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