a bow, and pursuing a male auroch, going
with its head down and of a fierce aspect; the man is perfectly naked,
and wears a pointed beard. Other designs of the chase and of animals
afford a clear proof of the remote period at which the primitive
instinct towards the imitative arts existed.

It is peculiar to man to portray things and animals, and to erect
monuments out of a superstitious feeling, or to glorify an individual or
the nation; the bower-birds and some cognate species may perhaps be
regarded as an exception, since they show a certain sense of beauty, and
an extrinsic satisfaction in gay colours, which indeed appears in many
animals. But art in the true sense and in its essential principle are
the act and product of man alone, of which I have demonstrated the cause
and comparative reasons in another work, so that it is unnecessary to
repeat them here. Some rare cases indicate an artistic construction
which is not an essential part of animal functions, and the sense of
form and colour occurs in some species. But this only shows that there
exist in the animal kingdom the roots of every art and sentiment
peculiar to man, subsequently perfected by him in an exclusive and
reflex manner, and this confirms the general truths of heredity and
evolution.

When primitive man draws or carves objects, he does not merely obey the
innate impulse to give an external form to the image already in his
mind, but while satisfying the aesthetic sentiment which actuates him, he
is conscious of some mysterious power and superstitious influence. This
sentiment is not only apparent in our own children, but among nearly all
savages, of which many instances might be given; some of them are even
afraid to look at a portrait, and shrink from it as from a living
person.

As time went on, a belief in spirits was developed from causes already
mentioned, the rude theory of incarnation followed as its corollary, and
this sentiment was naturally confirmed by incised and sculptured images;
for since they supposed a spirit to be present in every object whatever,
this was much more the case with incised or sculptured figures of men
and animals. In these figures the amulet, talisman, or _gris-gris_ of
savages especially consisted; portraits, however rude, of animals,
monsters, of the human form as a whole or in parts, as in the universal
phallic superstitions. The belief in spirits, resulting from the
personification of shadows, or of the image