378 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



been directed. The observations of one person are of no value as a 

 foundation for argument ; but it would perhaps here be pertinent for 

 the writer to mention that, in her own experience of life, she has seen 

 women who have not impressed her as inferior in mental ability to the 

 men with whom they associated, and to whom the exercise of their 

 duties, as the heads of households and the guardians of childhood (in- 

 volving the many questions, abstract and practical, which these duties 

 do involve), has seemed to afford scope for the greatest intellectual 

 activity. 



Considering the want of knowledge, of all but the most frag- 

 mentary facts, which meets us at the threshold of this question, it 

 would seem that all the arguments on either side are wasted breath, 

 and that those advocates deserve reprobation who would throw a false 

 veil of scientific reasoning over their ignorance. It is a sufficient sign 

 that no real study of the question has yet been made, when we find on. 

 both sides suppositions and feelings brought forward as arguments. 



The only way in which such a problem can be properly approached 

 is by the scientific methods of study which are now applied to other 

 subjects : the painstaking accumulation, from all available sources and 

 by many collaborators, of all the statistics and facts bearing upon it, 

 the patient search for such truths connected with it as we are still 

 ignorant of, and the application to all alike of unprejudiced investiga- 

 tion and strict logic. This has never yet been attempted. 



-**- 



THE EELATION OF MUSIC TO MENTAL PEOGEESS. 



By S. AUSTEN PEAECE, Mus. Doc, Oxon. 



THE nature of music is threefold, like that of man to whom it ap- 

 peals. Therefore, it may be regarded as a sensuous art, in that 

 it delights the ear ; as a psychologic art, in that it records the emo- 

 tions, and requires mental operations on the part of the hearer for 

 its due appreciation ; and, as it involves agreements, differences, sym- 

 metries, complexities, etc., and order in apparent disorder, it may be 

 regarded as a branch of science closely allied to mathematics. 



The distances between the holes of a flute, the tension of a drum- 

 head, the lengths of organ-pipes, the rapidity of vibrations, the inter- 

 vals between recurring accents in fact, all that may be surveyed and 

 expressed in numbers in this art give evidence of the mental power of 

 the musician, irrespective of all considerations respecting the imagina- 

 tion or creative power in originating compositions. 



The music of a people may be considered in direct relation to 

 their supersensuous natures. From this point of view alone, strongly 

 marked differences may be noted ; for, by comparing modern Italian 



