364 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



PROFESSIONAL INSTITUTIONS. 



III. DANCER AND MUSICIAN. 

 By HERBERT SPENCER. 



IN an essay on The Origin and Function of Music, first pub- 

 lished in 1857, I emphasized the psycho-physical law that 

 muscular movements in general are originated by feelings in gen- 

 eral. Be the movements slight or violent, be they those of the 

 whole body or of special parts, and be the feelings pleasurable or 

 painful, sensational or emotional, the first are always results of the 

 last : at least, after excluding those movements which are reflex 

 and- involuntary. And it was there pointed out that, as a conse- 

 quence of this psycho-physical law, the violent muscular motions 

 of the limbs which cause bounds and gesticulations, as well as 

 those strong contractions of the pectoral and vocal muscles which 

 produce shouting and laughter, become the natural language of 

 great pleasure. 



In the actions of lively children who, on seeing in the distance 

 some indulgent relative, run up to him, joining one another in 

 screams of delight and breaking their run with leaps, there are 

 shown the roots from which simultaneously arise those audible 

 and visible manifestations of joy which culminate in singing and 

 dancing. It needs no stretch of imagination to see that when, in- 

 stead of an indulgent relative met by joyful children, we have a 

 conquering chief or king met by groups of his people, there will 

 almost certainly occur saltatory and vocal expressions of elated 

 feeling, and that these must become, by implication, signs of 

 respect and loyalty ascriptions of worth which, raised to a higher 

 power, become worship. Nor does it need any stretch of imagina- 

 tion to perceive that these natural displays of joy, at first made 

 spontaneously before one who approaches in triumph as a bene- 

 factor and glorifier of his people, come, in course of time, to be ob- 

 servances used on all public occasions as demonstrations of allegi- 

 ance; while, simultaneously, the irregular j Limpings and gesticu- 

 lations with unrhythmical shouts and cries, at first arising with- 

 out concert, gradually by repetition become regularized into the 

 measured movements we know as dances and into the organized 

 utterances constituting songs. Once more, it is easy to see that 

 out of groups of subjects thus led into irregular ovations, and by 

 and by into regular laudatory receptions, there will eventually 

 arise some who, distinguished by their skill, are set apart as 

 dancers and singers, and presently acquire the professional char- 

 acter. 



Before passing to the positive evidence which supports this in- 



