at liberty the bête humaine, which
can be kept under control only by the continuous competition with the
higher faculties. In other instances, such as those when people who have
received some good news feel an inclination to embrace or kiss each other,
it is more natural to assume a process of association. In either case the
psychology of civilised man enables us to understand why erotic dances are
so generally used by primitive tribes, even on occasions when they seem
least appropriate.
It would be superfluous to undertake an ethnological review of erotic
motives in art. As we have already remarked in the preceding chapter, there
are tribes which, according to the reports of travellers, not only are
completely devoid of erotic art in the sense of love-propitiation, but do not
even allow love any place as a subject of art. It seems, however, safest to
draw no conclusions from this deficiency of data. Erotic art, as everything
else connected with sexual life, has too often been overlooked by
ethnological authors. Savage, W. Ellis, Wyatt Gill, Romilly, and many
others, consider themselves bound by modesty to pass over such
pantomimes as are “too indelicate and obscene to be mentioned.”[374] Even
the brothers Sarasin, who otherwise have aimed at the greatest possible
completeness in their account of the Veddas, candidly say that they have
observed no “Lusttänze,” but also never inquired about them.[375] It would
not be surprising, therefore, if some less discreet traveller should at some
future time describe hitherto unknown erotic dances and songs from, say,
the Bushmen or the Andamanese. And there is the more reason to anticipate
that a closer intimacy with primitive man may bring to light illustrations of
erotic art, as in many savage tribes sexual matters are hedged in by taboo,
and are especially concealed from white visitors.[376]
On the other hand it is very probable that the erotic element in primitive
art has often been overrated. It seems doubtful whether the expressions
“improper” and “indecent,” as used by the travellers in descriptions of
dances and dramas, are always intended to signify that the representations

in question were of an erotic nature.[377] And even when, for the civilised
spectator, a pantomime appears to be most immoral, this impression may be
due to a misunderstanding of its real meaning. No doubt, ignorance of the
language and the customs of the various tribes has often occasioned false
interpretations. Mr. Reeves, who warns us against uncritical belief in
travellers’ tales, has been able to adduce from his own experience a most
telling example of such a mistake. When witnessing a performance of short
dramas, “mekes,” in Samoa, he and his party felt extremely shocked by the
indecent action of one of the interludes. Afterwards, however, he learned
from the natives that the objectionable pantomime was only intended to
represent the movements of a woman gathering fishes in a basket.[378]
In a descriptive account of primitive art it would, of course, be necessary
to reckon with all these inadequacies of ethnological evidence. The general
results, such as are wanted for a philosophical treatment, would not be
affected by corrections in single instances. The probability is that in every
tribe, independently of its social state and of its forms of sexual selection,
erotic feelings have always expressed themselves in some way or other.
With varying conditions of life these modes of expression have, of course,
acquired greater or less importance for art. Where war occupies the
attention of the tribe to an exclusive degree, erotic motives can never
occupy a prominent place in art. Where, as is alleged to be the case among
some Australian tribes, notions of decorum forbid any expression of the
feelings of affection and love, love songs and dances will hardly be publicly
acknowledged in public art.[379] On the other hand, an erotic literature will
be prominent in such communities as that of Tahiti.[380] And when, as in
Kamschatka, poems generally are composed by women, it is only natural
that their subjects should be chiefly “love, hate, grief, and hope.”[381] These
facts are all so self-evident that there is no need to argue upon them.
More interesting than all these sociological agencies is the influence of
prevailing religious and superstitious notions. As has been already pointed
out, sexual taboo has in many cases checked the development of erotic
poetry and dance as a public art. But perhaps more frequent than the cases
of such prevention are those where they have been furthered by phallic
systems of religion. This is of course an additional reason for caution in
accusing primitive art of immorality when it shocks our feelings of

modesty.[382] Thus the indecency of religious sculptures connected with
ancestor-worship has undoubtedly often a serious and symbolical meaning.
[383]
In some tribes indecent pantomimes, which otherwise are strictly
forbidden, will be performed, evidently for some superstitious reason, at
funeral ceremonies.[384] Perhaps, also, some superstitious notion about
sympathetic magic lies behind the obscene rites and songs which so often
accompany wedding ceremonies. This principle appears more unmistakable
in the dramatic rites which are performed by many people as means of
removing sterility. Finally, owing to a combination of sympathetic magic
and animistic conceptions of nature, erotic pantomime has acquired a
prominent place among agricultural rites.
All these manifestations of pictorial and literary art, which in aim and
intention cannot, properly speaking, be called erotic at all, will be treated of
in the following chapters. In this connection it is only necessary to mention
the naturalistic dramas which in Africa and Australia are represented at the
initiation of boys in manhood. We need not explain that the performances in
the male camps, by which the youths are introduced to all the features of
men’s life, naturally assume an obscene character. But it is interesting that
the pantomimes, which, from our standpoint at least, are so revolting,
sometimes seem to be meant to serve the interests of morality. Mr.
Mathews, in his description of the Bora ceremony among the Kamilaroi,
says that this pantomimic representation was enacted for the purpose of
teaching youths to abstain from homo-sexual vices.[385] Knowing the
degree of immorality which has been reached by many savage tribes, one
may readily understand that the old men in the tribe have resorted to these
radical means of dissuading the boys from vice. And one feels tempted to
apply Mr. Mathews’ explanation to similar rites in other tribes than the
Kamilaroi. The initiation ceremonies of the Amazulus, for instance, which
would in no case be possible in any but extremely degenerate nations, might
be explained on the same hypothesis.[386]
It is significant that the Kamilaroi, in vindication of their obscene art,
have hit upon the very same apology which was adduced in defence of the
French literature of the eighteenth century. But in both cases, among the
primitives as well as in civilised communities, the supposed beneficial
effects of erotic art seem to be very questionable. Where dances, dramas,

and songs speak only of sensual pleasure, they will soon kill intellectual
inquisitiveness as well as zeal for work. Sir Henry Johnston, who has more
right than any one else to speak about the populations of Africa, thinks that
the sudden arrest in the intellectual development of African boys which can
generally be noticed at the time of puberty is a result of the overpowering
sexual stimulation to which they are at that time exposed.[387] As the same
cause, i.e. an art and a social life which are full of erotic suggestions,
operates in many savage tribes, it may perhaps account to some extent for
the fact, recently commented upon by Kidd, that, notwithstanding the
marvellous teachableness of primitive children, savages always prove
inferior to white men after the attainment of maturity.[388] And it gives a
reason for the tendency—fruitless, no doubt, but none the less sincere—
which is to be found among some of the strongest nations, the ancient
Maori, for instance, to repress and quench by all possible means the
development of an art that aims deliberately at erotic stimulation.[389]

CHAPTER XVIII
ART AND WORK
In our treatment of erotic art we have been led far away from the
connection between art and the maintenance of species. Whatever the case
may be for animals and those primitive men whose sexual life is restricted
within a short and fixed pairing season, an artificial stimulation of the erotic
feelings is no biological requirement for the existing tribes of man. Where
art has mainly served this purpose, it has not, as has been shown, by any
means exercised a beneficial influence on the race. The most typical
illustrations in the last chapter were therefore found in the artistic
productions of degenerate tribes which no doubt would, if brought into
conflict with less licentious neighbours, prove inferior in the struggle for
existence. And all these instances afford invaluable arguments to those
philosophers who consider art as a checking and weakening factor in
progress.
It is hoped, however, that the present chapter will contribute towards the
refutation of such one-sided views. We intend to adduce instances from
various stages of culture which will bring out the importance of art as a
favouring factor in the struggle for life.
It is evident that a pantomimic imitation of any activity must, as exercise
and stimulation, facilitate the subsequent real execution of the same
activity. Individuals and nations who have grown familiar in play with the
most important actions in life’s work have thus acquired an unquestionable
advantage in the struggle for existence. After the publication of Professor
Groos’s great works on animal and human recreations it is needless to dwell
upon this point. This eminent psychologist has, with regard to the
evolutionary value of sportive representations—or, as he prefers to say,
“præ-presentations”—of life, been led to consider them as based on
inherited instinctive impulses. Instead of the play-impulse, which only
serves to provide an outflow for the superfluous energy in the organism, he
has thus introduced the conception of an activity which exercises an
important positive influence on life. And, on the other hand, his

