As I am unfortunately unable to go into details,[587] I close the subject with some general remarks on the character of such drawing. For the child and for the savage the chief object of representation is one of the most difficult of all, namely, living animals. Miss Shinn’s niece, who began with mathematical figures, is an exception accounted for by the fact that she was intentionally directed toward abstract form. Even the geometrical patterns in primitive ornamentation may often be traced to the imitation of animals, and a distinction between the work of these people and that of children lies in the fact that they prefer such figures while children incline to the human figure, which is rarely represented by savages. The explanation of this is that for the hunter the animals which he pursues form the chief objects of his imagination, as any sportsman among ourselves who begins to draw will illustrate. A third view is presented when we ask what is the psychological antecedent of imitation. In civilized art it is as a rule conscious perception of the actual object, as genuine artists rarely paint from memory. But it is quite otherwise with children; they object to drawing from Nature, as H. T. Lukens points out.[588] They prefer to make the absent present by their art, and their passion for drawing is considerably dampened by the practice in observation which school discipline requires. The child’s model is commonly a mental image, a fact which explains many of his particularities. The savage, too, from what we know of his art, seems to produce it not directly from the object, but from his impression of it, and thus it happens that he represents effects of things which are not visible to the beholder now, though they may have been elements of the scene which he recollects, and explains, too, in part his almost incredible errors in proportion and in the relative position of things, such as placing the mustache of a European above the eyes, or even on top of the head.[589] This suggests the distinction which Grosse makes between childish and primitive art. He thinks it strange that the two are even considered to be on a par, since children seldom show a trace of the hunter’s close observation. The art of savages is, as a rule, naturalistic, that of children symbolic; the only actual resemblance being the lack of perspective in both. This view certainly contains an important germ of truth, but the statement is extreme. It is true that many drawings of primitive man display a remarkable truth to Nature, impossible to a child, and, as Grosse rightly says, resulting from trained powers of observation joined to the dexterity acquired in the manipulation of weapons and tools. But this wider knowledge and greater skill seem to me to be the sole grounds of difference, and the sharp distinction of naturalistic and symbolic unwarranted. Of course, drawing is in itself to a great degree symbolic, but the symbolism displayed by children,