"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 recognised 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 polarisation of light

led to experiments which ended in the discovery of the polarisation 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_, etc.,

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. Cæsalpinus

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

Linnæus, 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

generalisations; 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 these, 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, etc., 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 generalised from

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

data, on which to base astronomical generalisations, 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 characterises 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 organisation 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 the 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 generalisations 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 analysed 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 analysing 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 formulæ, 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 generalisations to open the way to new

generalisations, may be considered as art. In each of these cases

previously organised knowledge becomes the implement by which new

knowledge is got at: and whether that previously organised 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

recognise the closeness of these associations, we shall the more clearly

perceive that as the connection 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 civilisation 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 recognised 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 generalisations are not unfrequently the most

potent in their effects, in virtue of their influence on all those

subordinate generalisations 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 civilisation. 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 analysed 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 organised, 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 establishments of a true one must eventually be fertile in

school-reforms and consequent social benefits.

[1] _British Quarterly Review_, July 1854.

[2] It is somewhat curious that the author of _The Plurality of Worlds_,

with quite other aims, should have persuaded himself into similar

conclusions.

ON THE PHYSIOLOGY OF LAUGHTER[1]

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

generalisation 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.[2]

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 connection: 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 connections 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 _à 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 preparations

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 _à 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?

[1] _Macmillan's Magazine_, March 1860.

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

Music."

ON THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC[1]

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 generalisation. 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_.[2] Without doing

this, however, the above numerous instances justify the generalisation,

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.

* * * * *

"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, _à 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

connection 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 agonising 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

realising 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 organisation. 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 systematised. In respect

of its general characteristics, we think it has been made clear that

vocal music, and by consequence all music, is an idealisation 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 civilised 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

organised 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 develop 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

feelings, 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

idealised 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 civilisation 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

civilisation, 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

idealised 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_.

The 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

civilisation 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 civilised 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

develop 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 civilisation 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 a 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 connection 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 develops 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 civilised, 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 civilisation is more and more to repress the

antagonistic elements of our characters and to develop 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 realise those intenser delights they dimly suggest, and that they are

in some way concerned in the realisation of them. On this supposition

the power and the meaning of music become comprehensible; but otherwise

they are a mystery.

We will only add, that if the probability of these corollaries be

admitted, then music must take rank as he highest of the fine arts--as

the one which, more than any other, ministers to human welfare. And

thus, even leaving out of view the immediate gratifications it is hourly

giving, we cannot too much applaud that progress of musical culture

which is becoming one of the characteristics of our age.

[1] _Fraser's Magazine_, October 1857.

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

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

Intelligence_.