consummate researches have brought out with especial clearness the
intimate connection between play and art. A great many of the instances he
has collected present all the technical qualifications of a manifestation of
dramatic art. As Groos himself remarks, only the addition of a disinterested
æsthetic attention in the players is needed in order to transform the
instinctive activities into artistic ones. How this transition has taken place is
a question which will undoubtedly be treated in the great system of art-
philosophy to which the hitherto published works of Professor Groos
constitute the introduction. We have therefore only to point out how much
support these views derive from the study of primitive art. In the various
tribes, with their differing types of life, there is afforded a singular
opportunity of observing the connection between play, or art, and the
serious occupations of life. The games of the children, as well as the dances
and pantomimes of the full-grown, almost everywhere correspond to the
prevailing activities in the various communities. The North American
Indians, the Malays, the Maoris, the tribes of Central Asia, and others, all
furnish instances of the familiar law that the amusements of warlike nations
mainly consists in exercises which are preliminary to, or reminiscent of, the
experiences of battle. A war dance or a mimic fight is the traditional type
not only of their public entertainments, but also of their state ceremonial.
No example could be more telling than that of the Dahomey state dances,
which, however they may begin, always seem to end with an imitation of
the greatest social action in the country—decapitation.[390] Where the
struggle for existence is a contest with nature and not with fellow-men, a
hunting or fishing pantomime usually takes the place of these military
performances. It is true that such representations of work often lose their
importance in national art when the conditions of life grow easier. Mr.
Taplin thus contrasts the rich and varied entertainments of the Polynesians,
who without any exertion obtain their subsistence from their bountiful soil,
with the amusements of the poor Narrinyeri, who even in their dances and
pantomimes have always practised “those arts which were necessary to get
a living.”[391] But it is significant that even the inhabitants of these “happy
islands” in their dramatic performances introduce imitations of rowing,
fighting, and other kinds of common work. And at still higher degrees of
development, where the division of labour has given rise to special trades,
all these various crafts will often, as was the case in Dahomey, in ancient
Peru, and in mediæval Europe, be a favourite subject for pantomimic

representation.[392] If such representations have been of no especial value as
exercise, they may nevertheless, by bringing about an association between
work and pleasure, have made toil and labour less repugnant. The exertions
called forth by the struggle for existence have thus at all stages of culture,
except that of modern industrialism, been to some extent facilitated by art.
Perhaps even more important in their influences than the imitation of
work in play or drama are the artistic activities which accompany the actual
performance of work. As these kinds of dance and song have been
somewhat overlooked by Professor Groos, there is reason to make them the
subject of a closer investigation.
When explaining the manifestations of art which can thus, in the literal
meaning of the word, be called songs and dances of action, we have to
divide our attention between two different points of view. First, the need of
stimulation and regulation of the work of the individual, and, second, the
need of co-operation in the work of different individuals. In both these
respects art has had an importance among primitive tribes which can
scarcely be overrated.
It is well known that at a lower degree of mental development the power
of instantaneous muscular exertion is far less than among educated men.
Broca’s experiments showed that artisans with somewhat trained
intelligence generally reached higher figures on a dynamometer than
working men who were only used to bodily exertions. And the Negroes,
whose forces were tested by Féré, were far below the average of Europeans.
[393]
As in these experiments the natives were introduced to new and
unaccustomed movements, the evidence of the psychometric apparatus
must be considered as somewhat extenuated by the circumstances. Broadly
speaking, these experiments can, however, be taken as indications of a
general psychological law.[394] The experimental evidence is, moreover,
corroborated by the common complaints of Europeans who have had to rely
on natives. The slowness with which the primitive man gets into swing with
his work has no doubt been referred to times without number by
slavekeepers when advocating their methods of treating natives. Strange to
say, there are some tribes which themselves candidly admit their own
inertness, and voluntarily submit to whipping in order to get “their blood a
little agitated.”[395]

The slowness and the insensibility of the Guarani are, however, as
appears from Mr. Rengger’s description, exceptional and pathological.[396]
But it seems as if almost all tribes had invented some means of inciting
themselves to work. Only, these means are seldom such as Europeans
would feel inclined to avail themselves of when urging on their workers.
That they can nevertheless be as effectual as even the slavekeepers whip is
shown by Signor Salvado. His description of his experiences with
Australian natives as farm-labourers is delightful: “How often,” says he,
“have I not used their dancing songs in order to encourage and urge them on
in their work. I have seen them, not once, but a thousand times lying on the
ground with minds and bodies wearied by their labour; yet as soon as they
heard me singing the Machielò-Machielé, which is one of their commonest
and favourite dancing songs, they would yield to an irresistible impulse, and
rise and join me with their voices. They would even begin to dance joyfully
and contentedly, especially when they saw me singing and dancing among
them, like any other savage. After a few minutes of dancing I would seize
the opportunity to cry out to them in a merry voice, Mingo! Mingo! a word
meaning breast, which is also used in the same way as our word courage.
After such an exhortation they would gradually set to work again. And they
would begin afresh with such goodwill and eagerness, that it seemed as if
the dance of Machielò had communicated to them new courage and new
vigour.”[397]
From many parts of the world there may be quoted examples of savages
who always raise a chant when compelled to overcome their natural
laziness.[398] In many cases they seem, as in Salvado’s anecdote, to avail
themselves of words and melodies which perhaps were originally intended
only for amusement.[399] But it is also well known that working men
everywhere stimulate themselves by special songs of exhortation.[400] And
when employed in prolonged and monotonous work they everywhere seem
to know that toil may be relieved by song.[401] The majority of these work
poems may perhaps be of no great poetical or musical merit, but that does
not affect their great evolutionistic importance. Whether Noiré is right or
not in his theory that language has developed from the work cries of
primitive men,[402] there is no doubt that some of the simplest and perhaps
earliest specimens of poetry are to be found among the short ditties sung by
labourers during their work. The stimulus which is provided by such songs

is easily understood without any explanation. But their invigorating power
will be perceived more clearly when we take into account that emotional
susceptibility to musical impressions which has been remarked in so many
primitive tribes.[403] Besides these invigorating effects, every musical
accompaniment will also, by virtue of its rhythmic elements, regulate the
movements of work, and thereby produce a saving of force deployed.
When the words of the work-songs refer to the action itself, the effect
will be strengthened by verbal suggestion. It is true that many of the songs
which are sung during the manufacture of weapons and utensils, during
boat-building and such-like, are magical in their intention.[404] But there is
no doubt that the ideas of poetical magic are to a great extent derived from a
psychological experience of the suggestive power of words. Without
committing ourselves to any superstition, we can easily believe that—in
Polynesia as well as in ancient Finland—canoes were better built when the
“boat-building” song was properly recited by the builder. Only we prefer to
think that the magic operated on the workman and not on his material.
The psychological influence of the work dances is still easier to
understand. Preliminary movements, even when undirected, always make
the subsequent action more effective; witness a golfer’s flourish before
driving. As Lagrange has pointed out, their effect will be to develop that
amount of animal heat which is necessary for every muscular contraction.
[405]
When, moreover, they are fixed and differentiated in their form, the
influence will of course be all the greater. By every attempt to execute a
special movement, the idea of such movement is made more and more
distinct. And as hereby the ideomotor force of this representation is
increased, the final action must be executed with greater ease and greater
efficacy. The validity of this law may be easily proved by experimental
psychology. Féré has in his dynamometrical tests observed that the second
pressure always attains a higher figure than the first one. “La première
pression a pour effet de renforcer la représentation mentale du
mouvement.”[406] Without any theoretical knowledge of these psychological
facts, the common man has always been able to avail himself of the
beneficial effects which are to be derived from preliminary imitations of
any difficult movement. Hence the curious pantomimes of experimentation
which we may always observe in the artisan who has to give a finishing

touch to his work, or in the athlete who tries to perform a new and
unaccustomed exercise.
The psychology of movement-perception, as we have described it in the
foregoing, makes it evident that a similar prompting influence may be
exercised by the actions of others.[407] This is an experience which must
have occurred, we should imagine, to every one who has been coached in
golf by a professional. When concentrating his attention upon each
successive movement in the instructor’s model performance, the beginner in
sports and gymnastics receives with his whole body, so to speak, an
impression of the exercise he has to go through. The representation thus
gains in distinctness as well as in motor force, and the subsequent
movement is executed in an almost automatic way.
These familiar facts from the psychology of everyday life will explain
why among the savage tribes we so often meet with the institution of the
præsul. When any labour is to be performed which requires the co-operation
of many hands, such as the harvest or rowing, the præsul demonstrates in
dance or pantomime the sequence of movements which the others have to
go through.[408] By the suggestive influence of his performance all the
individual workers are stimulated in their exertions. More important,
however, than this stimulation is the co-ordination of labour which is
effected by the element of rhythm in song and dance.
We have in a previous chapter spoken at sufficient length of the
incalculable æsthetic importance of rhythm as a means of producing
emotional community between different individuals. In this connection we
have still to point out that a fixed time-division must in the same way
facilitate common activity. From the historical point of view this practical
aspect is undoubtedly the more important. However fundamental and
primordial the æsthetic function of the perception of rhythm may seem for
the theorist, it is most probable that the development of this faculty has
been chiefly furthered by its utilitarian advantages. There is no doubt that
even the most primitive man may feel the want of associating his fellow-
men in his emotions, and that for this purpose he may be able to give the
expression of them a fixed rhythmical form. But the power of perceiving
this time-division as a rhythm, and of obeying it closely in song and dance,
would, as Dr. Wallaschek has shown, certainly not have attained so high a

