and love, which readily pass into devotion. In the Chinese annals it is
said, Music hath the power of making heaven descend upon earth. It
likewise stirs up in us the sense of triumph and the glorious ardour
for war. These powerful and mingled feelings may well give rise to the
sense of sublimity. We can concentrate, as Dr. Seemann observes,
greater intensity of feeling in a single musical note than in pages of
writing. It is probable that nearly the same emotions, but much weaker
and far less complex, are felt by birds when the male pours forth his
full volume of song, in rivalry with other males, to captivate the
female. Love is still the commonest theme of our songs. As Herbert
Spencer remarks, music arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not
conceived the possibility, and do not know the meaning; or, as Richter
says, tells us of things we have not seen and shall not see.
Conversely, when vivid emotions are felt and expressed by the orator,
or even in common speech, musical cadences and rhythm are instinctively
used. The negro in Africa when excited often bursts forth in song;
another will reply in song, whilst the company, as if touched by a
musical wave, murmur a chorus in perfect unison. (37. Winwood Reade,
The Martyrdom of Man, 1872, p. 441, and African Sketch Book, 1873,
vol. ii. p. 313.) Even monkeys express strong feelings in different
tones anger and impatience by low, fear and pain by high notes. (38.
Rengger, Saugethiere von Paraguay, s. 49.) The sensations and ideas
thus excited in us by music, or expressed by the cadences of oratory,
appear from their vagueness, yet depth, like mental reversions to the
emotions and thoughts of a long-past age.
All these facts with respect to music and impassioned speech become
intelligible to a certain extent, if we may assume that musical tones
and rhythm were used by our half-human ancestors, during the season of
courtship, when animals of all kinds are excited not only by love, but
by the strong passions of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph. From the
deeply-laid principle of inherited associations, musical tones in this
case would be likely to call up vaguely and indefinitely the strong
emotions of a long-past age. As we have every reason to suppose that
articulate speech is one of the latest, as it certainly is the highest,
of the arts acquired by man, and as the instinctive power of producing
musical notes and rhythms is developed low down in the animal series,
it would be altogether opposed to the principle of evolution, if we
were to admit that man s musical capacity has been developed from the
tones used in impassioned speech. We must suppose that the rhythms and
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