"Thus at that period, mathematics was behind experiment, and a

problem was proposed, in which theoretical results were wanted for

comparison with observation, but could not be accurately obtained; as

was the case in astronomy also, till the time of the approximate

solution of the problem of three bodies, and the consequent formation

of the tables of the moon and planets, on the theory of universal

gravitation. After some time, electrical theory was relieved from

this reproach, mainly in consequence of the progress which astronomy

had occasioned in pure mathematics. About 1801 there appeared in the

_Bulletin des Sciences_, an exact solution of the problem of the

distribution of electric fluid on a spheroid, obtained by Biot, by

the application of the peculiar methods which Laplace had invented

for the problem of the figure of the planets. And, in 1811, M.

Poisson applied Laplace's artifices to the case of two spheres acting

upon one another in contact, a case to which many of Coulomb's

experiments were referrible; and the agreement of the results of

theory and observation, thus extricated from Coulomb's numbers

obtained above forty years previously, was very striking and

convincing."

Not only do the sciences affect each other after this direct manner, but

they affect each other indirectly. Where there is no dependence, there is

yet analogy--_equality of relations_; and the discovery of the relations

subsisting among one set of phenomena, constantly suggests a search for the

same relations among another set. Thus the established fact that the force

of gravitation varies inversely as the square of the distance, being

recognized as a necessary characteristic of all influences proceeding from

a centre, raised the suspicion that heat and light follow the same law;

which proved to be the case--a suspicion and a confirmation which were

repeated in respect to the electric and magnetic forces. Thus again the

discovery of the polarization of light led to experiments which ended in

the discovery of the polarization of heat--a discovery that could never

have been made without the antecedent one. Thus, too, the known

refrangibility of light and heat lately produced the inquiry whether sound

also is not refrangible; which on trial it turns out to be.

In some cases, indeed, it is only by the aid of conceptions derived from

one class of phenomena that hypotheses respecting other classes can be

formed. The theory, at one time favoured, that evaporation is a solution of

water in air, was an assumption that the relation between water and air is

_like_ the relation between salt and water; and could never have been

conceived if the relation between salt and water had not been previously

known. Similarly the received theory of evaporation--that it is a diffusion

of the particles of the evaporating fluid in virtue of their atomic

repulsion--could not have been entertained without a foregoing experience

of magnetic and electric repulsions. So complete in recent days has become

this _consensus_ among the sciences, caused either by the natural

entanglement of their phenomena, or by analogies in the relations of their

phenomena, that scarcely any considerable discovery concerning one order of

facts now takes place, without very shortly leading to discoveries

concerning other orders.

To produce a tolerably complete conception of this process of scientific

evolution, it would be needful to go back to the beginning, and trace in

detail the growth of classifications and nomenclatures; and to show how, as

subsidiary to science, they have acted upon it, and it has reacted upon

them. We can only now remark that, on the one hand, classifications and

nomenclatures have aided science by continually subdividing the

subject-matter of research, and giving fixity and diffusion to the truths

disclosed; and that on the other hand, they have caught from it that

increasing quantitativeness, and that progress from considerations touching

single phenomena to considerations touching the relations among many

phenomena, which we have been describing.

Of this last influence a few illustrations must be given. In chemistry it

is seen in the facts, that the dividing of matter into the four elements

was ostensibly based upon the single property of weight; that the first

truly chemical division into acid and alkaline bodies, grouped together

bodies which had not simply one property in common, but in which one

property was constantly related to many others; and that the classification

now current, places together in groups _supporters of combustion_,

_metallic and non-metallic bases_, _acids_, _salts_, &c., bodies which are

often quite unlike in sensible qualities, but which are like in the

majority of their _relations_ to other bodies. In mineralogy again, the

first classifications were based upon differences in aspect, texture, and

other physical attributes. Berzelius made two attempts at a classification

based solely on chemical constitution. That now current, recognises as far

as possible the _relations_ between physical and chemical characters. In

botany the earliest classes formed were _trees_, _shrubs_, and _herbs_:

magnitude being the basis of distinction. Dioscorides divided vegetables

into _aromatic_, _alimentary_, _medicinal_, and _vinous_: a division of

chemical character. Caesalpinus classified them by the seeds, and

seed-vessels, which he preferred because of the _relations_ found to

subsist between the character of the fructification and the general

character of the other parts.

While the "natural system" since developed, carrying out the doctrine of

Linnaeus, that "natural orders must be formed by attention not to one or

two, but to _all_ the parts of plants," bases its divisions on like

peculiarities which are found to be _constantly related_ to the greatest

number of other like peculiarities. And similarly in zoology, the

successive classifications, from having been originally determined by

external and often subordinate characters not indicative of the essential

nature, have been gradually more and more determined by those internal and

fundamental differences, which have uniform _relations_ to the greatest

number of other differences. Nor shall we be surprised at this analogy

between the modes of progress of positive science and classification, when

we bear in mind that both proceed by making generalizations; that both

enable us to make previsions differing only in their precision; and that

while the one deals with equal properties and relations, the other deals

with properties and relations that approximate towards equality in variable

degrees.

Without further argument, it will, we think, be sufficiently clear that the

sciences are none of them separately evolved--are none of them independent

either logically or historically; but that all of them have, in a greater

or less degree, required aid and reciprocated it. Indeed, it needs but to

throw aside theses, and contemplate the mixed character of surrounding

phenomena, to at once see that these notions of division and succession in

the kinds of knowledge are none of them actually true, but are simple

scientific fictions: good, if regarded merely as aids to study; bad, if

regarded as representing realities in Nature. Consider them critically, and

no facts whatever are presented to our senses uncombined with other

facts--no facts whatever but are in some degree disguised by accompanying

facts: disguised in such a manner that all must be partially understood

before any one can be understood. If it be said, as by M. Comte, that

gravitating force should be treated of before other forces, seeing that all

things are subject to it, it may on like grounds be said that heat should

be first dealt with; seeing that thermal forces are everywhere in action;

that the ability of any portion of matter to manifest visible gravitative

phenomena depends on its state of aggregation, which is determined by heat;

that only by the aid of thermology can we explain those apparent exceptions

to the gravitating tendency which are presented by steam and smoke, and so

establish its universality, and that, indeed, the very existence of the

solar system in a solid form is just as much a question of heat as it is

one of gravitation.

Take other cases:--All phenomena recognised by the eyes, through which only

are the data of exact science ascertainable, are complicated with optical

phenomena; and cannot be exhaustively known until optical principles are

known. The burning of a candle cannot be explained without involving

chemistry, mechanics, thermology. Every wind that blows is determined by

influences partly solar, partly lunar, partly hygrometric; and implies

considerations of fluid equilibrium and physical geography. The direction,

dip, and variations of the magnetic needle, are facts half terrestrial,

half celestial--are caused by earthly forces which have cycles of change

corresponding with astronomical periods. The flowing of the gulf-stream and

the annual migration of icebergs towards the equator, depending as they do

on the balancing of the centripetal and centrifugal forces acting on the

ocean, involve in their explanation the Earth's rotation and spheroidal

form, the laws of hydrostatics, the relative densities of cold and warm

water, and the doctrines of evaporation. It is no doubt true, as M. Comte

says, that "our position in the solar system, and the motions, form, size,

equilibrium of the mass of our world among the planets, must be known

before we can understand the phenomena going on at its surface." But,

fatally for his hypothesis, it is also true that we must understand a great

part of the phenomena going on at its surface before we can know its

position, &c., in the solar system. It is not simply that, as we have

already shown, those geometrical and mechanical principles by which

celestial appearances are explained, were first generalized from

terrestrial experiences; but it is that the very obtainment of correct

data, on which to base astronomical generalizations, implies advanced

terrestrial physics.

Until after optics had made considerable advance, the Copernican system

remained but a speculation. A single modern observation on a star has to

undergo a careful analysis by the combined aid of various sciences--has to

_be digested by the organism of the sciences_; which have severally to

assimilate their respective parts of the observation, before the essential

fact it contains is available for the further development of astronomy. It

has to be corrected not only for nutation of the earth's axis and for

precession of the equinoxes, but for aberration and for refraction; and the

formation of the tables by which refraction is calculated, presupposes

knowledge of the law of decreasing density in the upper atmospheric strata;

of the law of decreasing temperature, and the influence of this on the

density; and of hygrometric laws as also affecting density. So that, to get

materials for further advance, astronomy requires not only the indirect aid

of the sciences which have presided over the making of its improved

instruments, but the direct aid of an advanced optics, of barology, of

thermology, of hygrometry; and if we remember that these delicate

observations are in some cases registered electrically, and that they are

further corrected for the "personal equation"--the time elapsing between

seeing and registering, which varies with different observers--we may even

add electricity and psychology. If, then, so apparently simple a thing as

ascertaining the position of a star is complicated with so many phenomena,

it is clear that this notion of the independence of the sciences, or

certain of them, will not hold.

Whether objectively independent or not, they cannot be subjectively

so--they cannot have independence as presented to our consciousness; and

this is the only kind of independence with which we are concerned. And

here, before leaving these illustrations, and especially this last one, let

us not omit to notice how clearly they exhibit that increasingly active

_consensus_ of the sciences which characterizes their advancing

development. Besides finding that in these later times a discovery in one

science commonly causes progress in others; besides finding that a great

part of the questions with which modern science deals are so mixed as to

require the co-operation of many sciences for their solution; we find in

this last case that, to make a single good observation in the purest of the

natural sciences, requires the combined assistance of half a dozen other

sciences.

Perhaps the clearest comprehension of the interconnected growth of the

sciences may be obtained by contemplating that of the arts, to which it is

strictly analogous, and with which it is inseparably bound up. Most

intelligent persons must have been, at one time or other, struck with the

vast array of antecedents pre-supposed by one of our processes of

manufacture. Let him trace the production of a printed cotton, and consider

all that is implied by it. There are the many successive improvements

through which the power-looms reached their present perfection; there is

the steam-engine that drives them, having its long history from Papin

downwards; there are the lathes in which its cylinder was bored, and the

string of ancestral lathes from which those lathes proceeded; there is the

steam-hammer under which its crank shaft was welded; there are the

puddling-furnaces, the blast-furnaces, the coal-mines and the iron-mines

needful for producing the raw material; there are the slowly improved

appliances by which the factory was built, and lighted, and ventilated;

there are the printing engine, and the die house, and the colour laboratory

with its stock of materials from all parts of the world, implying

cochineal-culture, logwood-cutting, indigo-growing; there are the

implements used by the producers of cotton, the gins by which it is

cleaned, the elaborate machines by which it is spun: there are the vessels

in which cotton is imported, with the building-slips, the rope-yards, the

sail-cloth factories, the anchor-forges, needful for making them; and

besides all these directly necessary antecedents, each of them involving

many others, there are the institutions which have developed the requisite

intelligence, the printing and publishing arrangements which have spread

the necessary information, the social organization which has rendered

possible such a complex co-operation of agencies.