degree of development if this power had not, by facilitating common
activity, been of such immense advantage for the maintenance of species.
[409]
It goes without saying that any work which necessitates the co-
operation of several workers must be executed with greater efficiency the
more closely the individuals follow to a common rhythm.
There is no doubt, therefore, that, as Spencer remarks, the incompetence
of the Arab and Nubian boatmen on the Nile is chiefly a result of their
inability to act together. As an Arab dragoman is reported to have said, a
few Europeans would, by virtue only of their superior powers of co-
operation, do in a few minutes what now occupies hundreds of men.[410]
Such an incapacity for concerted action is, however, quite exceptional
among the lower tribes of men. Some tribes, as e.g. the farmer Negroes in
West Africa and the Malay and Polynesian boatmen, are even famous for
the wonderful regularity of their work.[411] This regularity, on the other
hand, has been explained by all travellers as a result of the rhythmical songs
by which their work is accompanied.
It is significant that the most typical specimens of working songs and
dances should be met with in the tribes of Oceania. The insular life, which
even in other respects has been so favourable to the development of art, has
necessitated a most intimate co-operation between individuals.[412] Hence
the development of canoe dances and boating songs, by help of which the
movements of the rowers are adjusted according to common and fixed
rhythms.[413] The same necessity has of course produced similar results, in a
greater or less degree, in every community where the type of life makes
collective action needful. It has not given rise to any important
manifestations of art among the pastoral tribes, in which individuals can do
well enough without help from each other. In agricultural societies, on the
other hand, it has called forth those sowing and harvest dances or songs
which are so familiar in the folklore of the civilised nations.[414] And, more
than any other of life’s occupations, war has required an active coherence
between the individual members of the tribe. The influence of military
institutions on art is, however, in more than one respect so important that its
treatment must be reserved for a special chapter.

CHAPTER XIX
ART AND WAR
In the Principles of Sociology Mr. Spencer has devoted some of his most
forcible paragraphs to a treatment of the social influences of war. By
adducing and comparing with each other types of social life among
different tribes, he has been able to show how military customs everywhere
tend to reduce the individual liberty and strengthen the central power.[415]
Many other writers on sociology have perceived and commented on the
truism that the internal coherence of tribes has been chiefly produced by the
need of combination for defensive purposes.[416] But perhaps sufficient
attention has not been paid to the share which art has had in the
development of those peculiarities which are common to all military
nations. And yet as a means of facilitating tribal unity of action and feeling,
music and dance must be of exceptional sociological importance in warlike
communities.[417]
We shall therefore meet with highly developed choral dances in those
nations in whose life war is a customary occurrence. The North American
Indians,[418] as well as the Dahomeyans,[419] are noted for the soldier-like
regularity of their dances. But nowhere among the lower tribes of mankind
is the time-sense so refined as among the pre-eminently warlike Maori.
Notwithstanding the furious movements in their war dances, the
gesticulation of all the participants is always uniform and regular.[420]
According to Cruise the very slightest motions of their fingers are
simultaneous;[421] and, if we are to believe Mr. Bidwill, even their eyes all
move together.[422] Highly accomplished dancers as are certain other
Polynesian tribes[423] less warlike than the Maori, it will be admitted that
such a pitch of more than Prussian precision would never have been
attained if it were not for its military advantages. To the same cause one is
also tempted to ascribe the regularity of the Kaffir dances,[424] which by
their choral character stand in so marked a contrast to the amusements of

the neighbour tribe, the peaceful Hottentots, among whom every dancer
acts “separately for himself.”[425]
It is evident that a regular co-operation in fighting is effectually promoted
by rhythmical music. And we do in fact find that music, especially
instrumental music, at the lower stages of development is closely connected
with war.[426] It is, however, more natural to assume that military music,
and similarly military poetry and dance, have had their chief importance not
as regulating but as stimulating influences. There are many tribes which
seem quite unable to observe any kind of military discipline. But even in
the undeveloped and unmethodical warfare of the lowest savages, music,
songs, and dances have been used as means of infusing courage and
strength. The psychology of these military stimuli is of course the same as
that of industrial art. But the general principles appear with far greater
clearness when applied to this peculiar kind of activity.
First of all, the need of stimulation is never so great as when a man has to
risk his life in an open battle. If in work he has to overcome his natural
inertia, laziness, he has here to overcome the still stronger obstacle of fear.
Contrary to the romantic notions of popular literature, primitive man seems
to be timorous rather than brave when not encouraged by adventitious
excitement.[427] This cowardice can, however, to a great extent be explained
by defective military organisation. Where the mutual support which the
well-drilled soldiers of a regular army render each other is lacking, the need
of personal courage is of course so much the greater. Civilised warfare tries
to avoid the conflict between the instinct of self-preservation and of a
soldier’s duty by the pressure of strict discipline; savage warfare, which
cannot count on the same forces of submission and mental control, is
compelled to minimise this conflict by deadening the consciousness of
peril. Hence the indispensability of some means of producing violent
excitement by which the necessary forgetfulness of danger and death may
be attained.[428]
Apart from the influence of fear, the task of slaughter is one which, from
its very nature, cannot be performed in cold blood. Even where the element
of danger is absent, as when unarmed foes are killed or tortured, the savage
executioners do not generally get to work straight away. As soon as a
beginning has been made, a sort of intoxication will indeed be produced by

mental as well as physical agencies, such as the sight of blood or the pride
of conquest. But this intoxication, so eagerly desired by savages in civilised
as well as in primitive communities, cannot be produced even in the lowest
tribes of man without a preliminary working up. The passion of cruelty, like
that of love, is, in its higher and more ecstatic forms, too overwhelming in
its mental effects to be attained without an artificial enhancement of
psychical capacity. But whereas the erotic feelings tend with growing
development to become more and more a private matter, cruelty is among
warlike tribes an emotion of national importance. The incitement to
slaughter is therefore apt to become social—that is, common to several
individuals at once. This is one of the reasons why war is of so much
greater importance than love as a motive for tribal art.
There are some tribes in which the soldiers try to acquire courage and
thirst for blood by magical expedients, such as smearing themselves with
some powerful unguent, or eating the raw meat of a newly slaughtered ox.
[429]
Sometimes a joint tattooing of the whole corps with a common pattern
is undertaken, most probably for the same magical purpose.[430] But
however effectually such ceremonies may be supposed to operate, savages
do not generally put so much trust in them as to give up their favourite
means of stimulation—music and dancing. In people who sincerely believe
in their own magic any rite will of course arouse increased confidence and
courage. But this suggestive influence is only indirect in comparison with
the immediate psychological effects of inciting dances.
Popular novels have familiarised us all with the weird war dances which
play such an important part in the warfare of the North American Indians.
In its main features this type of pantomimic incitement is the same
everywhere—among the African and Oceanic tribes as well as among the
savage nations described in classic literature.[431] By imitating the
movements of a real fight, by exulting cries, deafening noise, and
brandishing of weapons, the dancers work themselves up to a pitch of
frenzy which cannot be compared to anything but a transient madness.
Especially among the nations of America war dances often arouse so much
excitement, even when performed during times of perfect peace, that they
become dangerous to friendly and peaceful onlookers.[432] Here also—just
as in the Hungarian “Enlistment”—dancing is used as a means of enticing

men to join the ranks of the war chief who wants recruits for some war-
expedition.[433]
It is evident that the influence of such pantomimes is not restricted to a
generalised stimulation and encouragement. These sham fights, just as the
sportive imitations of work, must facilitate the execution of those
movements which they imitate. And even those who do not join the dance
will profit by watching the evolutions which they themselves will
afterwards be called on to perform in reality. Thus there may originally
have been a very utilitarian reason for the curious warfare of the
Headhunters of Ceram, who always have the Jakalele dance performed in
front of their fighting line. It is pathetic to read that even in their wars with
the Dutchmen a few fantastically dressed dancers head the advance against
the repeating guns of the European force.[434]
This fact, which is certainly not without its parallels in other savage
tribes, gives the most convincing proof of the indispensability of
pantomimic stimulation to savage warfare. Although less intimately
connected with fighting itself, poetry has had for war an importance which
can scarcely be estimated at a much lower rate. Words, of course, can never
provoke such a direct and almost physiological stimulation as the imitation
of actions. But words, on the other hand, have a greater effect on the mind.
The suggestive power of the war songs is also attested by the descriptions
of travellers among various tribes. In Australia, for instance, four or five
mischievously inclined old women can soon stir up forty or fifty men to any
deed of blood by means of their chants, which are accompanied by tears
and groans, until the men are worked into a perfect state of frenzy.[435] “The
savage blood of the Ahts always boiled when the war songs were recited,
their fingers worked convulsively on the paddles, and their eyes gleamed
ferociously; altogether they were two hundred murderous-looking
villains.”[436] In Ashanti and in New Zealand—in short, amongst all the
most warlike tribes—the military singers are able to bring themselves and
their audience up to a pitch of frenzy which is almost equal to that produced
by the dances.[437]
In one of the preceding chapters we have already pointed out how
invaluable a support historic art has given to national pride. This feeling, on
the other hand, is never so indispensable as in time of war. Wherever a tribe

