The Descent of Man

ments, and the equally hideous music admired
by most savages, it might be urged that their
aesthetic faculty was not so highly developed
as in certain animals, for instance, as in birds.
Obviously no animal would be capable of admiring
such scenes as the heavens at night, a
beautiful landscape, or refined music; but such
high tastes are acquired through culture, and
depend on complex associations; they are not
enjoyed by barbarians or by uneducated persons.
Many of the faculties, which have been of inestimable
service to man for his progressive advancement,
such as the powers of the imagination,
wonder, curiosity, an undefined sense of
beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of
excitement or novelty, could hardly fail to lead
to capricious changes of customs and fashions.
I have alluded to this point, because a recent
writer (73. 'The Spectator,' Dec. 4th, 1869, p.
1430.) has oddly fixed on Caprice "as one of the