Further analysis would show that the many arts thus concerned in the

economical production of a child's frock, have each of them been brought to

its present efficiency by slow steps which the other arts have aided; and

that from the beginning this reciprocity has been ever on the increase. It

needs but on the one hand to consider how utterly impossible it is for the

savage, even with ore and coal ready, to produce so simple a thing as an

iron hatchet; and then to consider, on the other hand, that it would have

been impracticable among ourselves, even a century ago, to raise the tubes

of the Britannia bridge from lack of the hydraulic press; to at once see

how mutually dependent are the arts, and how all must advance that each may

advance. Well, the sciences are involved with each other in just the same

manner. They are, in fact, inextricably woven into this same complex web of

the arts; and are only conventionally independent of it. Originally the two

were one. How to fix the religious festivals; when to sow; how to weigh

commodities; and in what manner to measure ground; were the purely

practical questions out of which arose astronomy, mechanics, geometry.

Since then there has been a perpetual inosculation of the sciences and the

arts. Science has been supplying art with truer generalizations and more

completely quantitative previsions. Art has been supplying science with

better materials, and more perfect instruments. And all along the

interdependence has been growing closer, not only between art and science,

but among the arts themselves, and among the sciences themselves.

How completely the analogy holds throughout, becomes yet clearer when we

recognise the fact that _the sciences are arts to each other_. If, as

occurs in almost every case, the fact to be analyzed by any science, has

first to be prepared--to be disentangled from disturbing facts by the afore

discovered methods of other sciences; the other sciences so used, stand in

the position of arts. If, in solving a dynamical problem, a parallelogram

is drawn, of which the sides and diagonal represent forces, and by putting

magnitudes of extension for magnitudes of force a measurable relation is

established between quantities not else to be dealt with; it may be fairly

said that geometry plays towards mechanics much the same part that the fire

of the founder plays towards the metal he is going to cast. If, in

analyzing the phenomena of the coloured rings surrounding the point of

contact between two lenses, a Newton ascertains by calculation the amount

of certain interposed spaces, far too minute for actual measurement; he

employs the science of number for essentially the same purpose as that for

which the watchmaker employs tools. If, before writing down his observation

on a star, the astronomer has to separate from it all the errors resulting

from atmospheric and optical laws, it is manifest that the

refraction-tables, and logarithm-books, and formulae, which he successively

uses, serve him much as retorts, and filters, and cupels serve the assayer

who wishes to separate the pure gold from all accompanying ingredients.

So close, indeed, is the relationship, that it is impossible to say where

science begins and art ends. All the instruments of the natural philosopher

are the products of art; the adjusting one of them for use is an art; there

is art in making an observation with one of them; it requires art properly

to treat the facts ascertained; nay, even the employing established

generalizations to open the way to new generalizations, may be considered

as art. In each of these cases previously organized knowledge becomes the

implement by which new knowledge is got at: and whether that previously

organized knowledge is embodied in a tangible apparatus or in a formula,

matters not in so far as its essential relation to the new knowledge is

concerned. If, as no one will deny, art is applied knowledge, then such

portion of a scientific investigation as consists of applied knowledge is

art. So that we may even say that as soon as any prevision in science

passes out of its originally passive state, and is employed for reaching

other previsions, it passes from theory into practice--becomes science in

action--becomes art. And when we thus see how purely conventional is the

ordinary distinction, how impossible it is to make any real

separation--when we see not only that science and art were originally one;

that the arts have perpetually assisted each other; that there has been a

constant reciprocation of aid between the sciences and arts; but that the

sciences act as arts to each other, and that the established part of each

science becomes an art to the growing part--when we recognize the closeness

of these associations, we shall the more clearly perceive that as the

connexion of the arts with each other has been ever becoming more intimate;

as the help given by sciences to arts and by arts to sciences, has been age

by age increasing; so the interdependence of the sciences themselves has

been ever growing greater, their mutual relations more involved, their

_consensus_ more active.

* * * * *

In here ending our sketch of the Genesis of Science, we are conscious of

having done the subject but scant justice. Two difficulties have stood in

our way: one, the having to touch on so many points in such small space;

the other, the necessity of treating in serial arrangement a process which

is not serial--a difficulty which must ever attend all attempts to

delineate processes of development, whatever their special nature. Add to

which, that to present in anything like completeness and proportion, even

the outlines of so vast and complex a history, demands years of study.

Nevertheless, we believe that the evidence which has been assigned suffices

to substantiate the leading propositions with which we set out. Inquiry

into the first stages of science confirms the conclusion which we drew from

the analysis of science as now existing, that it is not distinct from

common knowledge, but an outgrowth from it--an extension of the perception

by means of the reason.

That which we further found by analysis to form the more specific

characteristic of scientific previsions, as contrasted with the previsions

of uncultured intelligence--their quantitativeness--we also see to have

been the characteristic alike in the initial steps in science, and of all

the steps succeeding them. The facts and admissions cited in disproof of

the assertion that the sciences follow one another, both logically and

historically, in the order of their decreasing generality, have been

enforced by the sundry instances we have met with, in which the more

general or abstract sciences have been advanced only at the instigation of

the more special or concrete--instances serving to show that a more general

science as much owes its progress to the presentation of new problems by a

more special science, as the more special science owes its progress to the

solutions which the more general science is thus led to attempt--instances

therefore illustrating the position that scientific advance is as much from

the special to the general as from the general to the special.

Quite in harmony with this position we find to be the admissions that the

sciences are as branches of one trunk, and that they were at first

cultivated simultaneously; and this harmony becomes the more marked on

finding, as we have done, not only that the sciences have a common root,

but that science in general has a common root with language,

classification, reasoning, art; that throughout civilization these have

advanced together, acting and reacting upon each other just as the separate

sciences have done; and that thus the development of intelligence in all

its divisions and subdivisions has conformed to this same law which we have

shown that the sciences conform to. From all which we may perceive that the

sciences can with no greater propriety be arranged in a succession, than

language, classification, reasoning, art, and science, can be arranged in a

succession; that, however needful a succession may be for the convenience

of books and catalogues, it must be recognized merely as a convention; and

that so far from its being the function of a philosophy of the sciences to

establish a hierarchy, it is its function to show that the linear

arrangements required for literary purposes, have none of them any basis

either in Nature or History.

There is one further remark we must not omit--a remark touching the

importance of the question that has been discussed. Unfortunately it

commonly happens that topics of this abstract nature are slighted as of no

practical moment; and, we doubt not, that many will think it of very little

consequence what theory respecting the genesis of science may be

entertained. But the value of truths is often great, in proportion as their

generality is wide. Remote as they seem from practical application, the

highest generalizations are not unfrequently the most potent in their

effects, in virtue of their influence on all those subordinate

generalizations which regulate practice. And it must be so here. Whenever

established, a correct theory of the historical development of the sciences

must have an immense effect upon education; and, through education, upon

civilization. Greatly as we differ from him in other respects, we agree

with M. Comte in the belief that, rightly conducted, the education of the

individual must have a certain correspondence with the evolution of the

race.

No one can contemplate the facts we have cited in illustration of the early

stages of science, without recognising the _necessity_ of the processes

through which those stages were reached--a necessity which, in respect to

the leading truths, may likewise be traced in all after stages. This

necessity, originating in the very nature of the phenomena to be analyzed

and the faculties to be employed, more or less fully applies to the mind of

the child as to that of the savage. We say more or less fully, because the

correspondence is not special but general only. Were the _environment_ the

same in both cases, the correspondence would be complete. But though the

surrounding material out of which science is to be organized, is, in many

cases, the same to the juvenile mind and the aboriginal mind, it is not so

throughout; as, for instance, in the case of chemistry, the phenomena of

which are accessible to the one, but were inaccessible to the other. Hence,

in proportion as the environment differs, the course of evolution must

differ. After admitting sundry exceptions, however, there remains a

substantial parallelism; and, if so, it becomes of great moment to

ascertain what really has been the process of scientific evolution. The

establishment of an erroneous theory must be disastrous in its educational

results; while the establishment of a true one must eventually be fertile

in school-reforms and consequent social benefits.

IV. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTER.

Why do we smile when a child puts on a man's hat? or what induces us to

laugh on reading that the corpulent Gibbon was unable to rise from his

knees after making a tender declaration? The usual reply to such questions

is, that laughter results from a perception of incongruity. Even were there

not on this reply the obvious criticism that laughter often occurs from

extreme pleasure or from mere vivacity, there would still remain the real

problem--How comes a sense of the incongruous to be followed by these

peculiar bodily actions? Some have alleged that laughter is due to the

pleasure of a relative self-elevation, which we feel on seeing the

humiliation of others. But this theory, whatever portion of truth it may

contain, is, in the first place, open to the fatal objection, that there

are various humiliations to others which produce in us anything but

laughter; and, in the second place, it does not apply to the many instances

in which no one's dignity is implicated: as when we laugh at a good pun.

Moreover, like the other, it is merely a generalization of certain

conditions to laughter; and not an explanation of the odd movements which

occur under these conditions. Why, when greatly delighted, or impressed

with certain unexpected contrasts of ideas, should there be a contraction

of particular facial muscles, and particular muscles of the chest and

abdomen? Such answer to this question as may be possible, can be rendered

only by physiology.

* * * * *

Every child has made the attempt to hold the foot still while it is

tickled, and has failed; and probably there is scarcely any one who has not

vainly tried to avoid winking, when a hand has been suddenly passed before

the eyes. These examples of muscular movements which occur independently of

the will, or in spite of it, illustrate what physiologists call

reflex-action; as likewise do sneezing and coughing. To this class of

cases, in which involuntary motions are accompanied by sensations, has to

be added another class of cases, in which involuntary motions are

unaccompanied by sensations:--instance the pulsations of the heart; the

contractions of the stomach during digestion. Further, the great mass of

seemingly-voluntary acts in such creatures as insects, worms, molluscs, are

considered by physiologists to be as purely automatic as is the dilatation

or closure of the iris under variations in quantity of light; and similarly

exemplify the law, that an impression on the end of an afferent nerve is

conveyed to some ganglionic centre, and is thence usually reflected along

an efferent nerve to one or more muscles which it causes to contract.

