It is undeniable that increased knowledge of the various tribes of mankind may necessitate important corrections in the above review of erotic art. There might be collected, for instance, specimens of love-inspired poetry from the really primitive tribes, such as the Veddas, the Fuegians, etc. Perhaps also it may be proved that dancing and singing really serve the purposes of erotic propitiation to a much greater extent than travellers hitherto have been able to discover. But the general conclusions are very unlikely to be changed by any further researches. It is sufficiently obvious that the Darwinian æsthetic has its chief support in the productions of barbaric nations, whose social conditions have been eminently favourable for the development of erotic art. This view might be in danger if we had no knowledge of any artistic activity in the most primitive tribes. But as a relatively developed religious drama, and perhaps even some traditional mythical songs have been found among the Fuegians;[367] as the Veddas have at least one dance, possibly religious, and various magic poems;[368] as the Bushmen are masters of pictorial art and develop a great dramatic power in their pantomimic imitations of animals;[369] as among the Australians the surprisingly high development of theatrical management and instruction[370] stands in the strongest contrast to their poor erotic lyric;—in a word, as the religious, superstitious, and traditional forms of art among the lower savages have such an unmistakable predominance over those of erotic propitiation, there is no ethnological support for the assertion that the beginnings of art were due to the impulse “to attract by pleasing.” It may, of course, be argued that the Fuegians, the Veddas, the Bushmen, and the rest, far from representing primitive man, are really to be considered as degenerate types. And it may furthermore be contended that before marriage customs and other social institutions had reached those forms which now prevail among the lower tribes, the promiscuous intercourse between all males and females during a fixed pairing season must have produced an erotic art. Whatever value such reasoning may have, it at any rate implies the admission that the art-creating influence of sexual selection cannot be _proved_ on _historical_ grounds. The question how primitive society is to be reconstructed cannot as yet be considered to be finally solved. But even if the original marriage customs had been such as Darwin supposes, and even if courtship at this unknown stage of evolution had been carried on by means of art,[371] the fact that several existing tribes appear to be quite devoid of poetic and dramatic forms of erotic propitiation restricts the validity of Darwin’s principle in a considerable degree. * * * * *