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]