has any traditions of its past history, such traditions are always revived and
recited to the soldiers before and during the battles.[438] And if a people has
no glorious ancestors to boast of, it can none the less gain the necessary
confidence by glorifying its own valour and reviling its enemies. Even
tribes like the Bakairis, for example, are thus able to “sing themselves full
of courage” in boasting and defiant exultation.[439]
According to competent observers, such songs are more particularly
employed when the natives are afraid.[440] The expression of bravery, even
if originally affected, must necessarily awaken some real feeling of pride or
confidence. Contempt, on the other hand, however laboriously worked up,
is the most effectual means of preserving equanimity under the stress of
depressing feelings, admiration, envy, or fear. Songs and pantomimes, such
as, for instance, those with which the Polynesians invariably begin their
battles, must therefore have a great power of emboldening the warriors.[441]
And while such outward shows of valour enable the performers to
reconquer their courage, the enemy is intimidated by these manifestations
of a feeling which is as yet incipient within themselves. In warfare, where
the hostile armies stand within sight and hearing of each other, this
consideration must of course be of extreme importance.
It seems, indeed, as if natural selection had developed in man an almost
instinctive tendency to overcome fear by simulating the expressions proper
to valour and menace. Just as animals, when frightened, make themselves
bigger and more formidable to their enemies, whether from fear or anger we
know not, so man tries to awaken fear in the enemy confronting him at the
same time, and by the same means, as he vanquishes his own fear. This
appears with especial clearness in wars between savage races, where both
sides often seem to be as timid as they try to appear formidable and
courageous. Their threats and boastings are terrifying enough, but the real
fights are very bloodless and free from danger. Among the Cammas “the
words really seem to do more damage than the blows.”[442] The gallant
game of bluff is in primitive politics not restricted to diplomatic
negotiations; it plays an important part in the actual fighting. This remains
true even with regard to tribes which are capable of real courage, not only
in stealthy assault, but also in open battle. The Maorian military
pantomimes afford the best example of such a manifestation, which not

only stimulates the warriors to fight and regulates their movements in the
battle, but also, as a European traveller has been compelled to admit,
“strikes terror into the heart of any man.”[443] In this case the terrible effect
is further strengthened by the hideous grimaces, rolling of the eyes,
protruding of the tongue, and so on, with which the warriors accompany
their dance.[444] So important is this distortion of the countenance
considered by the Maoris, that instruction in the art of grimacing forms a
part in their military education.[445] The most warlike of savage tribes thus
does not despise the naïve expedient which constitutes almost the sole
means of self-defence among peaceful Eskimos.[446] And so highly do the
Maoris appreciate the terrifying effects of the protruded tongue, that they
carve the grimace upon their spears, the “hanis,” evidently in the belief that
such representations will—perhaps by some magic power—demoralise the
enemy.[447]
This pictorial pantomime brings us to the employment of formative arts
in war. To some extent even painting, especially in its decorative branches,
may be considered as a means of exhortation. The various decorations of
the body which are usually adopted for fighting no doubt raise the courage
of their wearers. A festival dress, when assumed for battle—for example, by
the Khonds—must needs bring with it a light and festive mood.[448] The red
colour, so often used in military dress, tends, on the other hand, to arouse
increased vigour by direct physiological as well as by associative action.
[449]
Perhaps also, as some old authors suggest, the use of red may have had
a negative importance by concealing the wounds and the blood, which else
might depress the men and encourage their enemies.[450] Like every
beautiful thing, highly ornamented weapons will afford their owners an
invigorating feeling of pride, which, however,—to judge from the unheroic
character of many tribes whose weapons are most gorgeously decorated,—
does not seem to be of any great military advantage.[451]
Military ensigns, such as banners, standards, and the like, will naturally,
as outward symbols of the tribe, exercise an exciting influence on the
warriors. Even for barbarous nations, with their undeveloped feelings of
patriotism, in the modern sense of the word, a flag may represent la patrie
en marche. Well knowing the moral value of these apparently unimportant
things, the Aztecs employed in their army men whose only task was “to

remove from the eyes of the enemy every object that could heighten their
courage and inflame their pride.”[452]
The importance of field badges is of course increased when, as generally
is the case, they are adorned with some religious or magical representation.
Be it a tutelar saint, a heathen god, or simply a totem animal, which is
depicted, these images will always be relied upon as a strong support to the
army.[453] The marvellous tales of assistance afforded by idols which have
been carried in the front of battle may of course have some real foundation
in the encouraging mental effects produced upon the warriors.
It thus appears that ornaments, painting, and sculpture have been of no
small influence in enhancing the fighting powers of warlike nations. Among
the lower tribes of man these arts are, however, on the whole much more
appreciated as means of frightening the enemy. As was mentioned in a
preceding chapter, some bodily deformations are, if we may believe the
natives, undertaken solely for this purpose.[454] Other warlike tribes
endeavour to make themselves dreaded by their enemies by staining their
bodies with ghastly colours, blood-red, azure, or black. Tattooing may, of
course, often aim at the same end. And among the detached ornaments there
is an especial class—for which the German ethnologists have invented the
characteristic designation “Schreckschmuck”—which are only worn in
order to make the appearance more frightful. The war helmets of the
Thlinkeets[455] and the curious tooth masks of the Papuas are the most
typical specimens of this pre-eminently warlike decoration.[456]
The highest development of art as a means of terrifying is, however, to be
found in the decorated shields of the Dyaks. No form of pictorial threat
could be more effectual than the devices which ornament the face of these
ghastly weapons. A grinning mouth, with sharp tusks in either jaw, is
always to be found in the middle of the shield. Above it stand a pair of
staring, circular eyes, usually surrounded by dark and light concentric rings.
Sometimes also there is a highly simplified outline of the lower parts of the
body. The trunk is completely ignored, and arms and legs are quite
swamped in a bewilderment of entangled lines, which extend over the
whole surface of the shield. But in this ornamentation the warlike motive is
repeated over and over again. Tusks protrude from the scrolls, and big
round eyes stare menacingly out between them. Thus even the decorative

“padding” (Einfüllung) operates as a multiplied expression of defiant
menace. As an eloquent commentary on this text the whole shield is
furthermore hung with tufts of human hair,—trophies of vanquished
enemies,—which partly conceal the brown, red, and black design.[457] The
whole composition, which in a description may seem merely bizarre and
brutal, is, however, executed with a severe symmetry and a wild grace
which afford a most peculiar contrast to the weird motive. By these æsthetic
qualities the ornamentation acquires an art-value which is quite independent
of its supposed military advantages. One can indeed easily understand that
the savage foes of the Dyaks may be paralysed with terror when confronted
in battle with those glaring eyes and menacing jaws. But even the civilised
observer who examines at his ease the shields which stand in the glass cases
of ethnological collections must needs be impressed by their power. Though
they do not frighten us, they are not, as might be expected, mere examples
of ridiculous grimace. They still extort our admiration for that weird kind of
beauty which, in primitive art as well as in animal warning colorationn, is
so often found in close connection with the feelings of terror.
We have deemed it profitable to dwell at some length on these
remarkable products of savage decorative art. The demon shields of the
Dyaks, in spite of the fact that their motives have evidently been borrowed
from Chinese and Indian art,[458] are eminently representative of the nation
and its social milieu. These wild men of the woods have been able to
express in their ornamental composition, better than would have been
possible in any higher form of art, all the intense feelings of their wild
romantic life. The terror and intoxication of slaughter, as they are
experienced in a tribe for which furtive murder is the holiest of all religious
actions, speak their violent language in the glaring patterns. But at the same
time the elegant design, which is so characteristic a peculiarity of the
shields, as well as of every other specimen of Dyak art, corresponds to the
graceful and elegant personal appearance which, according to the
unanimous verdict of all travellers, distinguishes these fierce savages.[459]
And it seems as if this gracefulness, no less than the weird emotional
content of the pictures, may be derived from the custom of head-hunting.
The continuous insecurity which has given its own character even to the
Dyak architecture[460] has of course not been without its influence on the
physical development of the tribe itself. Where assault from insidious

enemies is always to be expected, and where the type of fighting is single
combat, lightness and suppleness of movement must be indispensable for
the struggle for existence. We can, therefore, easily understand how these
people have acquired that natural grace which similar utilitarian causes
have developed among all mountainous animals, and among most beasts of
prey.[461] Nor is it difficult to comprehend that this beauty of the human
body, once called into existence by natural selection, must have awakened
æsthetic attention to form and grace, and thus indirectly influenced even the
manifestations of ornamental art.
If it be objected that such sociological explanations of decorative patterns
are too far-fetched, we at once refer to the marvellous Maori ornaments, in
which the temperament of another warlike tribe has found a most
characteristic expression. Like the fantastic convolutions on the Dyak
shields, the flaming scrolls of black and red which extend over the ceilings
and walls of the Maori houses unmistakably attest their origin from a nation
which war has made violent, vigorous, and intensely energetic.[462]
Generally speaking, it may be futile to seek for any differentiated
expressional qualities in such an impersonal and unemotional art as that of
linear ornament. But in face of these powerful designs even the most neutral
observer will be struck with the strong emotional exaltation which has here
found a vent, not in words, or sounds, or images, but in pure lines and
colours. Such mighty strokes, so full of life and agitation, could never have
been drawn by any peaceful and quiet natives. The velocity and the wild
inspiration of these patterns are only possible in a nation which has
experienced in continuous fights an ever-repeated state of high-strung
emotional excitement.
The more official Maori decorative art, the Moko, as well as the Maori
sculpture, probably because of their close connection with religion, are too
rigid in their traditional character to admit of any strongly pronounced
emotional content. But the influence of warlike exaltation has instead made
itself felt in the poetical productions of the race. And, as has already been
pointed out, but for the military type of life dancing could not have reached
so marvellous a degree of development. Owing to the more organised
character of Maori warfare, military customs do not, as among the Dyaks,
aim chiefly at producing suppleness and graceful movements in the
individual. But one has only to read the enthusiastic descriptions of the

