But if it be further asked why musical tones in a certain order and
rhythm give man and other animals pleasure, we can no more give the
reason than for the pleasantness of certain tastes and smells. That
they do give pleasure of some kind to animals, we may infer from their
being produced during the season of courtship by many insects, spiders,
fishes, amphibians, and birds; for unless the females were able to
appreciate such sounds and were excited or charmed by them, the
persevering efforts of the males, and the complex structures often
possessed by them alone, would be useless; and this it is impossible to
believe.
Human song is generally admitted to be the basis or origin of
instrumental music. As neither the enjoyment nor the capacity of
producing musical notes are faculties of the least use to man in
reference to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked amongst the
most mysterious with which he is endowed. They are present, though in a
very rude condition, in men of all races, even the most savage; but so
different is the taste of the several races, that our music gives no
pleasure to savages, and their music is to us in most cases hideous and
unmeaning. Dr. Seemann, in some interesting remarks on this subject
(35. Journal of Anthropological Society, Oct. 1870, p. clv. See also
the several later chapters in Sir John Lubbock s Prehistoric Times,
2nd ed. 1869, which contain an admirable account of the habits of
savages.), doubts whether even amongst the nations of Western Europe,
intimately connected as they are by close and frequent intercourse, the
music of the one is interpreted in the same sense by the others. By
travelling eastwards we find that there is certainly a different
language of music. Songs of joy and dance-accompaniments are no longer,
as with us, in the major keys, but always in the minor. Whether or not
the half-human progenitors of man possessed, like the singing gibbons,
the capacity of producing, and therefore no doubt of appreciating,
musical notes, we know that man possessed these faculties at a very
remote period. M. Lartet has described two flutes made out of the bones
and horns of the reindeer, found in caves together with flint tools and
the remains of extinct animals. The arts of singing and of dancing are
also very ancient, and are now practised by all or nearly all the
lowest races of man. Poetry, which may be considered as the offspring
of song, is likewise so ancient, that many persons have felt astonished
that it should have arisen during the earliest ages of which we have
any record.
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