In a modified form this principle holds with voluntary acts. Nervous

excitation always _tends_ to beget muscular motion; and when it rises to a

certain intensity, always does beget it. Not only in reflex actions,

whether with or without sensation, do we see that special nerves, when

raised to a state of tension, discharge themselves on special muscles with

which they are indirectly connected; but those external actions through

which we read the feelings of others, show us that under any considerable

tension, the nervous system in general discharges itself on the muscular

system in general: either with or without the guidance of the will. The

shivering produced by cold, implies irregular muscular contractions, which,

though at first only partly involuntary, become, when the cold is extreme,

almost wholly involuntary. When you have severely burnt your finger, it is

very difficult to preserve a dignified composure: contortion of face, or

movement of limb, is pretty sure to follow. If a man receives good news

with neither change of feature nor bodily motion, it is inferred that he is

not much pleased, or that he has extraordinary self-control--either

inference implying that joy almost universally produces contraction of the

muscles; and so, alters the expression, or attitude, or both. And when we

hear of the feats of strength which men have performed when their lives

were at stake--when we read how, in the energy of despair, even paralytic

patients have regained for a time the use of their limbs; we see still more

clearly the relations between nervous and muscular excitements. It becomes

manifest both that emotions and sensations tend to generate bodily

movements, and that the movements are vehement in proportion as the

emotions or sensations are intense.[G]

[G] For numerous illustrations see essay on "The Origin and Function

of Music."

This, however, is not the sole direction in which nervous excitement

expends itself. Viscera as well as muscles may receive the discharge. That

the heart and blood-vessels (which, indeed, being all contractile, may in a

restricted sense be classed with the muscular system) are quickly affected

by pleasures and pains, we have daily proved to us. Every sensation of any

acuteness accelerates the pulse; and how sensitive the heart is to

emotions, is testified by the familiar expressions which use heart and

feeling as convertible terms. Similarly with the digestive organs. Without

detailing the various ways in which these may be influenced by our mental

states, it suffices to mention the marked benefits derived by dyspeptics,

as well as other invalids, from cheerful society, welcome news, change of

scene, to show how pleasurable feeling stimulates the viscera in general

into greater activity.

There is still another direction in which any excited portion of the

nervous system may discharge itself; and a direction in which it usually

does discharge itself when the excitement is not strong. It may pass on the

stimulus to some other portion of the nervous system. This is what occurs

in quiet thinking and feeling. The successive states which constitute

consciousness, result from this. Sensations excite ideas and emotions;

these in their turns arouse other ideas and emotions; and so, continuously.

That is to say, the tension existing in particular nerves, or groups of

nerves, when they yield us certain sensations, ideas, or emotions,

generates an equivalent tension in some other nerves, or groups of nerves,

with which there is a connexion: the flow of energy passing on, the one

idea or feeling dies in producing the next.

Thus, then, while we are totally unable to comprehend how the excitement of

certain nerves should generate feeling--while, in the production of

consciousness by physical agents acting on physical structure, we come to

an absolute mystery never to be solved; it is yet quite possible for us to

know by observation what are the successive forms which this absolute

mystery may take. We see that there are three channels along which nerves

in a state of tension may discharge themselves; or rather, I should say,

three classes of channels. They may pass on the excitement to other nerves

that have no direct connexions with the bodily members, and may so cause

other feelings and ideas; or they may pass on the excitement to one or more

motor nerves, and so cause muscular contractions; or they may pass on the

excitement to nerves which supply the viscera, and may so stimulate one or

more of these.

For simplicity's sake, I have described these as alternative routes, one or

other of which any current of nerve-force must take; thereby, as it may be

thought, implying that such current will be exclusively confined to some

one of them. But this is by no means the case. Rarely, if ever, does it

happen that a state of nervous tension, present to consciousness as a

feeling, expends itself in one direction only. Very generally it may be

observed to expend itself in two; and it is probable that the discharge is

never absolutely absent from any one of the three. There is, however,

variety in the _proportions_ in which the discharge is divided among these

different channels under different circumstances. In a man whose fear

impels him to run, the mental tension generated is only in part transformed

into a muscular stimulus: there is a surplus which causes a rapid current

of ideas. An agreeable state of feeling produced, say by praise, is not

wholly used up in arousing the succeeding phase of the feeling, and the new

ideas appropriate to it; but a certain portion overflows into the visceral

nervous system, increasing the action of the heart, and probably

facilitating digestion. And here we come upon a class of considerations and

facts which open the way to a solution of our special problem.

For starting with the unquestionable truth, that at any moment the existing

quantity of liberated nerve-force, which in an inscrutable way produces in

us the state we call feeling, _must_ expend itself in some

direction--_must_ generate an equivalent manifestation of force

somewhere--it clearly follows that, if of the several channels it may take,

one is wholly or partially closed, more must be taken by the others; or

that if two are closed, the discharge along the remaining one must be more

intense; and that, conversely, should anything determine an unusual efflux

in one direction, there will be a diminished efflux in other directions.

Daily experience illustrates these conclusions. It is commonly remarked,

that the suppression of external signs of feeling, makes feeling more

intense. The deepest grief is silent grief. Why? Because the nervous

excitement not discharged in muscular action, discharges itself in other

nervous excitements--arouses more numerous and more remote associations of

melancholy ideas, and so increases the mass of feelings. People who conceal

their anger are habitually found to be more revengeful than those who

explode in loud speech and vehement action. Why? Because, as before, the

emotion is reflected back, accumulates, and intensifies. Similarly, men

who, as proved by their powers of representation, have the keenest

appreciation of the comic, are usually able to do and say the most

ludicrous things with perfect gravity.

On the other hand, all are familiar with the truth that bodily activity

deadens emotion. Under great irritation we get relief by walking about

rapidly. Extreme effort in the bootless attempt to achieve a desired end,

greatly diminishes the intensity of the desire. Those who are forced to

exert themselves after misfortunes, do not suffer nearly so much as those

who remain quiescent. If any one wishes to check intellectual excitement,

he cannot choose a more efficient method than running till he is exhausted.

Moreover, these cases, in which the production of feeling and thought is

hindered by determining the nervous energy towards bodily movements, have

their counterparts in the cases in which bodily movements are hindered by

extra absorption of nervous energy in sudden thoughts and feelings. If,

when walking along, there flashes on you an idea that creates great

surprise, hope, or alarm, you stop; or if sitting cross-legged, swinging

your pendent foot, the movement is at once arrested. From the viscera, too,

intense mental action abstracts energy. Joy, disappointment, anxiety, or

any moral perturbation rising to a great height, will destroy appetite; or

if food has been taken, will arrest digestion; and even a purely

intellectual activity, when extreme, will do the like.

Facts, then, fully bear out these _a priori_ inferences, that the nervous

excitement at any moment present to consciousness as feeling, must expend

itself in some way or other; that of the three classes of channels open to

it, it must take one, two, or more, according to circumstances; that the

closure or obstruction of one, must increase the discharge through the

others; and conversely, that if to answer some demand, the efflux of

nervous energy in one direction is unusually great, there must be a

corresponding decrease of the efflux in other directions. Setting out from

these premises, let us now see what interpretation is to be put on the

phenomena of laughter.

* * * * *

That laughter is a display of muscular excitement, and so illustrates the

general law that feeling passing a certain pitch habitually vents itself in

bodily action, scarcely needs pointing out. It perhaps needs pointing out,

however, that strong feeling of almost any kind produces this result. It is

not a sense of the ludicrous, only, which does it; nor are the various

forms of joyous emotion the sole additional causes. We have, besides, the

sardonic laughter and the hysterical laughter, which result from mental

distress; to which must be added certain sensations, as tickling, and,

according to Mr. Bain, cold, and some kinds of acute pain.

Strong feeling, mental or physical, being, then, the general cause of

laughter, we have to note that the muscular actions constituting it are

distinguished from most others by this, that they are purposeless. In

general, bodily motions that are prompted by feelings are directed to

special ends; as when we try to escape a danger, or struggle to secure a

gratification. But the movements of chest and limbs which we make when

laughing have no object. And now remark that these quasi-convulsive

contractions of the muscles, having no object, but being results of an

uncontrolled discharge of energy, we may see whence arise their special

characters--how it happens that certain classes of muscles are affected

first, and then certain other classes. For an overflow of nerve-force,

undirected by any motive, will manifestly take first the most habitual

routes; and if these do not suffice, will next overflow into the less

habitual ones. Well, it is through the organs of speech that feeling passes

into movement with the greatest frequency. The jaws, tongue, and lips are

used not only to express strong irritation or gratification; but that very

moderate flow of mental energy which accompanies ordinary conversation,

finds its chief vent through this channel. Hence it happens that certain

muscles round the mouth, small and easy to move, are the first to contract

under pleasurable emotion. The class of muscles which, next after those of

articulation, are most constantly set in action (or extra action, we should

say) by feelings of all kinds, are those of respiration. Under pleasurable

or painful sensations we breathe more rapidly: possibly as a consequence of

the increased demand for oxygenated blood. The sensations that accompany

exertion also bring on hard-breathing; which here more evidently responds

to the physiological needs. And emotions, too, agreeable and disagreeable,

both, at first, excite respiration; though the last subsequently depress

it. That is to say, of the bodily muscles, the respiratory are more

constantly implicated than any others in those various acts which our

feelings impel us to; and, hence, when there occurs an undirected discharge

of nervous energy into the muscular system, it happens that, if the

quantity be considerable, it convulses not only certain of the articulatory

and vocal muscles, but also those which expel air from the lungs.

Should the feeling to be expended be still greater in amount--too great to

find vent in these classes of muscles--another class comes into play. The

upper limbs are set in motion. Children frequently clap their hands in

glee; by some adults the hands are rubbed together; and others, under still

greater intensity of delight, slap their knees and sway their bodies

backwards and forwards. Last of all, when the other channels for the escape

of the surplus nerve-force have been filled to overflowing, a yet further

and less-used group of muscles is spasmodically affected: the head is

thrown back and the spine bent inwards--there is a slight degree of what

medical men call opisthotonos. Thus, then, without contending that the

phenomena of laughter in all their details are to be so accounted for, we

see that in their _ensemble_ they conform to these general

principles:--that feeling excites to muscular action; that when the

muscular action is unguided by a purpose, the muscles first affected are

those which feeling most habitually stimulates; and that as the feeling to

be expended increases in quantity, it excites an increasing number of

muscles, in a succession determined by the relative frequency with which

they respond to the regulated dictates of feeling.

