was pacific. Broca calls these men "peaceful hunters" and attributes a gentle character to them. He remarks that an examination of their arsenal very rarely brings out warlike arms, and that we can thus satisfy ourselves of their peaceful character. The Belgian archæologist, M. Dupont, observes that the cave-dwellers of his country had no idea of war. And, if we have a right to compare the existing savage with primitive man, we find that the Eskimo, who is nearest like him, is quiet and peaceful. The Eskimo whom Ross met on the shores of Baffin's Bay could not be made to understand what war is, and possessed no warlike weapons. While, then, we may believe that the cave men rarely raised their hands against one another, it nevertheless remains determined that they waged a bitter and relentless war against animals. Hence they rarely had occasion to exercise themselves in drawing the human form; and hence the imperfect character of their human images as compared with those of animals. As to the forms of plants, it may be remarked that the boreal flora of that epoch, not being at all threatening, could furnish little food for superstition; and no drawings of plants are found in the caves.
In short, the condition of the art of drawing with primitive man seems to be in complete harmony with the meaning which we have attributed to drawing itself, of its being inspired by belief in the existence of a material relation between a being and its image and in the possibility of acting on the first through the second. Consequently, the principle of painting can not be found in a natural tendency of primitive man to the artificial imitation of living Nature, but seems rather to be derived from the desire of subjecting that Nature to its needs, and of subjugating it. In the course of its progressive improvements, the art of drawing has gradually lost its primitive significance and original meaning, till it has become what it is now. It does not differ much, however, from what it was originally; for, while the primitive man expected to reach the living being in its image, it is still life which the civilized man seeks to-day in works of art.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique.