painter Earle in order to realise the influence which military customs have
even here exercised on the development of plastic beauty.[463]
The Dyaks and Maoris are but two of the most typical among savage
tribes whose artistic productions have grown up under the auspices of war.
For a complete account of art in its connection with war it would be
necessary to dwell on the war songs of the North American Indians,[464] to
give some account of the art-style which is found in the military despotisms
of Western Africa,[465] and to describe in detail the poetry which has been
called into existence by the continuous tribal feuds of the North African
nomadic hordes.[466] In its broad aspects, however, the æsthetic importance
of war will, we hope, appear with sufficient clearness from the cursory
review which has been given above.
We have seen that war, as the hardest form of the struggle for life, has
needed, more than any other kind of work, the support which æsthetic
stimulation affords to practical activities. And the art which has developed
under its influence has, to a greater degree than is usual in primitive
production, fulfilled the conditions of emotional community and emotional
intensity. Moreover, the requirements of fighting have called forth æsthetic
qualities of power and gracefulness in the physical type which seem to be
reflected even in artistic creation. Thus the art-production of military tribes
has everywhere, independently of racial and climatic influences, acquired
some common qualities; their decorative arts, as well as their poetry and
dramatic dances, are always characterised by an intense and forcible life,
which is often combined with dignified power and graceful elegance.
All these are, of course, only restricted merits, which correspond to some
striking deficiencies. It is easily understood that art-life in a military state of
society always tends to be circumscribed within the narrow boundaries of
tribal sympathy. It may also be pointed out, at least as a curious and
significant coincidence, that descriptive and figurative art, in the sense of
realistic, faithful rendering of nature and life, has never attained any high
development among the most military tribes. Such a sympathetic interest in
the picturesque qualities of the human and animal body as that which
characterises the art of the prehistoric European cave-dwellers, the
Bushmen, and the Eskimo, does not seem compatible with the customs of
war. In this connection it is not our business to estimate critically the

comparative importance of these merits and deficiencies: we have only to
point out the undeniable significance which, from an historical point of
view, must be accorded to war as a factor in the development of art.

CHAPTER XX
ART AND MAGIC
Sympathetic magic has in recent times become a favourite subject of
scientific study. We may therefore proceed to trace the influence which this
important factor has exercised on the development of art-forms without
going through the labour of presenting and describing the evidence of its
occurrence at the different stages of evolution. It is sufficient to refer to the
copious and detailed researches of Hartland, Frazer, Béranger-Féraud, and
others. What we need is only a psychological interpretation of all the facts
which have been brought together by these authors.
The instances of sympathetic magic are naturally divided into two main
classes, which, broadly speaking, correspond to the two types of
association. But just as in psychology it is often difficult to decide whether
a given associative process has its origin in a relation of contiguity or in one
of similarity, so it is often an open question to which group a given
superstition is to be assigned. It may even be possible to deduce both
groups from one common and fundamental magical principle.
However the definitive theoretical explanation may turn out, we have for
the present to uphold a distinction between the two forms. And in order to
start from the facts that are simpler and easier to explain, we shall first
devote our attention to sympathetic magic based on a material connection
between things.
The superstitious notions which can be brought together under this
heading are familiar to every one. There is scarcely a single book on
ethnology or folklore which does not present some illustrations of the belief
that by acting upon a part of a given whole we may influence this whole as
well as all its other parts. This universal doctrine of a solidarity between the
things that have entered as parts in the same material totality has given rise
all over the world to beliefs and practices which, although varying in
details, are essentially similar in general character. We need only refer to the
well-known folk-beliefs as to the necessity of caution in disposing of

clippings of hair or nails, of saliva, or anything else removed from the
human body. Such objects, it is supposed, would give any enemy into
whose hands they might fall the power of injuring through them the person
from whom they had proceeded.[467] Almost equally universal is the belief
that close relatives, as being ingredients in—or perhaps rather partakers of
—the same whole, the family, are bound together in a quite material
solidarity of suffering. From the sociological point of view this group of
superstitions, owing to the social importance of the last-mentioned totality,
is of especial interest; and therefore the curious customs concerning the
relation between a father and his unborn child, between husband and wife,
ancestors and descendants, etc., which no doubt are all based on the idea of
a material connection, have been treated of with due completeness in
sociological literature.[468] Equally valuable for the psychological
interpretation, although less pregnant with social import, are all the petty
tricks of sorcery in connection with hunting, fishing, agriculture, and so on,
which are practised even now among most European nations.[469] From the
array of facts inserted by Mr. Hartland in his monumental commentary on
the Legend of Perseus, we can form an opinion of the wide and deep-going
influences which the belief in magical connection between things materially
connected has exercised in all departments of life. And besides this
ethnological apparatus, Mr. Hartland gives us in this work a most complete
and definite account of the world-view which lies behind all these
superstitious beliefs and practices.
More light, however, is thrown on the philosophy of this superstition by
the researches of M. Rochas d’Aiglun than by any work on scientific
ethnology and folklore. This is not said in order to detract in any way from
the merits of Messrs. Hartland and Frazer. But although nothing could
surpass the erudition of these scholars, they could not, in point of
sympathetic and intelligent representation, stand on a level with an author
who himself believes in the reality of his facts. For those, therefore, who
wish to understand the motives, conscious or unconscious, by which the
adepts of sympathetic magic justify their practices, nothing could be more
instructive than a perusal of L’extériorisation de la motricité and
L’extériorisation de la sensibilité. In these works M. Rochas has not only
minutely summarised the seventeenth century theories and observations of
Digby and Papin:[470] he has also supplemented these old “facts” with his

own experiments on objects that have been saturated with sensibility and
motor power by contact with living bodies. The power of relics, love
philtres, and charms is thus explained in a way which, however fantastic, is
nevertheless undeniably consistent and methodical.[471] A savage or an
uneducated man would indeed be unable to put his case in the logical form
which M. Rochas gives it. But if he understood scientific terminology, he
would doubtless ratify, as a true interpretation of his own vague
conceptions, the theory of sensitive and motor effluvia which emanate from
all living beings, and link them to all objects to which they may pass. As a
bona fide statement of magic principles in the language of modern
psychology and modern physics, M. Rochas’ works bring the old
superstitions home to us with unsurpassable force. We learn here to
appreciate the powerful influence which may in all times be exercised by
the underlying belief in an invisible magical chain connecting things which
appear to be severed. When we see a man of modern civilisation falling
back upon these crude notions, which appeared for a long time to be quite
forgotten, we must needs be convinced that the world-view of magic,
however erroneous, is, so to speak, a constitutional fallacy of the human
mind. In every department of human ethos, therefore, there is reason to look
for the possible effects of these conceptions.
For the present, however, we have to admit that sympathetic magic in its
simplest form seems to be without any influence on the origin of works of
art. It is very different with the second kind of magic—namely, that where
the occult influence is based upon a likeness between things.
To judge from the literature of ethnology and folklore, this principle
seems to be almost as universal as that of magic by virtue of material
connection. Its influence can be traced in beliefs and practices, not only of
the lowest savages, but also of civilised nations. It has received elaborate
theoretical justification in the old systems of Greek philosophy, in the
theories of Agrippa and Paracelsus, and in the tenets of modern
homœopaths. And there are even some real facts, such as the beneficial
effects of inoculation and the “katharsis” action of poetry—the curing of
sorrow by tragedy—which are sometimes quoted in support of the thesis
that “like affects like.”[472] Apart from all regard to such spurious arguments
the theory of this form of magic is scarcely less irrational than that
underlying the first group of facts. From our point of view, however, even