There still, however, remains the question with which we set out. The

explanation here given applies only to the laughter produced by acute

pleasure or pain: it does not apply to the laughter that follows certain

perceptions of incongruity. It is an insufficient explanation that in these

cases, laughter is a result of the pleasure we take in escaping from the

restraint of grave feelings. That this is a part-cause is true. Doubtless

very often, as Mr. Bain says, "it is the coerced form of seriousness and

solemnity without the reality that gives us that stiff position from which

a contact with triviality or vulgarity relieves us, to our uproarious

delight." And in so far as mirth is caused by the gush of agreeable feeling

that follows the cessation of mental strain, it further illustrates the

general principle above set forth. But no explanation is thus afforded of

the mirth which ensues when the short silence between the _andante_ and

_allegro_ in one of Beethoven's symphonies, is broken by a loud sneeze. In

this, and hosts of like cases, the mental tension is not coerced but

spontaneous--not disagreeable but agreeable; and the coming impressions to

which the attention is directed, promise a gratification that few, if any,

desire to escape. Hence, when the unlucky sneeze occurs, it cannot be that

the laughter of the audience is due simply to the release from an irksome

attitude of mind: some other cause must be sought.

This cause we shall arrive at by carrying our analysis a step further. We

have but to consider the quantity of feeling that exists under such

circumstances, and then to ask what are the conditions that determine the

direction of its discharge, to at once reach a solution. Take a case. You

are sitting in a theatre, absorbed in the progress of an interesting drama.

Some climax has been reached which has aroused your sympathies--say, a

reconciliation between the hero and heroine, after long and painful

misunderstanding. The feelings excited by this scene are not of a kind from

which you seek relief; but are, on the contrary, a grateful relief from the

painful feelings with which you have witnessed the previous estrangement.

Moreover, the sentiments these fictitious personages have for the moment

inspired you with, are not such as would lead you to rejoice in any

indignity offered to them; but rather, such as would make you resent the

indignity. And now, while you are contemplating the reconciliation with a

pleasurable sympathy, there appears from behind the scenes a tame kid,

which, having stared round at the audience, walks up to the lovers and

sniffs at them. You cannot help joining in the roar which greets this

_contretemps_. Inexplicable as is this irresistible burst on the hypothesis

of a pleasure in escaping from mental restraint; or on the hypothesis of a

pleasure from relative increase of self-importance, when witnessing the

humiliation of others; it is readily explicable if we consider what, in

such a case, must become of the feeling that existed at the moment the

incongruity arose. A large mass of emotion had been produced; or, to speak

in physiological language, a large portion of the nervous system was in a

state of tension. There was also great expectation with respect to the

further evolution of the scene--a quantity of vague, nascent thought and

emotion, into which the existing quantity of thought and emotion was about

to pass.

Had there been no interruption, the body of new ideas and feelings next

excited, would have sufficed to absorb the whole of the liberated nervous

energy. But now, this large amount of nervous energy, instead of being

allowed to expend itself in producing an equivalent amount of the new

thoughts and emotions which were nascent, is suddenly checked in its flow.

The channels along which the discharge was about to take place, are closed.

The new channel opened--that afforded by the appearance and proceedings of

the kid--is a small one; the ideas and feelings suggested are not numerous

and massive enough to carry off the nervous energy to be expended. The

excess must therefore discharge itself in some other direction; and in the

way already explained, there results an efflux through the motor nerves to

various classes of the muscles, producing the half-convulsive actions we

term laughter.

This explanation is in harmony with the fact, that when, among several

persons who witness the same ludicrous occurrence, there are some who do

not laugh; it is because there has arisen in them an emotion not

participated in by the rest, and which is sufficiently massive to absorb

all the nascent excitement. Among the spectators of an awkward tumble,

those who preserve their gravity are those in whom there is excited a

degree of sympathy with the sufferer, sufficiently great to serve as an

outlet for the feeling which the occurrence had turned out of its previous

course. Sometimes anger carries off the arrested current; and so prevents

laughter. An instance of this was lately furnished me by a friend who had

been witnessing the feats at Franconi's. A tremendous leap had just been

made by an acrobat over a number of horses. The clown, seemingly envious of

this success, made ostentatious preparation for doing the like; and then,

taking the preliminary run with immense energy, stopped short on reaching

the first horse, and pretended to wipe some dust from its haunches. In the

majority of the spectators, merriment was excited; but in my friend, wound

up by the expectation of the coming leap to a state of great nervous

tension, the effect of the baulk was to produce indignation. Experience

thus proves what the theory implies: namely, that the discharge of arrested

feelings into the muscular system, takes place only in the absence of other

adequate channels--does not take place if there arise other feelings equal

in amount to those arrested.

Evidence still more conclusive is at hand. If we contrast the incongruities

which produce laughter with those which do not, we at once see that in the

non-ludicrous ones the unexpected state of feeling aroused, though wholly

different in kind, is not less in quantity or intensity. Among

incongruities that may excite anything but a laugh, Mr. Bain instances--"A

decrepit man under a heavy burden, five loaves and two fishes among a

multitude, and all unfitness and gross disproportion; an instrument out of

tune, a fly in ointment, snow in May, Archimedes studying geometry in a

siege, and all discordant things; a wolf in sheep's clothing, a breach of

bargain, and falsehood in general; the multitude taking the law in their

own hands, and everything of the nature of disorder; a corpse at a feast,

parental cruelty, filial ingratitude, and whatever is unnatural; the entire

catalogue of the vanities given by Solomon, are all incongruous, but they

cause feelings of pain, anger, sadness, loathing, rather than mirth." Now

in these cases, where the totally unlike state of consciousness suddenly

produced, is not inferior in mass to the preceding one, the conditions to

laughter are not fulfilled. As above shown, laughter naturally results only

when consciousness is unawares transferred from great things to small--only

when there is what we call a _descending_ incongruity.

And now observe, finally, the fact, alike inferable _a priori_ and

illustrated in experience, that an _ascending_ incongruity not only fails

to cause laughter, but works on the muscular system an effect of exactly

the reverse kind. When after something very insignificant there arises

without anticipation something very great, the emotion we call wonder

results; and this emotion is accompanied not by an excitement of the

muscles, but by a relaxation of them. In children and country people, that

falling of the jaw which occurs on witnessing something that is imposing

and unexpected, exemplifies this effect. Persons who have been

wonder-struck at the production of very striking results by a seemingly

inadequate cause, are frequently described as unconsciously dropping the

things they held in their hands. Such are just the effects to be

anticipated. After an average state of consciousness, absorbing but a small

quantity of nervous energy, is aroused without the slightest notice, a

strong emotion of awe, terror, or admiration; joined with the astonishment

due to an apparent want of adequate causation. This new state of

consciousness demands far more nervous energy than that which it has

suddenly replaced; and this increased absorption of nervous energy in

mental changes, involves a temporary diminution of the outflow in other

directions: whence the pendent jaw and the relaxing grasp.

One further observation is worth making. Among the several sets of channels

into which surplus feeling might be discharged, was named the nervous

system of the viscera. The sudden overflow of an arrested mental

excitement, which, as we have seen, results from a descending incongruity,

must doubtless stimulate not only the muscular system, as we see it does,

but also the internal organs; the heart and stomach must come in for a

share of the discharge. And thus there seems to be a good physiological

basis for the popular notion that mirth-creating excitement facilitates

digestion.

* * * * *

Though in doing so I go beyond the boundaries of the immediate topic, I may

fitly point out that the method of inquiry here followed, is one which

enables us to understand various phenomena besides those of laughter. To

show the importance of pursuing it, I will indicate the explanation it

furnishes of another familiar class of facts.

All know how generally a large amount of emotion disturbs the action of the

intellect, and interferes with the power of expression. A speech delivered

with great facility to tables and chairs, is by no means so easily

delivered to an audience. Every schoolboy can testify that his trepidation,

when standing before a master, has often disabled him from repeating a

lesson which he had duly learnt. In explanation of this we commonly say

that the attention is distracted--that the proper train of ideas is broken

by the intrusion of ideas that are irrelevant. But the question is, in what

manner does unusual emotion produce this effect; and we are here supplied

with a tolerably obvious answer. The repetition of a lesson, or set speech

previously thought out, implies the flow of a very moderate amount of

nervous excitement through a comparatively narrow channel. The thing to be

done is simply to call up in succession certain previously-arranged

ideas--a process in which no great amount of mental energy is expended.

Hence, when there is a large quantity of emotion, which must be discharged

in some direction or other; and when, as usually happens, the restricted

series of intellectual actions to be gone through, does not suffice to

carry it off; there result discharges along other channels besides the one

prescribed: there are aroused various ideas foreign to the train of thought

to be pursued; and these tend to exclude from consciousness those which

should occupy it.

And now observe the meaning of those bodily actions spontaneously set up

under these circumstances. The school-boy saying his lesson, commonly has

his fingers actively engaged--perhaps in twisting about a broken pen, or

perhaps squeezing the angle of his jacket; and if told to keep his hands

still, he soon again falls into the same or a similar trick. Many anecdotes

are current of public speakers having incurable automatic actions of this

class: barristers who perpetually wound and unwound pieces of tape; members

of parliament ever putting on and taking off their spectacles. So long as

such movements are unconscious, they facilitate the mental actions. At

least this seems a fair inference from the fact that confusion frequently

results from putting a stop to them: witness the case narrated by Sir

Walter Scott of his school-fellow, who became unable to say his lesson

after the removal of the waistcoat-button that he habitually fingered while

in class. But why do they facilitate the mental actions? Clearly because

they draw off a portion of the surplus nervous excitement. If, as above

explained, the quantity of mental energy generated is greater than can find

vent along the narrow channel of thought that is open to it; and if, in

consequence, it is apt to produce confusion by rushing into other channels

of thought; then by allowing it an exit through the motor nerves into the

muscular system, the pressure is diminished, and irrelevant ideas are less

likely to intrude on consciousness.

