In the science of art many hypotheses have been advanced as to the order in which the different art-forms have made their appearance. We do not intend to bring forward any new arguments on this much-debated question. Even if our knowledge of prehistoric man were so complete and trustworthy as to entitle us to draw any conclusions as to the earliest stages in art-development, such an appeal to history would in the present connection constitute a grave confusion of standpoints. As long as we are occupied with that abstract datum, the purely artistic activity, we cannot possibly find any support for our reasoning in existing works of art, concerning which the question may always be raised whether the motive was or was not a purely autotelic art-impulse. We shall therefore in the following pages entirely ignore the question of historical sequence and restrict our attention to the various degrees of theoretical priority. Starting from the interpretation of artistic activity which was postulated, but not yet proved, in the preceding chapter, we shall consider those art-forms as most primordial which stand in the closest connection with the expression of feeling. By comparing those manifestations of art-activity which are from our standpoint elementary, with the non-æsthetic expression of emotional states, we shall try to isolate the peculiarly artistic qualities in their simplest possible form. If the result of such a treatment prove consistent with general æsthetic ideals, as exhibited in the literature of art, this fact will naturally go to the credit of our explanation. The purest and most typical expression of simple feeling is that which consists of mere random movements. Those activities, whether of the whole body or of special parts,—the larynx, for instance,—which follow immediately upon, or rather accompany, a state of pleasure or pain, are in themselves entirely non-æsthetic. Thus it is impossible to see anything artistic in the spectacle of a man leaping or shouting for joy. Yet the lowest kind of lyrical music and lyrical “gymnastic” dance may be almost as directly connected with the original state of feeling as these purely expressional activities. The only difference is that in music and dance the movements have been limited and restrained by the adoption of a fixed sequence in time. This fixed sequence in time—the rhythm—must therefore, from our point of view, be considered as the simplest of all art-forms.