292 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Helmholtz/ and others, but we may properly extend the inquiry into 

 the nature and powers of this aesthetic perception somewhat further. 

 For it is to this fundamental difference between biological and physical 

 sciences that I will especially invite your attention. 



Sir John Lubbock,^ quoting from Oldfield,' mentions that certain 

 Australians " were quite unable to realize the most vivid artistic 

 representations. On being shown a picture of one of themselves, one 

 said it was a ship, another a kangaroo, not one in a dozen identifying 

 the portrait as having any connection with himself." 



These human beings, therefore, with brains very similar to our own, 

 and, as is held by some persons, potentially capable of similar cultiva- 

 tion witli ourselves, were unable to recognize the outlines of even such 

 familiar objects as the features of their ow'n race. Was there any 

 fault in the drawing of the artist ? Probably not. Or in the eye of 

 the savage ? Certainly not, for that is an optical instrument of toler- 

 ably simple structure, which cannot fail to form on the retina an ac- 

 curate image of the object to which it is directed. Where, then, is the 

 error ? It is in the want of capacity of the brain of the individual (or 

 rather the race in this instance) to appreciate the resemblance between 

 the outline, the relief, the light and shade of the object pictured, and 

 the flat representation in color: in other words, a want of "artistic 

 tact " or aesthetic perception. 



A higher example of a similar phenomenon I have myself seen : 

 many of you too have witnessed it, for it is of daily occurrence. It is 

 when travelers in Italy, having penetrated to the inmost chamber of 

 the Temple of Art, sven the hall of the Tribune at Florence, stand in 

 presence of the most perfect works of art which it has been given to 

 man to produce, and gaze upon them with the same indifference that 

 they would show to the conceptions of mediocre artists exhibited in 

 our shops. 



Perhaps they would even wonder what one can find to admire in 

 the unrivaled collection which is there assembled. 



There is surely wanting in the minds of such persons that high, 

 aesthetic sense, which enables others to enter into spiritual harmony 

 with the great artists whose creations are before them. 



Creations I said, and I use the word intentionally. If there is one 

 power of the human soul which, more nearly than any other, ap- 



' "I do not mean to deny that, in many branches of these sciences, an intuitive per- 

 ception of analogies and a certain artistic tact play a conspicuous part. In natural his- 

 tory .... it is left entirely to this tact, without a clearly definable rule, to determine 

 what characteristics of species are important or unimportant for purposes of classifica- 

 tion, and what divisions of the animal or vegetable kingdom are more natural than 

 others." (" Relation of the Physical Sciences to Science in General." Smithsonian Re- 

 port, 18Y1, p. 227.) 



2 " Prehistoric Times," p. 440. 



^ " On the Aborigines of Australia." Transactions of Ethnological Society, New 

 Series, vol. iii. 