This further illustration will, I think, justify the position that

something may be achieved by pursuing in other cases this method of

psychological inquiry. A complete explanation of the phenomena, requires us

to trace out _all_ the consequences of any given state of consciousness;

and we cannot do this without studying the effects, bodily and mental, as

varying in quantity at each other's expense. We should probably learn much

if we in every case asked--Where is all the nervous energy gone?

V. THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC

When Carlo, standing, chained to his kennel, sees his master in the

distance, a slight motion of the tail indicates his but faint hope that he

is about to be let out. A much more decided wagging of the tail, passing

by-and-by into lateral undulations of the body, follows his master's nearer

approach. When hands are laid on his collar, and he knows that he is really

to have an outing, his jumping and wriggling are such that it is by no

means easy to loose his fastenings. And when he finds himself actually

free, his joy expends itself in bounds, in pirouettes, and in scourings

hither and thither at the top of his speed. Puss, too, by erecting her

tail, and by every time raising her back to meet the caressing hand of her

mistress, similarly expresses her gratification by certain muscular

actions; as likewise do the parrot by awkward dancing on his perch, and the

canary by hopping and fluttering about his cage with unwonted rapidity.

Under emotions of an opposite kind, animals equally display muscular

excitement. The enraged lion lashes his sides with his tail, knits his

brows, protrudes his claws. The cat sets up her back; the dog retracts his

upper lip; the horse throws back his ears. And in the struggles of

creatures in pain, we see that the like relation holds between excitement

of the muscles and excitement of the nerves of sensation.

In ourselves, distinguished from lower creatures as we are by feelings

alike more powerful and more varied, parallel facts are at once more

conspicuous and more numerous. We may conveniently look at them in groups.

We shall find that pleasurable sensations and painful sensations,

pleasurable emotions and painful emotions, all tend to produce active

demonstrations in proportion to their intensity.

In children, and even in adults who are not restrained by regard for

appearances, a highly agreeable taste is followed by a smacking of the

lips. An infant will laugh and bound in its nurse's arms at the sight of a

brilliant colour or the hearing of a new sound. People are apt to beat time

with head or feet to music which particularly pleases them. In a sensitive

person an agreeable perfume will produce a smile; and smiles will be seen

on the faces of a crowd gazing at some splendid burst of fireworks. Even

the pleasant sensation of warmth felt on getting to the fireside out of a

winter's storm, will similarly express itself in the face.

Painful sensations, being mostly far more intense than pleasurable ones,

cause muscular actions of a much more decided kind. A sudden twinge

produces a convulsive start of the whole body. A pain less violent, but

continuous, is accompanied by a knitting of the brows, a setting of the

teeth or biting of the lip, and a contraction of the features generally.

Under a persistent pain of a severer kind, other muscular actions are

added: the body is swayed to and fro; the hands clench anything they can

lay hold of; and should the agony rise still higher, the sufferer rolls

about on the floor almost convulsed.

Though more varied, the natural language of the pleasurable emotions comes

within the same generalization. A smile, which is the commonest expression

of gratified feeling, is a contraction of certain facial muscles; and when

the smile broadens into a laugh, we see a more violent and more general

muscular excitement produced by an intenser gratification. Rubbing together

of the hands, and that other motion which Dickens somewhere describes as

"washing with impalpable soap in invisible water," have like implications.

Children may often be seen to "jump for joy." Even in adults of excitable

temperament, an action approaching to it is sometimes witnessed. And

dancing has all the world through been regarded as natural to an elevated

state of mind. Many of the special emotions show themselves in special

muscular actions. The gratification resulting from success, raises the head

and gives firmness to the gait. A hearty grasp of the hand is currently

taken as indicative of friendship. Under a gush of affection the mother

clasps her child to her breast, feeling as though she could squeeze it to

death. And so in sundry other cases. Even in that brightening of the eye

with which good news is received we may trace the same truth; for this

appearance of greater brilliancy is due to an extra contraction of the

muscle which raises the eyelid, and so allows more light to fall upon, and

be reflected from, the wet surface of the eyeball.

The bodily indications of painful emotions are equally numerous, and still

more vehement. Discontent is shown by raised eyebrows and wrinkled

forehead; disgust by a curl of the lip; offence by a pout. The impatient

man beats a tattoo with his fingers on the table, swings his pendent leg

with increasing rapidity, gives needless pokings to the fire, and presently

paces with hasty strides about the room. In great grief there is wringing

of the hands, and even tearing of the hair. An angry child stamps, or rolls

on its back and kicks its heels in the air; and in manhood, anger, first

showing itself in frowns, in distended nostrils, in compressed lips, goes

on to produce grinding of the teeth, clenching of the fingers, blows of the

fist on the table, and perhaps ends in a violent attack on the offending

person, or in throwing about and breaking the furniture. From that pursing

of the mouth indicative of slight displeasure, up to the frantic struggles

of the maniac, we shall find that mental irritation tends to vent itself in

bodily activity.

All feelings, then--sensations or emotions, pleasurable or painful--have

this common characteristic, that they are muscular stimuli. Not forgetting

the few apparently exceptional cases in which emotions exceeding a certain

intensity produce prostration, we may set it down as a general law that,

alike in man and animals, there is a direct connection between feeling and

motion; the last growing more vehement as the first grows more intense.

Were it allowable here to treat the matter scientifically, we might trace

this general law down to the principle known among physiologists as that of

_reflex action_.[H] Without doing this, however, the above numerous

instances justify the generalization, that mental excitement of all kinds

ends in excitement of the muscles; and that the two preserve a more or less

constant ratio to each other.

[H] Those who seek information on this point may find it in an

interesting tract by Mr. Alexander Bain, on _Animal Instinct and

Intelligence_.

* * * * *

"But what has all this to do with _The Origin and Function of Music_?" asks

the reader. Very much, as we shall presently see. All music is originally

vocal. All vocal sounds are produced by the agency of certain muscles.

These muscles, in common with those of the body at large, are excited to

contraction by pleasurable and painful feelings. And therefore it is that

feelings demonstrate themselves in sounds as well as in movements.

Therefore it is that Carlo barks as well as leaps when he is let out--that

puss purrs as well as erects her tail--that the canary chirps as well as

flutters. Therefore it is that the angry lion roars while he lashes his

sides, and the dog growls while he retracts his lip. Therefore it is that

the maimed animal not only struggles, but howls. And it is from this cause

that in human beings bodily suffering expresses itself not only in

contortions, but in shrieks and groans--that in anger, and fear, and grief,

the gesticulations are accompanied by shouts and screams--that delightful

sensations are followed by exclamations--and that we hear screams of joy

and shouts of exultation.

We have here, then, a principle underlying all vocal phenomena; including

those of vocal music, and by consequence those of music in general. The

muscles that move the chest, larynx, and vocal chords, contracting like

other muscles in proportion to the intensity of the feelings; every

different contraction of these muscles involving, as it does, a different

adjustment of the vocal organs; every different adjustment of the vocal

organs causing a change in the sound emitted;--it follows that variations

of voice are the physiological results of variations of feeling; it follows

that each inflection or modulation is the natural outcome of some passing

emotion or sensation; and it follows that the explanation of all kinds of

vocal expression, must be sought in this general relation between mental

and muscular excitements. Let us, then, see whether we cannot thus account

for the chief peculiarities in the utterance of the feelings: grouping

these peculiarities under the heads of _loudness_, _quality_, _or timbre_,

_pitch_, _intervals_, and _rate of variation_.

* * * * *

Between the lungs and the organs of voice, there is much the same relation

as between the bellows of an organ and its pipes. And as the loudness of

the sound given out by an organ-pipe increases with the strength of the

blast from the bellows; so, other things equal, the loudness of a vocal

sound increases with the strength of the blast from the lungs. But the

expulsion of air from the lungs is effected by certain muscles of the chest

and abdomen. The force with which these muscles contract, is proportionate

to the intensity of the feeling experienced. Hence, _a priori_, loud sounds

will be the habitual results of strong feelings. That they are so we have

daily proof. The pain which, if moderate, can be borne silently, causes

outcries if it becomes extreme. While a slight vexation makes a child

whimper, a fit of passion calls forth a howl that disturbs the

neighbourhood. When the voices in an adjacent room become unusually

audible, we infer anger, or surprise, or joy. Loudness of applause is

significant of great approbation; and with uproarious mirth we associate

the idea of high enjoyment. Commencing with the silence of apathy, we find

that the utterances grow louder as the sensations or emotions, whether

pleasurable or painful, grow stronger.

That different _qualities_ of voice accompany different mental states, and

that under states of excitement the tones are more sonorous than usual, is

another general fact admitting of a parallel explanation. The sounds of

common conversation have but little resonance; those of strong feeling have

much more. Under rising ill temper the voice acquires a metallic ring. In

accordance with her constant mood, the ordinary speech of a virago has a

piercing quality quite opposite to that softness indicative of placidity. A

ringing laugh marks an especially joyous temperament. Grief unburdening

itself uses tones approaching in _timbre_ to those of chanting: and in his

most pathetic passages an eloquent speaker similarly falls into tones more

vibratory than those common to him. Now any one may readily convince

himself that resonant vocal sounds can be produced only by a certain

muscular effort additional to that ordinarily needed. If after uttering a

word in his speaking voice, the reader, without changing the pitch or the

loudness, will _sing_ this word, he will perceive that before he can sing

it, he has to alter the adjustment of the vocal organs; to do which a

certain force must be used; and by putting his fingers on that external

prominence marking the top of the larynx, he will have further evidence

that to produce a sonorous tone the organs must be drawn out of their usual

position. Thus, then, the fact that the tones of excited feeling are more

vibratory than those of common conversation, is another instance of the

connexion between mental excitement and muscular excitement. The speaking

voice, the recitative voice, and the singing voice, severally exemplify one

general principle.

That the _pitch_ of the voice varies according to the action of the vocal

muscles, scarcely needs saying. All know that the middle notes, in which

they converse, are made without any appreciable effort; and all know that

to make either very high or very low notes requires a considerable effort.

In either ascending or descending from the pitch of ordinary speech, we are

conscious of an increasing muscular strain, which, at both extremes of the

register, becomes positively painful. Hence it follows from our general

principle, that while indifference or calmness will use the medium tones,

the tones used during excitement will be either above or below them; and

will rise higher and higher, or fall lower and lower, as the feelings grow

stronger. This physiological deduction we also find to be in harmony with

familiar facts. The habitual sufferer utters his complaints in a voice

raised considerably above the natural key; and agonizing pain vents itself

in either shrieks or groans--in very high or very low notes. Beginning at

his talking pitch, the cry of the disappointed urchin grows more shrill as

it grows louder. The "Oh!" of astonishment or delight, begins several notes

below the middle voice, and descends still lower. Anger expresses itself in

high tones, or else in "curses not loud but _deep_." Deep tones, too, are

always used in uttering strong reproaches. Such an exclamation as "Beware!"

if made dramatically--that is, if made with a show of feeling--must be many

notes lower than ordinary. Further, we have groans of disapprobation,

groans of horror, groans of remorse. And extreme joy and fear are alike

accompanied by shrill outcries.

