THE MUSICAL SENSE IN ANIMALS AND MEN. 357 



Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, or have acquired even the average 

 musical skill of our day ? I do not believe it ; for something else 

 is needed for the comprehension of our present higher music than 

 the musical apparatus of our ear and brain-center, and more than 

 the musical instruction that can be given in one person's lifetime 

 — a refined, impressionable, cultivated soul. 



The auditory center of the brain often spoken of is not simply 

 theoretical, but is defined with fair certainty. If, in a dog or an 

 ape, a particular spot in the temporal fold of the cerebrum is de- 

 stroyed on both sides, the animal will be made deaf, although his 

 ear-organs have not been disturbed. The animal's general health 

 is not impaired ; it continues to live, but it ceases to hear. Noises 

 passing through its hearing apparatus still excite nervous vibra- 

 tions, and these are still transmitted to the brain ; but the organ 

 is lacking there which should convert them into tone -percep- 

 tions and bring them to consciousness. The animal is "soul- 

 deaf." If, again, we were able to remove all the other parts of the 

 cerebellum and leave the hearing centers untouched, the mechan- 

 ical process of the production of tone impressions would still go 

 on, but the animal or the man would hear nothing, because there 

 would be nothing left in his brain to make him conscious of the 

 tone-impressions. With the rest of the cerebellum was taken 

 away the intellect, with all its side-faculties of feeling, fancy, self- 

 consciousness, etc. The "soul" is wanting, and without it the 

 finest musical notes, brought to place in the hearing center, make 

 no impression. 



I have brought forward this hypothetical case to show that the 

 way in which music is comprehended depends not only on the 

 auditory centers, but as much on that which lies behind them, 

 which takes up the tone-images formed by them and gives them 

 reality — the " soul." If there is no " soul," as in the supposed 

 case, then the tone-images are not perceived ; if a highly devel- 

 oped, tuneful, and thoughtful human soul is present, then the 

 confluent and contrasted voices of a polyphone music are per- 

 ceived as a charming musical structure, a rich art-picture, the 

 single parts of which stand in perceptible connection ; going out 

 from one another, running back into one another, the individual 

 tone-pictures shape themselves by ever new variations into ever 

 new and interesting combinations. But if there is only the rela- 

 tively lowly organized brain of an animal, a parrot, for instance, 

 then the spiritual power of the complicated tone-picture will not pre- 

 vail, and only a possibly pleasant confusion of sounds is perceived. 

 The parrot will never be able to follow the course of a piece of 

 music, because he lacks the necessary degree of intelligence, but 

 will only be able to repeat snatches of it, with no comprehension 

 of the connection of the parts. Hence we conclude that affections 



