The conclusion, therefore, is that early religion did assist the development of the race along these lines, but only incidentally and, as it were, unwittingly; while it was, at heart, unfriendly to them. 6. It is otherwise when we turn to Art, especially esthetic Art. Its aim is the realisation, the expression in the object, of the idea of the Beautiful. This idea does not belong to the conscious intelligence. It cannot be expressed in the formulas of positive knowledge. The esthetic, like the religious, emotions, send their roots far down into the opaque structure of the sub-conscious intelligence, and hence the two are natural associates. What Professor Bain says of Art may be extended to Religion: “Nature is not its standard, nor is [objective] truth its chief end.”[286] It has been seriously questioned whether the idea of the beautiful existed among primitive peoples, apart from a desire for mere gaudy colouring or striking display. No one would doubt its universal presence could he but free his judgment from his own canons of the beautiful, and accept those which prevail in the savage tribe he is studying. Darwin, in his work on the _Descent of Man_, collected evidence from the rudest hordes of all continents to prove that all were passionate admirers of beauty, as measured by their own criteria; and he reached also the important conclusion that their completest expression of it was to be found in their religious art. “In every nation,” he says, “sufficiently advanced to have made effigies of their gods, or of their deified rulers, the sculptors no doubt have endeavoured to express their highest idea of beauty.”[287] We should also remember that the same great teacher says: “It is certainly not true that there is in the human mind any universal standard of beauty;” and this is so, both of the human form and of those expressions of the beautiful which appeal to the ear and the touch. The music and the metre of one race generally displease another; and there is no one norm by which the superiority of either can be absolutely ascertained. In their own way, however, Art and Religion have this in common, that they make a study of Perfection, and aim to embody it in actuality; whereas Science or positive knowledge confines itself to reality, which is ever imperfect. Perfection is, however, an unconditioned mode of existence, not measurable by our senses, and hence outside the domain of inductive research. The tendency of organic forms and cosmic motions is always toward it, but they always fall short of it.[288] We are aware of it only through the longings of our sub-conscious minds, not through the laws of our reasoning intelligence. Yet so intense is our conviction, not only that it is true, but that final truth lies in it alone, that it has ever been and will ever be the highest and strongest motive of human action.