Nearly allied to the subject of pitch, is that of _intervals_; and the

explanation of them carries our argument a step further. While calm speech

is comparatively monotonous, emotion makes use of fifths, octaves, and even

wider intervals. Listen to any one narrating or repeating something in

which he has no interest, and his voice will not wander more than two or

three notes above or below his medium note, and that by small steps; but

when he comes to some exciting event he will be heard not only to use the

higher and lower notes of his register, but to go from one to the other by

larger leaps. Being unable in print to imitate these traits of feeling, we

feel some difficulty in fully realizing them to the reader. But we may

suggest a few remembrances which will perhaps call to mind a sufficiency of

others. If two men living in the same place, and frequently seeing one

another, meet, say at a public assembly, any phrase with which one may be

heard to accost the other--as "Hallo, are you here?"--will have an ordinary

intonation. But if one of them, after long absence, has unexpectedly

returned, the expression of surprise with which his friend may greet

him--"Hallo! how came you here?"--will be uttered in much more strongly

contrasted tones. The two syllables of the word "Hallo" will be, the one

much higher and the other much lower than before; and the rest of the

sentence will similarly ascend and descend by longer steps.

Again, if, supposing her to be in an adjoining room, the mistress of the

house calls "Mary," the two syllables of the name will be spoken in an

ascending interval of a third. If Mary does not reply, the call will be

repeated probably in a descending fifth; implying the slightest shade of

annoyance at Mary's inattention. Should Mary still make no answer, the

increasing annoyance will show itself by the use of a descending octave on

the next repetition of the call. And supposing the silence to continue, the

lady, if not of a very even temper, will show her irritation at Mary's

seemingly intentional negligence by finally calling her in tones still more

widely contrasted--the first syllable being higher and the last lower than

before.

Now, these and analogous facts, which the reader will readily accumulate,

clearly conform to the law laid down. For to make large intervals requires

more muscular action than to make small ones. But not only is the _extent_

of vocal intervals thus explicable as due to the relation between nervous

and muscular excitement, but also in some degree their _direction_, as

ascending or descending. The middle notes being those which demand no

appreciable effort of muscular adjustment; and the effort becoming greater

as we either ascend or descend; it follows that a departure from the middle

notes in either direction will mark increasing emotion; while a return

towards the middle notes will mark decreasing emotion. Hence it happens

that an enthusiastic person uttering such a sentence as--"It was the most

splendid sight I ever saw!" will ascend to the first syllable of the word

"splendid," and thence will descend: the word "splendid" marking the climax

of the feeling produced by the recollection. Hence, again, it happens that,

under some extreme vexation produced by another's stupidity, an irascible

man, exclaiming--"What a confounded fool the fellow is!" will begin

somewhat below his middle voice, and descending to the word "fool," which

he will utter in one of his deepest notes, will then ascend again. And it

may be remarked, that the word "fool" will not only be deeper and louder

than the rest, but will also have more emphasis of articulation--another

mode in which muscular excitement is shown.

There is some danger, however, in giving instances like this; seeing that

as the mode of rendering will vary according to the intensity of the

feeling which the reader feigns to himself, the right cadence may not be

hit upon. With single words there is less difficulty. Thus the "Indeed!"

with which a surprising fact is received, mostly begins on the middle note

of the voice, and rises with the second syllable; or, if disapprobation as

well as astonishment is felt, the first syllable will be below the middle

note, and the second lower still. Conversely, the word "Alas!" which marks

not the rise of a paroxysm of grief, but its decline, is uttered in a

cadence descending towards the middle note; or, if the first syllable is in

the lower part of the register, the second ascends towards the middle note.

In the "Heigh-ho!" expressive of mental and muscular prostration, we may

see the same truth; and if the cadence appropriate to it be inverted the

absurdity of the effect clearly shows how the meaning of intervals is

dependent on the principle we have been illustrating.

The remaining characteristic of emotional speech which we have to notice is

that of _variability of pitch_. It is scarcely possible here to convey

adequate ideas of this more complex manifestation. We must be content with

simply indicating some occasions on which it may be observed. On a meeting

of friends, for instance--as when there arrives a party of much-wished-for

visitors--the voices of all will be heard to undergo changes of pitch not

only greater but much more numerous than usual. If a speaker at a public

meeting is interrupted by some squabble among those he is addressing, his

comparatively level tones will be in marked contrast with the rapidly

changing one of the disputants. And among children, whose feelings are less

under control than those of adults, this peculiarity is still more decided.

During a scene of complaint and recrimination between two excitable little

girls, the voices may be heard to run up and down the gamut several times

in each sentence. In such cases we once more recognise the same law: for

muscular excitement is shown not only in strength of contraction but also

in the rapidity with which different muscular adjustments succeed each

other.

Thus we find all the leading vocal phenomena to have a physiological basis.

They are so many manifestations of the general law that feeling is a

stimulus to muscular action--a law conformed to throughout the whole

economy, not of man only, but of every sensitive creature--a law,

therefore, which lies deep in the nature of animal organization. The

expressiveness of these various modifications of voice is therefore innate.

Each of us, from babyhood upwards, has been spontaneously making them, when

under the various sensations and emotions by which they are produced.

Having been conscious of each feeling at the same time that we heard

ourselves make the consequent sound, we have acquired an established

association of ideas between such sound and the feeling which caused it.

When the like sound is made by another, we ascribe the like feeling to him;

and by a further consequence we not only ascribe to him that feeling, but

have a certain degree of it aroused in ourselves: for to become conscious

of the feeling which another is experiencing, is to have that feeling

awakened in our own consciousness, which is the same thing as experiencing

the feeling. Thus these various modifications of voice become not only a

language through which we understand the emotions of others, but also the

means of exciting our sympathy with such emotions.

Have we not here, then, adequate data for a theory of music? These vocal

peculiarities which indicate excited feeling, _are those which especially

distinguish song from ordinary speech_. Every one of the alterations of

voice which we have found to be a physiological result of pain or pleasure,

_is carried to its greatest extreme in vocal music_. For instance, we saw

that, in virtue of the general relation between mental and muscular

excitement, one characteristic of passionate utterance is _loudness_. Well,

its comparative loudness is one of the distinctive marks of song as

contrasted with the speech of daily life; and further, the _forte_ passages

of an air are those intended to represent the climax of its emotion. We

next saw that the tones in which emotion expresses itself, are, in

conformity with this same law, of a more sonorous _timbre_ than those of

calm conversation. Here, too, song displays a still higher degree of the

peculiarity; for the singing tone is the most resonant we can make. Again,

it was shown that, from a like cause, mental excitement vents itself in the

higher and lower notes of the register; using the middle notes but seldom.

And it scarcely needs saying that vocal music is still more distinguished

by its comparative neglect of the notes in which we talk, and its habitual

use of those above or below them and, moreover, that its most passionate

effects are commonly produced at the two extremities of its scale, but

especially the upper one.

A yet further trait of strong feeling, similarly accounted for, was the

employment of larger intervals than are employed in common converse. This

trait, also, every ballad and _aria_ carries to an extent beyond that heard

in the spontaneous utterances of emotion: add to which, that the direction

of these intervals, which, as diverging from or converging towards the

medium tones, we found to be physiologically expressive of increasing or

decreasing emotion, may be observed to have in music like meanings. Once

more, it was pointed out that not only extreme but also rapid variations of

pitch, are characteristic of mental excitement; and once more we see in the

quick changes of every melody, that song carries the characteristic as far,

if not farther. Thus, in respect alike of _loudness_, _timbre_, _pitch_,

_intervals_, and _rate of variation_, song employs and exaggerates the

natural language of the emotions;--it arises from a systematic combination

of those vocal peculiarities which are the physiological effects of acute

pleasure and pain.

Besides these chief characteristics of song as distinguished from common

speech, there are sundry minor ones similarly explicable as due to the

relation between mental and muscular excitement; and before proceeding

further, these should be briefly noticed. Thus, certain passions, and

perhaps all passions when pushed to an extreme, produce (probably through

their influence over the action of the heart) an effect the reverse of that

which has been described: they cause a physical prostration, one symptom of

which is a general relaxation of the muscles, and a consequent trembling.

We have the trembling of anger, of fear, of hope, of joy; and the vocal

muscles being implicated with the rest, the voice too becomes tremulous.

Now, in singing, this tremulousness of voice is very effectively used by

some vocalists in highly pathetic passages; sometimes, indeed, because of

its effectiveness, too much used by them--as by Tamberlik, for instance.

Again, there is a mode of musical execution known as the _staccato_,

appropriate to energetic passages--to passages expressive of exhilaration,

of resolution, of confidence. The action of the vocal muscles which

produces this staccato style, is analogous to the muscular action which

produces the sharp, decisive, energetic movements of body indicating these

states of mind; and therefore it is that the staccato style has the meaning

we ascribe to it. Conversely, slurred intervals are expressive of gentler

and less active feelings; and are so because they imply the smaller

muscular vivacity due to a lower mental energy. The difference of effect

resulting from difference of _time_ in music, is also attributable to the

same law. Already it has been pointed out that the more frequent changes of

pitch which ordinarily result from passion, are imitated and developed in

song; and here we have to add, that the various rates of such changes,

appropriate to the different styles of music, are further traits having the

same derivation. The slowest movements, _largo_ and _adagio_, are used

where such depressing emotions as grief, or such unexciting emotions as

reverence, are to be portrayed; while the more rapid movements, _andante_,

_allegro_, _presto_, represent successively increasing degrees of mental

vivacity; and do this because they imply that muscular activity which flows

from this mental vivacity. Even the _rhythm_, which forms a remaining

distinction between song and speech, may not improbably have a kindred

cause. Why the actions excited by strong feeling should tend to become

rhythmical, is not very obvious; but that they do so there are divers

evidences. There is the swaying of the body to and fro under pain or grief,

of the leg under impatience or agitation. Dancing, too, is a rhythmical

action natural to elevated emotion. That under excitement speech acquires a

certain rhythm, we may occasionally perceive in the highest efforts of an

orator. In poetry, which is a form of speech used for the better expression

of emotional ideas, we have this rhythmical tendency developed. And when we

bear in mind that dancing, poetry, and music are connate--are originally

constituent parts of the same thing, it becomes clear that the measured

movement common to them all implies a rhythmical action of the whole

system, the vocal apparatus included; and that so the rhythm of music is a

more subtle and complex result of this relation between mental and muscular

excitement.

