Following the path of our primate ancestry,
mankind kept on inventing tools, to extend and multiply the
activities of hand and eye. Alongside this went biological
improvements in the organization of mental capacities required to
adapt to the new cultural conditions that resulted from the
inventions. The relative slowness of a way of thinking that was
governed by the complicated rules of logic set Homo sapiens on a
quest for some simpler, more direct mode of apprehension. In
particular, faster, yet efficient, actions could be obtained by
yielding to sensation and the abstract thought it generated
Early man found it natural to let himself be carried along by the
stream of his sensory life. Sensations and emotions are the very
substance, the inner possessions, of our mental life, a tide that
bears us now lazily, now capriciously, with its current, seeming to
demand of us no more than to be perceived.
From confused sensations and emotions concepts
may be derived that provide a useful map of reality. These
concepts are at first mental images, memories of experiences whose
significance lies in their emotional colour i.e. attraction, fear,
repulsion. They point dimly toward practical application. Thus,
neither the child nor the primitive sees reality as neutral or
objective. Where does the initial amorphous sensation become the
familiar concept?
Inevitably, each invisible force is endowed with
a material, recognizable appearance, usually that of the visible
thing whose effects are most similar. By drawing an analogy with
self, cultures coalesced around the conception of these force
emanating from a conscious will, By analogy, such forces
became endowed with material bodies, transforming them into gods or
demons, human or animal figures.
These invented images become as much a positive
presence as the known forms whose aspects they assume. The child
fashions for himself a thousand fantasies, the primitive a thousand
superstitions and myths in which reality and her own responses to
it are confused. Humankind attempts to fashion the endless, obscure
actions of the powers that rule the environment into an
intelligible drama, to be played on personal stage, but necessarily
confined to using decors and actors that have actually been seen.
This marvellous, partly imaginary stage world, is interposed
between oneself and the real world and helps, despite its
unreality, to form some idea (correct or incorrect)of what reality
is, and to act upon it.
Our imaginary stage world is merely a projection
of our cultural inclinations. Every human group, like every
individual, elaborates the fable and fariytale that most suits its
wishes; the subject common to all, reality, takes on a different
appearance in each case. The interior image of nature is not
distinguished from the exterior. But while the former can be and is
infinitely variable, the latter must have an identical cultural
meaning for everyone, otherwise irreparable confusion would follow.
Purely mental images, fashioned according to dreams rather than
ascertainable facts, are only for private use. They cannot easily
be exchanged among different groups or different individuals.
In order to act upon the environment, to act with
and on other living beings, a means of communication must be
acquired for mutual understanding. The individual's inner
possessions became exchangeable through the invention of images
expressed as pictures, made-objects and words, which relieve us of
the trouble of having to obtain direct, sensory knowledge of
things. Humankind has made increasing use of abstraction, which has
many advantages to compensate for the loss of emotional content.
Thanks to abstraction we can benefit from experiences that we have
not undergone personally; it is enough to record the results of
those that have been communicated to us by others.
Under such circumstances, what happened to
sensibility? It found its voice only outside man's practical
activities, in poetry and in art; and this voice is no longer
rational, but suggestive and these inner possessions are expressed
as 'beauty'.