There are several aspects of the history of art which have had to be ignored in the preceding chapters. A student of ethnology, for instance, will blame us because in our hasty review of primitive art no mention has been made of the important influence which political institutions and religious systems have exercised on the development of art. Nor can there be any question of denying that these factors ought to be properly treated of in every research which aims at a _descriptive_ completeness. From the historical point of view indeed nothing could be more interesting than to pursue throughout the general history of art that line of investigation which Mr. Posnett has applied to the study of literature. Not only in the lower stages of culture, but also among civilised nations, one might show how in all its forms and branches art has been influenced for good and bad by the progress of political development. Tribal drama, tribal sculpture, and tribal poetry might thus be instructively contrasted with the art of commonwealths and monarchic states. Still wider results might be attained by tracing those differences in types of art which arise from differences in the religious systems. But such researches, however important they might be, would not have much bearing upon the subject of the present work. Notwithstanding the differentiation of art-forms that has arisen from the varying political and religious conditions, we do not meet in these different forms with any principle of art that has not been treated of already in the preceding chapters. To explain, for instance, the art which serves as a means of political propitiation, we need only refer to our investigation of the æsthetic forms of sexual selection. It is true that songs, dances, and pantomimes will necessarily change in character when addressed to a chief or king instead of to a woman. But the purpose—to gain the favour of the spectator—is still the same in both cases. And from this identity of purpose there arises a general similarity between all manifestations of propitiatory art, which, from our point of view, is more important than the individual differences of these manifestations. As in tribes where social conditions have favoured the development of sexual selection erotic art acquires the distinction of attractiveness and sensuous beauty, so these qualities will also be prominent in the songs and dances by which people endeavour to conciliate the favour and benevolence of a mighty ruler. And as on the lower stages of culture men attribute to their gods their own likings and aversions, the same qualities will naturally be found to characterise those classes of art by which worshippers pay their homage to a divine spectator. And, finally, as a conspicuous outcome of the motive “to attract by pleasing” we meet with a similar group of dances, songs, and pantomimes addressed to the spirits of the deceased—those spectators whose favour