But it is time to end this analysis, which, possibly we have already

carried too far. It is not to be supposed that the more special

peculiarities of musical expression are to be definitely explained. Though

probably they may all in some way conform to the principle that has been

worked out, it is obviously impracticable to trace that principle in its

more ramified applications. Nor is it needful to our argument that it

should be so traced. The foregoing facts sufficiently prove that what we

regard as the distinctive traits of song, are simply the traits of

emotional speech intensified and systematized. In respect of its general

characteristics, we think it has been made clear that vocal music, and by

consequence all music, is an idealization of the natural language of

passion.

* * * * *

As far as it goes, the scanty evidence furnished by history confirms this

conclusion. Note first the fact (not properly an historical one, but fitly

grouped with such) that the dance-chants of savage tribes are very

monotonous; and in virtue of their monotony are much more nearly allied to

ordinary speech than are the songs of civilized races. Joining with this

the fact that there are still extant among boatmen and others in the East,

ancient chants of a like monotonous character, we may infer that vocal

music originally diverged from emotional speech in a gradual, unobtrusive

manner; and this is the inference to which our argument points. Further

evidence to the same effect is supplied by Greek history. The early poems

of the Greeks--which, be it remembered, were sacred legends embodied in

that rhythmical, metaphorical language which strong feeling excites--were

not recited, but chanted: the tones and the cadences were made musical by

the same influences which made the speech poetical.

By those who have investigated the matter, this chanting is believed to

have been not what we call singing, but nearly allied to our recitative;

(far simpler indeed, if we may judge from the fact that the early Greek

lyre, which had but _four_ strings, was played in _unison_ with the voice,

which was therefore confined to four notes;) and as such, much less remote

from common speech than our own singing is. For recitative, or musical

recitation, is in all respects intermediate between speech and song. Its

average effects are not so _loud_ as those of song. Its tones are less

sonorous in _timbre_ than those of song. Commonly it diverges to a smaller

extent from the middle notes--uses notes neither so high nor so low in

_pitch_. The _intervals_ habitual to it are neither so wide nor so varied.

Its _rate of variation_ is not so rapid. And at the same time that its

primary _rhythm_ is less decided, it has none of that secondary rhythm

produced by recurrence of the same or parallel musical phrases, which is

one of the marked characteristics of song. Thus, then, we may not only

infer, from the evidence furnished by existing barbarous tribes, that the

vocal music of pre-historic times was emotional speech very slightly

exalted; but we see that the earliest vocal music of which we have any

account, differed much less from emotional speech than does the vocal music

of our days.

That recitative--beyond which, by the way, the Chinese and Hindoos seem

never to have advanced--grew naturally out of the modulations and cadences

of strong feeling, we have indeed still current evidence. There are even

now to be met with occasions on which strong feeling vents itself in this

form. Whoever has been present when a meeting of Quakers was addressed by

one of their preachers (whose practice it is to speak only under the

influence of religious emotion), must have been struck by the quite unusual

tones, like those of a subdued chant, in which the address was made. It is

clear, too, that the intoning used in some churches, is representative of

this same mental state; and has been adopted on account of the

instinctively felt congruity between it and the contrition, supplication,

or reverence verbally expressed.

* * * * *

And if, as we have good reason to believe, recitative arose by degrees out

of emotional speech, it becomes manifest that by a continuance of the same

process song has arisen out of recitative. Just as, from the orations and

legends of savages, expressed in the metaphorical, allegorical style

natural to them, there sprung epic poetry, out of which lyric poetry was

afterwards developed; so, from the exalted tones and cadences in which such

orations and legends were delivered, came the chant or recitative music,

from whence lyrical music has since grown up. And there has not only thus

been a simultaneous and parallel genesis, but there is also a parallelism

of results. For lyrical poetry differs from epic poetry, just as lyrical

music differs from recitative: each still further intensifies the natural

language of the emotions. Lyrical poetry is more metaphorical, more

hyperbolic, more elliptical, and adds the rhythm of lines to the rhythm of

feet; just as lyrical music is louder, more sonorous, more extreme in its

intervals, and adds the rhythm of phrases to the rhythm of bars. And the

known fact that out of epic poetry the stronger passions developed lyrical

poetry as their appropriate vehicle, strengthens the inference that they

similarly developed lyrical music out of recitative.

Nor indeed are we without evidences of the transition. It needs but to

listen to an opera to hear the leading gradations. Between the

comparatively level recitative of ordinary dialogue, the more varied

recitative with wider intervals and higher tones used in exciting scenes,

the still more musical recitative which preludes an air, and the air

itself, the successive steps are but small; and the fact that among airs

themselves gradations of like nature may be traced, further confirms the

conclusion that the highest form of vocal music was arrived at by degrees.

Moreover, we have some clue to the influences which have induced this

development; and may roughly conceive the process of it. As the tones,

intervals, and cadences of strong emotion were the elements out of which

song was elaborated; so, we may expect to find that still stronger emotion

produced the elaboration: and we have evidence implying this. Instances in

abundance may be cited, showing that musical composers are men of extremely

acute sensibilities. The Life of Mozart depicts him as one of intensely

active affections and highly impressionable temperament. Various anecdotes

represent Beethoven as very susceptible and very passionate. Mendelssohn is

described by those who knew him to have been full of fine feeling. And the

almost incredible sensitiveness of Chopin has been illustrated in the

memoirs of George Sand. An unusually emotional nature being thus the

general characteristic of musical composers, we have in it just the agency

required for the development of recitative and song. Intenser feeling

producing intenser manifestations, any cause of excitement will call forth

from such a nature, tones and changes of voice more marked than those

called forth from an ordinary nature--will generate just those

exaggerations which we have found to distinguish the lower vocal music from

emotional speech, and the higher vocal music from the lower. Thus it

becomes credible that the four-toned recitative of the early Greek poets

(like all poets, nearly allied to composers in the comparative intensity of

their feelings), was really nothing more than the slightly exaggerated

emotional speech natural to them, which grew by frequent use into an

organized form. And it is readily conceivable that the accumulated agency

of subsequent poet-musicians, inheriting and adding to the products of

those who went before them, sufficed, in the course of the ten centuries

which we know it took, to develope this four-toned recitative into a vocal

music having a range of two octaves.

Not only may we so understand how more sonorous tones, greater extremes of

pitch, and wider intervals, were gradually introduced; but also how there

arose a greater variety and complexity of musical expression. For this same

passionate, enthusiastic temperament, which naturally leads the musical

composer to express the feelings possessed by others as well as himself, in

extremer intervals and more marked cadences than they would use, also leads

him to give musical utterance to feelings which they either do not

experience, or experience in but slight degrees. In virtue of this general

susceptibility which distinguishes him, he regards with emotion, events,

scenes, conduct, character, which produce upon most men no appreciable

effect. The emotions so generated, compounded as they are of the simpler

emotions, are not expressible by intervals and cadences natural to these,

but by combinations of such intervals and cadences: whence arise more

involved musical phrases, conveying more complex, subtle, and unusual

feelings. And thus we may in some measure understand how it happens that

music not only so strongly excites our more familiar feelings, but also

produces feelings we never had before--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.

* * * * *

Indirect evidences of several kinds remain to be briefly pointed out. One

of them is the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of otherwise

accounting for the expressiveness of music. Whence comes it that special

combinations of notes should have special effects upon our emotions?--that

one should give us a feeling of exhilaration, another of melancholy,

another of affection, another of reverence? Is it that these special

combinations have intrinsic meanings apart from the human

constitution?--that a certain number of aerial waves per second, followed

by a certain other number, in the nature of things signify grief, while in

the reverse order they signify joy; and similarly with all other intervals,

phrases, and cadences? Few will be so irrational as to think this. Is it,

then, that the meanings of these special combinations are conventional

only?--that we learn their implications, as we do those of words, by

observing how others understand them? This is an hypothesis not only devoid

of evidence, but directly opposed to the experience of every one. How,

then, are musical effects to be explained? If the theory above set forth be

accepted, the difficulty disappears. If music, taking for its raw material

the various modifications of voice which are the physiological results of

excited feeling, intensifies, combines, and complicates them--if it

exaggerates the loudness, the resonance, the pitch, the intervals, and the

variability, which, in virtue of an organic law, are the characteristics of

passionate speech--if, by carrying out these further, more consistently,

more unitedly, and more sustainedly, it produces an idealized language of

emotion; then its power over us becomes comprehensible. But in the absence

of this theory, the expressiveness of music appears to be inexplicable.

Again, the preference we feel for certain qualities of sound presents a

like difficulty, admitting only of a like solution. It is generally agreed

that the tones of the human voice are more pleasing than any others. Grant

that music takes its rise from the modulations of the human voice under

emotion, and it becomes a natural consequence that the tones of that voice

should appeal to our feelings more than any others; and so should be

considered more beautiful than any others. But deny that music has this

origin, and the only alternative is the untenable position that the

vibrations proceeding from a vocalist's throat are, objectively considered,

of a higher order than those from a horn or a violin. Similarly with harsh

and soft sounds. If the conclusiveness of the foregoing reasonings be not

admitted, it must be supposed that the vibrations causing the last are

intrinsically better than those causing the first; and that, in virtue of

some pre-established harmony, the higher feelings and natures produce the

one, and the lower the other. But if the foregoing reasonings be valid, it

follows, as a matter of course, that we shall like the sounds that

habitually accompany agreeable feelings, and dislike those that habitually

accompany disagreeable feelings.

Once more, the question--How is the expressiveness of music to be otherwise

accounted for? may be supplemented by the question--How is the genesis of

music to be otherwise accounted for? That music is a product of

civilization is manifest; for though savages have their dance-chants, these

are of a kind scarcely to be dignified by the title musical: at most, they

supply but the vaguest rudiment of music, properly so called. And if music

has been by slow steps developed in the course of civilization, it must

have been developed out of something. If, then, its origin is not that

above alleged, what is its origin?