the crudest forms of “homœopathic” magic are of far greater interest than
the examples of sorcery by means of material connection. Whereas the
adepts of the latter need only procure a nail, a tuft of hair, or a few articles
of clothing belonging to the man they wish to bewitch, the sorcerer who
works by similarities is compelled to create a representation of things and
beings in order to acquire an influence over them. Thus magical purposes
call forth imitations of nature and life which, although essentially non-
æsthetic in their intention, may nevertheless be of importance for the
historical evolution of art.
To how great an extent works of art derive their material from old
magical practices, the real meaning of which has gradually fallen into
oblivion, may be shown in all the various departments of art. There is not a
single form of imitation which has not been more or less influenced by this
principle. Pantomimic representation, which for us is of value only in virtue
of its intellectual or emotional expressiveness, was in lower stages of
culture used as a magical expedient. Even a single gesture may, according
to primitive notions, bring about effects corresponding to its import,[473]
and a complete drama is sincerely believed to cause the actual occurrence
of the action which it represents. Students of folklore know that there is
practically no limits to the effects which primitive man claims to produce
by magical imitation. He draws the rain from heaven by representing in
dance and drama the appropriate meteorological phenomena.[474] He
regulates the movements of the sun and encourages it in the labour of its
wanderings by his dramatic sun-rituals;[475] and he may even influence the
change of the seasons by dramas in which he drives winter away and brings
summer in.[476] By those phallic rites to which we have already referred in
the chapter on erotic art, he tries in the same way to act upon the great
biological phenomena of human life.[477] And again, when sickness is to be
cured, he tries to subdue the demons of disease—to neutralise their action
or to entice them out of the body of the patient—by imitating in pantomime
the symptoms of the particular complaint.[478] Finally, when the assistance
of a divine power is required, the god himself may be conjured to take his
abode in the body of the performer, who imitates what is believed to be his
appearance, movements, and behaviour.[479] Thus the belief in the effectual
power of imitation has all over the world given rise to common dramatic

motives as universal as the belief itself, and uniform as the chief
requirements of mankind.
There are, no doubt, many instances of dramatic ritual the purpose of
which is as yet a matter of discussion. With regard to some of the symbolic
dances representing hunting or fishing or the movements of game-animals,
much may be said in favour of Mr. Farrer’s view that the object of the
pantomime is to make clearer to the deity a prayer regarding the things
imitated.[480] Similarly it is open to doubt whether the dramatic
performances at initiation ceremonies, such as, for instance, the kangaroo
dance described by Collins, are meant to impart instruction concerning the
customs of the animals to the novitiates, or to confer upon them a magic
power over the game.[481] In the therapeutic practices of primitive tribes we
may find still more puzzling points of controversy. The sucking cure, for
instance, by which the medicine-man pretends to extract from the patient
the cause of his illness in the form of some small object—a pebble, a tuft of
hair, or the like—may be, as Professor Tylor thinks, a mere “knavish
trick.”[482] But it is also possible, we believe, that, at least originally, it may
have been performed as a bona fide magic, based upon the notion of the
efficacy of vehicles and symbolic action. The method of restoring sick
people and sick cattle to health by pulling them through a narrow opening,
for instance, in a tree, which has been explained by most authors as a case
of magical transference by contact—i.e. transference of the disease from the
patient and of the vital power represented by the tree to him[483]—ought,
according to the brilliant hypothesis of Professor Nyrop, to be considered as
a magically symbolic representation of regeneration.[484]
While leaving undecided all these subtle questions, each of which would
require a chapter of its own in order to be definitively treated, we have only
to maintain the great probability which stands on the side of the dramatic
interpretation. However fantastic the belief in a magical connection
between similar things may appear at the outset, a continued ethnological
study must needs convince every one of its incalculable importance in the
life of primitive man. And such a conviction can only become confirmed by
an examination of the influence which this superstition has exercised on the
formative arts.

The belief in picture magic is evinced by its negative as well as by its
positive results. All over the world we meet with the fear of being depicted.
In so far as this superstition has given rise to a prohibition of painting and
sculpture, it has thus seriously arrested the development of art. But, on the
other hand, the same notion has commonly called forth pictorial
representation, the aim of which is to gain a power over the things and
beings represented. Most frequent, perhaps, of all these specimens of
magical art are the volts, i.e. those dolls and drawings used for bewitching,
which are spoken of as early as in the ancient Chaldean incantations, which
are used by the majority of savage tribes, and which may incidentally be
found even now among the European nations.[485] But owing to their
necessarily clandestine character these charms have never exercised any
important influence on the pictorial art. More important, from the historical
point of view, than these black and cryptic arts is the white magic by which
social benefits are pursued. Just as the principal forms of magical drama
correspond to the chief requirements of mankind, so the most important
magical sculptures and paintings are found in connection with agricultural
rites,[486] the observances of hunting and fishing,[487] medical practices,[488]
and ceremonies for removing sterility.[489] And in the same way as dramatic
representation, but with far greater efficacy, pictorial representation has
been able to satisfy the highest material as well as spiritual requirement by
bringing the deity in concrete relation with man through the sympathetic
force of the image. The art of conjuring a spirit to take its abode in what is
believed to be a counterfeit of its corresponding body has thus given rise to
the fashioning of idols and the subsequent adoring of them. Although
essentially the same as in the simple medical cures and the practices of
sorcery, pictorial magic has in these cases of idol-making exercised a more
far-reaching and thorough influence on mankind than in any of its other
manifestations.
We need not dwell at any length on the superstitions connected with
poetic or literary descriptions of things. The universal objection to the
mentioning of proper names is evidently based upon a belief in the efficacy
of words. And, on the other hand, this same belief lies behind the equally
universal use of incantations. Songs that are sung in order to facilitate the
labour of workers and to increase the result of it, poems that aim at
conjuring the favour of a hard-hearted or indifferent woman, charms for

invoking or expelling spirits, and medical spells,—all these forms of poetic
magic are too familiar to be more than mentioned.
From the point of view of the civilised observer the above-quoted
examples of dramatic, pictorial, and poetic magic may seem to have an
obvious and ready explanation. A work of art always gives to the spectator,
and no doubt also to the creator, an illusion of reality. As, moreover,
primitive man is notoriously unable to distinguish between subjective and
objective reality, it seems natural to assume that it is the mental illusion
created by his work which makes the magician believe that he has acquired
a power over the things represented by it. And this assumption is all the
more tempting because even to civilised, enlightened man there is
something magical in the momentary satisfaction which art affords to all
our unfulfilled longings by its semblance of reality. Strong desire always
creates for itself an imaginary gratification which easily leads the uncritical
mind to a belief in the power of will over the external world. The whole of
art-creation may thus be looked upon as an embodiment of the greatest
wishes of mankind, which have sought the most convincing appearance of
their fulfilment in the form and shape of objective works. What is in us a
conscious and intentional self-deception, may be in the unsophisticated man
a real illusion. The main psychological aspects of the activity could not be
changed by these different subjective attitudes on the part of the producer.
The essential point is that in both cases the greatest possible resemblance to
the original would be sought for in order to increase in the one case the
magical efficacy of the work, in the other the pleasure to be derived from
the illusion. The belief in a magical connection between similar things
would thus exercise an incalculable influence on the growth of realism in
art. But, unfortunately, this easy explanation is not corroborated by an
impartial examination of the lower stages of art-development. The
statement of M. Guaita as to the volt, Plus la ressemblance est complète
plus le maléfice a chance de réussir,[490] does not appear to be borne out by
the evidence. The only instance we know of in which greater or less
resemblance to the model is thought of as bearing on the magical efficacy
of a painting is that of the East Indian artists. We are told that it was in order
to evade the Mohammedan prohibition of painting that they resorted to that
style of treating nature, bordering on caricature, which is so characteristic
of, say, Javanese art.[491] Similarly it is by an appeal to their virtue of non-

resemblance that artists among the Laos defend their pictures as being
harmless and innocent.[492] But such references to barbaric or semi-barbaric
art do not tell us much about the conditions prevailing at the beginning of
art-development. The primitive man who avails himself of dolls and
drawings in order to bewitch is generally quite indifferent to the life-like
character of his magical instruments. The typical volt gives only a crude
outline of the human body, and, which is most remarkable, it does not
display any likeness to the man who is to be bewitched. As a rule the same
vagueness can also be noticed in the paintings and sculptures which serve
the aims of medical cure and religious cultus. With due allowance for the
deficient technical ability and the naïve suggestibility of primitive man, it
seems hard to believe that illusion could have been either intended or
effected by the rude works of pictorial magic. Thus it becomes doubtful
whether the belief in the magical power of painting and sculpture can have
been based upon a confusion between subjective and objective reality.
This doubt can only be increased when we see how little confidence
primitive men themselves put in the mere likeness as such. When M.
Rochas produced his modern imitations of the volt, he was always anxious
to have his wax dolls sufficiently saturated by contact with the person over
whom they were intended to give him power.[493] And in this he closely
followed the methods of the native sorcerers, who generally tried to
increase the efficiency of their magical instruments by attaching to them
such objects as nail-cuttings, locks of hair, or pieces of cloth belonging to
the man to be bewitched.[494] In the making of idols we can often observe
the same principle. The statue itself is not sacred by virtue of its form; it
acquires divine power only by being put in material connection with the
deity. The most obvious example is that of the West African Negroes, who,
when they wish to transplant the wood deity from his original home to their
towns and villages, build up a wooden doll of branches taken from the tree
in which he lives.[495] The god is certainly supposed to feel a special
temptation to take up his abode in the idol made in his own likeness; but it
is evident that the material link established by the choice of the wood is
thought of as being of no less, perhaps even of greater, importance than the
resemblance. The same close and inseparable combination of magic by
connection and magic by similarity meets us in the ancestor statues of New
Guinea, which contain the skull of the dead in hollows inside their head.

