430 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



(from 65 to 80) on nearly all musical compositions, nor must it be 

 forgotten, as has been said before, that it is these compositions which 

 furnish the only means by which the human brain could, thanks to the 

 metronome, so accurately and sub-consciously give record to the rhythm 

 most natural to it. This rhythm for physical as well as psychological 

 reasons must, it is submitted, in all probability have been suggested, 

 coordinated and regulated by the phenomenon of pulse. The first and 

 patent objection to this theory will be that we have no conscious cog- 

 nizance of the arterial beat within us. The objection is however fully 

 met by the well-known law that, 'one unvarying action on the senses 

 fails to give any perception whatever.' For familiar examples, we 

 have no conscious sensory impressions from the whirling of the earth, 

 the weight of the air or the weight of our bodies. Yet, inevitably, 

 the recurrent arterial beat, must have left its record and impress on 

 the unconscious and subliminal brain, guiding and determining the 

 conscious and audible expressions. Nor is it without its supporting 

 proof that where the insect's heart beat is 150 to the minute, the 

 insect 's chirp runs to the same speed ; and where the human heart beat 

 is 60 to 85 to the minute, human musical rhythm runs within the same 

 limits. 



Mr. Fiske says, in his 'Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy,' not only 

 must all motions be rhythmical, but 'every rhythm, great or small, 

 must end in some redistribution, be it general or local, of matter and 

 motion.' It is not probable that a dainty rhythmic wave of color ex- 

 ternal in character would make its impression on the brain, and the 

 latter in turn remain unaffected by a — relatively speaking — thumping 

 cataract of a pulse impulse. Some disturbance of the brain tissue must 

 occur from this vibration, reaching in course the very portion allotted 

 to music. The basilar artery, the brain's basic artery, feeds the 

 chorda tympani by a direct channel, whereas the rest of the cranial 

 tract is fed by ramifications of its ramifications. The stronger surging 

 is therefore directed against the auditory tract. It may be urged that 

 in that case the brain would know but one rhythm. It might be so 

 were it not that 'the whole cerebral and central nervous organism 

 seems a happy adjustment of fixity of habit not too fixed, and suscepti- 

 bility not too susceptible. '* 



"Perception of time duration is always a process and never a state 

 — for us to perceive five seconds, something must durate five seconds, 

 for us to perceive a year some definite sensation would have to durate 

 a year."f 



On these principles, imagining a composer seated quietly at his 

 desk in the act of composition, is it not feasible to suppose that sub- 



* Herbert Nichols, Journ. of Psychol., Vol. VI., p. 60. 

 t Ibid. 