Thus we find that the negative evidence confirms the positive, and that,

taken together, they furnish strong proof. We have seen that there is a

physiological relation, common to man and all animals, between feeling and

muscular action; that as vocal sounds are produced by muscular action,

there is a consequent physiological relation between feeling and vocal

sounds; that all the modifications of voice expressive of feeling are the

direct results of this physiological relation; that music, adopting all

these modifications, intensifies them more and more as it ascends to its

higher and higher forms, and becomes music simply in virtue of thus

intensifying them; that, from the ancient epic poet chanting his verses,

down to the modern musical composer, men of unusually strong feelings prone

to express them in extreme forms, have been naturally the agents of these

successive intensifications; and that so there has little by little arisen

a wide divergence between this idealized language of emotion and its

natural language: to which direct evidence we have just added the

indirect--that on no other tenable hypothesis can either the expressiveness

or the genesis of music be explained.

* * * * *

And now, what is the _function_ of music? Has music any effect beyond the

immediate pleasure it produces? Analogy suggests that it has. The

enjoyments of a good dinner do not end with themselves, but minister to

bodily well-being. Though people do not marry with a view to maintain the

race, yet the passions which impel them to marry secure its maintenance.

Parental affection is a feeling which, while it conduces to parental

happiness, ensures the nurture of offspring. Men love to accumulate

property, often without thought of the benefits it produces; but in

pursuing the pleasure of acquisition they indirectly open the way to other

pleasures. The wish for public approval impels all of us to do many things

which we should otherwise not do,--to undertake great labours, face great

dangers, and habitually rule ourselves in a way that smooths social

intercourse: that is, in gratifying our love of approbation we subserve

divers ulterior purposes. And, generally, our nature is such that in

fulfilling each desire, we in some way facilitate the fulfilment of the

rest. But the love of music seems to exist for its own sake. The delights

of melody and harmony do not obviously minister to the welfare either of

the individual or of society. May we not suspect, however, that this

exception is apparent only? Is it not a rational inquiry--What are the

indirect benefits which accrue from music, in addition to the direct

pleasure it gives?

But that it would take us too far out of our track, we should prelude this

inquiry by illustrating at some length a certain general law of

progress;--the law that alike in occupations, sciences, arts, the divisions

that had a common root, but by continual divergence have become distinct,

and are now being separately developed, are not truly independent, but

severally act and react on each other to their mutual advancement. Merely

hinting thus much, however, by way of showing that there are many analogies

to justify us, we go on to express the opinion that there exists a

relationship of this kind between music and speech.

All speech is compounded of two elements, the words and the tones in which

they are uttered--the signs of ideas and the signs of feelings. While

certain articulations express the thought, certain vocal sounds express the

more or less of pain or pleasure which the thought gives. Using the word

_cadence_ in an unusually extended sense, as comprehending all

modifications of voice, we may say that _cadence is the commentary of the

emotions upon the propositions of the intellect_. This duality of spoken

language, though not formally recognised, is recognised in practice by

every one; and every one knows that very often more weight attaches to the

tones than to the words. Daily experience supplies cases in which the same

sentence of disapproval will be understood as meaning little or meaning

much, according to the inflections of voice which accompany it; and daily

experience supplies still more striking cases in which words and tones are

in direct contradiction--the first expressing consent, while the last

express reluctance; and the last being believed rather than the first.

These two distinct but interwoven elements of speech have been undergoing a

simultaneous development. We know that in the course of civilization words

have been multiplied, new parts of speech have been introduced, sentences

have grown more varied and complex; and we may fairly infer that during the

same time new modifications of voice have come into use, fresh intervals

have been adopted, and cadences have become more elaborate. For while, on

the one hand, it is absurd to suppose that, along with the undeveloped

verbal forms of barbarism, there existed a developed system of vocal

inflections; it is, on the other hand, necessary to suppose that, along

with the higher and more numerous verbal forms needed to convey the

multiplied and complicated ideas of civilized life, there have grown up

those more involved changes of voice which express the feelings proper to

such ideas. If intellectual language is a growth, so also, without doubt,

is emotional language a growth.

Now, the hypothesis which we have hinted above, is, that beyond the direct

pleasure which it gives, music has the indirect effect of developing this

language of the emotions. Having its root, as we have endeavoured to show,

in those tones, intervals, and cadences of speech which express

feeling--arising by the combination and intensifying of these, and coming

finally to have an embodiment of its own; music has all along been reacting

upon speech, and increasing its power of rendering emotion. The use in

recitative and song of inflections more expressive than ordinary ones, must

from the beginning have tended to develope the ordinary ones. Familiarity

with the more varied combinations of tones that occur in vocal music, can

scarcely have failed to give greater variety of combination to the tones in

which we utter our impressions and desires. The complex musical phrases by

which composers have conveyed complex emotions, may rationally be supposed

to have influenced us in making those involved cadences of conversation by

which we convey our subtler thoughts and feelings.

That the cultivation of music has no effect on the mind, few will be absurd

enough to contend. And if it has an effect, what more natural effect is

there than this of developing our perception of the meanings of

inflections, qualities, and modulations of voice; and giving us a

correspondingly increased power of using them? Just as mathematics, taking

its start from the phenomena of physics and astronomy, and presently coming

to be a separate science, has since reacted on physics and astronomy to

their immense advancement--just as chemistry, first arising out of the

processes of metallurgy and the industrial arts, and gradually growing into

an independent study, has now become an aid to all kinds of

production--just as physiology, originating out of medicine and once

subordinate to it, but latterly pursued for its own sake, is in our day

coming to be the science on which the progress of medicine depends;--so,

music, having its root in emotional language, and gradually evolved from

it, has ever been reacting upon and further advancing it. Whoever will

examine the facts, will find this hypothesis to be in harmony with the

method of civilization everywhere displayed.

It will scarcely be expected that much direct evidence in support of this

conclusion can be given. The facts are of a kind which it is difficult to

measure, and of which we have no records. Some suggestive traits, however,

may be noted. May we not say, for instance, that the Italians, among whom

modern music was earliest cultivated, and who have more especially

practised and excelled in melody (the division of music with which our

argument is chiefly concerned)--may we not say that these Italians speak in

more varied and expressive inflections and cadences than any other nation?

On the other hand, may we not say that, confined almost exclusively as they

have hitherto been to their national airs, which have a marked family

likeness, and therefore accustomed to but a limited range of musical

expression, the Scotch are unusually monotonous in the intervals and

modulations of their speech? And again, do we not find among different

classes of the same nation, differences that have like implications? The

gentleman and the clown stand in very decided contrast with respect to

variety of intonation. Listen to the conversation of a servant-girl, and

then to that of a refined, accomplished lady, and the more delicate and

complex changes of voice used by the latter will be conspicuous. Now,

without going so far as to say that out of all the differences of culture

to which the upper and lower classes are subjected, difference of musical

culture is that to which alone this difference of speech is ascribable; yet

we may fairly say that there seems a much more obvious connexion of cause

and effect between these than between any others. Thus, while the inductive

evidence to which we can appeal is but scanty and vague, yet what there is

favours our position.

* * * * *

Probably most will think that the function here assigned to music is one of

very little moment. But further reflection may lead them to a contrary

conviction. In its bearings upon human happiness, we believe that this

emotional language which musical culture developes and refines, is only

second in importance to the language of the intellect; perhaps not even

second to it. For these modifications of voice produced by feelings, are

the means of exciting like feelings in others. Joined with gestures and

expressions of face, they give life to the otherwise dead words in which

the intellect utters its ideas; and so enable the hearer not only to

_understand_ the state of mind they accompany, but to _partake_ of that

state. In short, they are the chief media of _sympathy_. And if we consider

how much both our general welfare and our immediate pleasures depend upon

sympathy, we shall recognise the importance of whatever makes this sympathy

greater. If we bear in mind that by their fellow-feeling men are led to

behave justly, kindly and considerately to each other--that the difference

between the cruelty of the barbarous and the humanity of the civilized,

results from the increase of fellow-feeling; if we bear in mind that this

faculty which makes us sharers in the joys and sorrows of others, is the

basis of all the higher affections--that in friendship, love, and all

domestic pleasures, it is an essential element; if we bear in mind how much

our direct gratifications are intensified by sympathy,--how, at the

theatre, the concert, the picture gallery, we lose half our enjoyment if we

have no one to enjoy with us; if, in short, we bear in mind that for all

happiness beyond what the unfriended recluse can have, we are indebted to

this same sympathy;--we shall see that the agencies which communicate it

can scarcely be overrated in value.

The tendency of civilization is more and more to repress the antagonistic

elements of our characters and to develope the social ones--to curb our

purely selfish desires and exercise our unselfish ones--to replace private

gratifications by gratifications resulting from, or involving, the

happiness of others. And while, by this adaptation to the social state, the

sympathetic side of our nature is being unfolded, there is simultaneously

growing up a language of sympathetic intercourse--a language through which

we communicate to others the happiness we feel, and are made sharers in

their happiness.

This double process, of which the effects are already sufficiently

appreciable, must go on to an extent of which we can as yet have no

adequate conception. The habitual concealment of our feelings diminishing,

as it must, in proportion as our feelings become such as do not demand

concealment, we may conclude that the exhibition of them will become much

more vivid than we now dare allow it to be; and this implies a more

expressive emotional language. At the same time, feelings of a higher and

more complex kind, as yet experienced only by the cultivated few, will

become general; and there will be a corresponding development of the

emotional language into more involved forms. Just as there has silently

grown up a language of ideas, which, rude as it at first was, now enables

us to convey with precision the most subtle and complicated thoughts; so,

there is still silently growing up a language of feelings, which

notwithstanding its present imperfection, we may expect will ultimately

enable men vividly and completely to impress on each other all the emotions

which they experience from moment to moment.

Thus if, as we have endeavoured to show, it is the function of music to

facilitate the development of this emotional language, we may regard music

as an aid to the achievement of that higher happiness which it indistinctly

shadows forth. Those vague feelings of unexperienced felicity which music

arouses--those indefinite impressions of an unknown ideal life which it

calls up, may be considered as a prophecy, to the fulfilment of which music

is itself partly instrumental. The strange capacity which we have for being

so affected by melody and harmony, may be taken to imply both that it is

within the possibilities of our nature to realize those intenser delights

they dimly suggest, and that they are in some way concerned in the

realization of them. On this supposition the power and the meaning of music

become comprehensible; but otherwise they are a mystery.