[496]
And although the procedure is more indirect, the underlying thought is
nevertheless the same in the curious practices found, e.g., on the island of
Nias. The spirit of the deceased is here conducted to his statue by means of
some small animal which has been found in the neighbourhood of his grave.
[497]
In none of these examples—which might be supplemented by
analogous instances from various tribes—do we see any hint of that manner
of regarding statues and paintings which prevails among civilised men.
While with us the mental impression on the spectator constitutes, so to
speak, the object and the essential purport of the work of art, the magicians
and the idolaters seem to look chiefly for material power and influence in
their simulacra.
The way in which pictorial art is used for curative purposes affords us—
if further proofs are wanted—a still more telling example of the difference
between the magical and the aesthetic points of view. Nothing could be
more crude and primitive than the notions held by the Navajo with regard to
the salutary influences of their famous sand-paintings. The cure is effected,
they believe, not by the patient’s looking at the represented figures, but by
his rolling himself on them, or having the pigments of the mosaic applied to
the corresponding parts of his own body. The more of the sacred sand he
can thus attach to his body, the more complete is his recovery.[498] Among
other tribes at the same stage of development as the Navajos the prevailing
views are almost equally materialistic.[499] And even among the barbaric
and semi-civilised peoples, although we do not meet with quite as gross
superstitions, the fundamental idea of pictorial magic appears often to be
the same. The power of a painting or a sculpture is thought of as something
which is quite independent of its mental effects upon the spectator. That
interpretation of sympathetic magic, therefore, which to us seemed most
natural, cannot possibly be applied to its lower forms.
As the concepts by which primitive man justifies to himself his beliefs
and practices are naturally vague and hazy, it may seem futile to attempt to
reconstruct his reasoning. Nothing final or definite can be asserted on so
obscure a topic. But we may legitimately discuss the most consistent and
most probable way in which to account for the various forms of
sympathetic magic. And with regard to this question of probabilities we
may rely to some extent upon the illustrative and suggestive analogies to

primitive thought which can be found in scientific philosophies. For it is
evident that a philosophical doctrine, if it fits in with the facts of primitive
superstition, may be explanatory of those vague and latent notions which,
without logical justification or systematical arrangement, lie in the mind of
the magician and the idolater. Such a doctrine is presented to us in the
familiar emanation-theories, according to which every image of a thing
constitutes a concrete part of that thing itself. According to the clear and
systematic statement of this doctrine given by the old Epicurean
philosophers, shadows, reflections in a mirror, visions, and even mental
representations of distant objects, are all caused by thin membranes, which
continually detach themselves from the surface of all bodies and move
onward in all directions through space.[500] If there are such things as
necessary misconceptions, this is certainly one. Such general facts of
sensuous experience as reflection, shadow, and mirage will naturally appear
as the result of a purely material decortication—as in a transfer picture.[501]
How near at hand this theory may lie even to the modern mind appears
from the curious fact that such a man as Balzac fell back upon it when
attempting to explain the newly-invented daguerreotype, that most
marvellous of all image-phenomena.[502]
To the primitive mind it is only natural to apply this reasoning even to
artificial images. Whether the likeness of a thing is fashioned by nature in
water or air, or whether it be made by man, it is in both cases thought of as
depriving the thing itself of some part of its substance. Such a notion, which
cannot surprise us when met with among the lower savages, seems to have
been at the bottom of even the Mohammedan prohibition of the formative
arts.[503] It is evident that, wherever images are explained in this crude
manner, magic by similarity in reality becomes merely a case of magic by
contiguity.
The materialistic thought which lies behind the belief in a solidarity
between similar things appears nowhere so clearly as within the department
of pictorial magic. But we believe that its influence can also be traced in all
the other superstitions regarding sympathetic causation. In spite of that
feeling of superiority so common in nations which have no leaning towards
formative arts, poetical and musical magic in its lower forms is founded on
quite as crude a conception as any idolatry or pictorial sorcery. It would

indeed be unnatural if the theory of corporeal emanations had not been
applied to acoustic as well as to optical phenomena. To the unscientific
mind sounds and reverberations are something quite synonymous with
sights and reflections. The sounds connected with the impression of a being,
thing, or phenomenon will therefore be conceived as being a part of the
being, thing, or phenomenon itself. To these easily-explained notions there
are to be added the peculiar superstitions entertained with regard to a class
of sounds which are only associated with things, viz. their names. To the
primitive man a name literally constitutes a part of the object it denotes. The
magician may therefore get the mastery over the spirits he invokes and the
men he bewitches by merely mentioning their names.[504] In many cases a
most potent spell consists of unintelligible words, which to the conjurer
himself has no meaning at all. In other cases, although the words really
have a sense, we can easily observe that they are not used for the purpose of
creating an illusion of reality. The typical incantation may indeed in a
manner be called descriptive. The singer is anxious not to pass by any
detail, the omitting of which may be injurious to the potency of his magic.
But the result is only a sort of inventory, which seldom suggests a full and
vivid mental picture. Many of the Shaman prayers and songs show us by
their whole character that in their case at least poetical illusion has had
nothing to do with the belief in the power of words over things.[505]
Thus, according to the magical-world view, a system of material
connections links together in close solidarity things and their images,
sounds, or names. But this network of connections may even, we believe,
extend further, so as to bring into its chain of causation qualities and
actions, in short, abstract notions, which cannot be considered as material
objects possessing material parts. Just as an image which presents the figure
and shape of a given thing is conceived as a part of that thing itself, so all
things which have distinctive qualities in common may be thought of as
being parts of a common whole. As a fantastic but still natural product of
the primitive mind, there may thus appear the idea of an invisible
connection, which binds together all things similar and draws them to each
other. Vaguely and dimly even savages may have been able to anticipate in
some measure those imposing thoughts which received an organised and
consistent statement in the doctrine of universal ideas. But to primitive man

these “ideas” must appear as concrete objects and beings, exercising their
influence on phenomena in a quite material manner.
To those who are familiar with that peculiar combination of spiritual
conceptions of the world and material conceptions of the spirit which makes
up the primitive cosmology, this explanation will not appear far-fetched or
strained. But it is to be admitted that in many cases it may be difficult, or
even impossible, to lay one’s finger on the elements of magic by contiguity
which lie at the root of a given instance of imitative witchcraft. No doubt
the mental effects produced by the imitation on its creator and spectators
will in many cases contribute to the belief in its power. In the more artistic
forms of poetic magic the suggestive power of the words replaces the brute
force of their sound. And in dramatic magic an illusion, whether intended or
unintended, must necessarily affect the performers as well as their audience.
Therefore, however the psychological basis of magic may be explained, it
cannot be denied that in some of its developments magic has become
closely connected with art. The self-deceit by which we enjoy in art the
confusion between real and unreal is indeed, by its intentional character,
distinct from the illusion to which primitive man is led, more perhaps by his
deficient powers of observation than by any strength of imaginative faculty.
But still there exists a kinship, and that belief in an overlapping of the
tangible and intangible life which is fostered by magic in the lower art
affords, as it were, a premonition of the effects produced by imagination in
the higher.

CHAPTER XXI
CONCLUSIONS
There are several aspects of the history of art which have had to be
ignored in the preceding chapters. A student of ethnology, for instance, will
blame us because in our hasty review of primitive art no mention has been
made of the important influence which political institutions and religious
systems have exercised on the development of art. Nor can there be any
question of denying that these factors ought to be properly treated of in
every research which aims at a descriptive completeness. From the
historical point of view indeed nothing could be more interesting than to
pursue throughout the general history of art that line of investigation which
Mr. Posnett has applied to the study of literature. Not only in the lower
stages of culture, but also among civilised nations, one might show how in
all its forms and branches art has been influenced for good and bad by the
progress of political development. Tribal drama, tribal sculpture, and tribal
poetry might thus be instructively contrasted with the art of
commonwealths and monarchic states. Still wider results might be attained
by tracing those differences in types of art which arise from differences in
the religious systems. But such researches, however important they might
be, would not have much bearing upon the subject of the present work.
Notwithstanding the differentiation of art-forms that has arisen from the
varying political and religious conditions, we do not meet in these different
forms with any principle of art that has not been treated of already in the
preceding chapters. To explain, for instance, the art which serves as a means
of political propitiation, we need only refer to our investigation of the
æsthetic forms of sexual selection. It is true that songs, dances, and
pantomimes will necessarily change in character when addressed to a chief
or king instead of to a woman. But the purpose—to gain the favour of the
spectator—is still the same in both cases. And from this identity of purpose
there arises a general similarity between all manifestations of propitiatory
art, which, from our point of view, is more important than the individual
differences of these manifestations. As in tribes where social conditions
have favoured the development of sexual selection erotic art acquires the

