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'.