distinction of attractiveness and sensuous beauty, so these qualities will also
be prominent in the songs and dances by which people endeavour to
conciliate the favour and benevolence of a mighty ruler. And as on the
lower stages of culture men attribute to their gods their own likings and
aversions, the same qualities will naturally be found to characterise those
classes of art by which worshippers pay their homage to a divine spectator.
And, finally, as a conspicuous outcome of the motive “to attract by
pleasing” we meet with a similar group of dances, songs, and pantomimes
addressed to the spirits of the deceased—those spectators whose favour or
disfavour is of paramount importance to primitive man.
Side by side with this element of propitiation we find in the artistic
manifestations connected with funeral ceremonies examples of almost all
those aspects of art to which attention has been called in the preceding
chapters. The purpose of information is represented by pictorial, poetic, or
dramatic representations in which the doings of the deceased are displayed
before the survivors.[506] The dances and songs may in many cases be
reasonably explained as aiming at a stimulation of the spirit, which
certainly needs an increase of force in order to surmount all the hardships
and the weary wanderings of its transitional life.[507] In other cases funeral
art is evidently intended to produce upon invisible enemies the same kind of
terrifying effects which have already been spoken of in connection with
military paintings and pantomimes.[508] And, lastly, it is probably in the
endeavour to exert a sympathetic influence upon the combats which the
deceased must undergo before he can attain his peace and rest that the
survivors hold magical sham-fights and tugs of war over his grave.[509]
Thus in this one branch of art we can see how each of the sociological art-
principles is of much wider applicability than has been possible to trace
within the limits of this work. But, on the other hand, the crucial instance of
funeral art shows us how even in such artistic manifestations as at the outset
appear to be quite irreducible we may by a closer investigation reveal the
influence of those general factors which have been selected for treatment in
the preceding chapters. And therefore, without entering upon a detailed
examination of all the varying forms of art, we feel entitled to hold that the
utilitarian motives of information, propitiation, stimulation, and magical
efficiency afford a sufficiently complete list—from a theoretical point of

view—of the most important non-æsthetic factors that have favoured the
development of art.

The attentive reader will probably have remarked that those very aspects
of art with which we have been engaged in the latter part of this work
broadly correspond to some of the most important interpretations of the art-
impulse offered by æsthetic theories. To give information—that is, to widen
our knowledge of nature and life; to propitiate—that is, to flatter our senses
by the display of beauty; to stimulate—that is, to heighten our vital energy,
and thus make life easier to live and life’s work easier to perform; to work
magic—that is, to produce an illusion of reality capable of leading to a
confusion between the subjective and objective world;—these are all
purposes which have been represented as essential to art. From our
summary investigation of primitive art it has, we hope, appeared how fully
we admit the close connection of these purposes with the historical
development of art. And it might be shown, if our investigation were
pursued into the later stages of development, that art on its highest plane
still bears the same relation to concrete utilities as it does on the lowest. Art
never ceases to inform, never ceases to please, never ceases to stimulate,
never loses something of a magical efficacy. But while acknowledging the
importance of all these purposes, we have, on the other hand, to maintain
the view which was set out in the psychological chapters of the opening—
that it is only by assuming an independent art-impulse that we can explain
the essential character of art. To make plain the distinction between these
two points of view it is advisable to summarise in brief the arguments of
either part of our investigation.
In the first chapters the writer attempted to show that the art-impulse in
its broadest sense must be taken as an outcome of the natural tendency of
every feeling-state to manifest itself externally, the effect of such a
manifestation being to heighten the pleasure and to relieve the pain. We
found in this fact the primary source of art as an individual impulse. But art
is essentially social; and this also we explained on psychological grounds.
The secondary effect of the exteriorisation of a feeling-state is to awaken
similar feelings in other human beings who perceive the manifestation; and

their sympathetic feeling acts upon the author of the original manifestation,
heightening in him the feeling-state which gave rise to it.
Now, all works of art have a common element notwithstanding their
diversity. They express, each in their own medium, a mood or moods of the
artist; they arise, that is, out of the impulse to expression, which is as
primitive as feeling itself. Every man seeks automatically to heighten his
feelings of pleasure and to relieve his feelings of pain. The artist is the man
who finds that he can gain such enhancement or relief, not only by the
direct action of giving expression to his feeling, but also by arousing a
kindred feeling in others. Hence originates in him that desire to transmit his
moods to an external audience which must be regarded as the simplest and
most primordial inducement to artistic production. And also as a further
means of realising the same purpose there arises the endeavour to give the
artistic product—that is to say, the externalised expression of his mood—a
form which may facilitate the revival of the original state in an ever wider
circle of sympathisers. Thus from the reflex outlet for a strong emotional
pressure we are led to a deliberate creation, in which the intellectual and
volitional elements preponderate increasingly over the automatic, emotional
impulse. But from this gain in consciousness there does not result any
change in the essential character of the artistic activity. However great the
difference between the highest forms of art, such as, for instance, a drama
or a sculpture, and the primitive dance-pantomime, the underlying impulse
is still the same in both cases. Perpetuation—that is, expression which is
addressed to a fictitious audience—can only be explained by reference to
the enhancing and relieving effects which man has experienced as results of
emotional transmission. And all the intentional activities, the artistic
composition, the artistic technique, and so on, by which perpetuation is
secured can thus be regarded as subservient to the emotionalistic purpose.
Moreover, these same activities, however unemotional they may be in
themselves, will enable the artist to extort an increased emotional value
from his “motives”; for instance, the greater a man’s skill in suggesting the
peculiar thrill of colour, the greater will be his pleasure in colour itself.
Technical excellency, which to the outsider is a cold and neutral thing, may
thus to the artist and to the intelligent critic be full of expressional
significance. From whichever point of view we may look at art, we shall
have to interpret its central and essential characteristics in terms of feeling.

In this way we can account for it as a self-sufficing, or as we have said,
autotelic activity. And in this way only can we explain the strength of that
compelling force which urges an artist to an exertion from which he derives
no external utility.
But it cannot be contended that primitive human nature furnishes not
only the impulse to expression but also the medium. The artist in man had
the feeling; he had to discover a way to exteriorise it. Nearest perhaps to
primitive art lie the immediate manifestations by regulated gesture and
regulated sounds of the voice, which are also in their highest development
the most potent means for transmitting an emotion. Yet the different utilities
of life offered also other means—as it were, words of a language—in which
the feeling could express itself and transmit itself from mind to mind. The
man who used drawing as a means of communicating thoughts could
express in a drawing the terror which a beast inspired or the delight he had
derived from watching its movements. And just as the purpose of imparting
information—whether by word or image—afforded a natural medium
through which the art-impulse could work to its own ends, so also the
purpose of propitiation afforded in dance or decoration something which
might be diverted from its original object and be used with the single
intention of expressing, for instance, the dancer’s mood. Similarly each of
the other purposes that have been discussed or alluded to afforded, as it
were, a concrete material for art—a shape in which the primitive impulse to
gesture could embody and develop itself. And beyond the fact that art has
been obliged to avail itself of media which have originally been called into
existence by utilitarian, non-æsthetic needs, there lies another fact. To these
external “origins” we can also trace some of the most important qualities
which we appreciate in a work of art. In this way it is open to us to explain
how several of the virtues of art, as we know it, may be derived from the
primitive needs which it subserved; how, for instance, the lucidity of art
may find its explanation in art’s use for conveying information; how the
sensuous and attractive qualities of all art may be traced to the need for
propitiating favour; how the power that resides in art to brace and stimulate
the mind may be transmitted from the days when the artist was appointed to
nerve his fellows for work or war. And, lastly, it might be argued that a most
characteristic quality of art, the imagination, which is in a sense faith in the
reality of the unreal (whether native to the human mind or not), may have

been immensely heightened by the use of art for purposes of magic, which
fuses the visible and the invisible.
There is thus suggested a further point. We were able to derive those
qualities of artistic composition, which in all æsthetic systems have been
insisted on as the most primordial, from the distinctive qualities of the self-
sufficing art-impulse, by showing how the unity, the concentration, and the
subordination of parts to a whole correspond to the unity of a feeling-state
which it is the object of the art-impulse to convey and to perpetuate in its
entirety. On the other hand, we are forced to acknowledge that by the side
of these primordial qualities there exist certain secondary qualities which
have been of great importance in facilitating and securing the transmission
and perpetuation of the original feeling-state; and we have shown how these
qualities arise out of the vassalage by which art in its historical
development has been bound to the necessities and utilities of practical life.
For those who crave a theoretical basis for the estimation of art there is
offered a field of research in the comparison and relative valuation of these
two orders of qualities. By studying the alternate influences which the
primary and the derived factors have exercised on the character of works of
art, it may even be possible to lay down a kind of scale by which to rank
general qualities as well as individual manifestations. But all this train of
thought, though cognate to our inquiry, is not a part of it. This book has
aimed simply to give an answer to the question, How did art originate? To
those minds which see no value in an æsthetic inquiry that neither purposes
to offer guidance for the artist in producing works of art, nor for the student
in appreciating them, the whole discussion may probably appear futile. The
author on his part has thought that such investigation into an important and
typical human energy must be of interest at least, if not of value. But upon
the practical question it is his personal opinion that the loss would be
greater than the gain if theories and judgments based upon philosophical
considerations were allowed to influence either the production or the
enjoyment of art.

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