SPEECH AND SONG. 99 



SPEECH AND SONG. 



By Sib MOEELL MACKENZIE. 

 PART I. SPEECH. 



IN dealing with the two great forms of local utterance, it will 

 be most convenient to take them in their historical, or at any 

 rate their logical, order. Whatever " native wood-notes wild " our 

 hypothetical half-human ancestor may have " warbled " by way of 

 love-ditties before he taught himself to speak, there is no doubt 

 that singing as an art is a later development than articulate speech, 

 without which, indeed, song would be like a body without a soul. 

 I will, therefore, treat of speech first ; and it will clear the ground 

 if I begin with a definition. Physiologically, speech is the power 

 of modifying vocal sound by breaking it up into distinct elements, 

 and molding it, if I may say so, into different forms. Speech, in 

 this sense, is the universal faculty of which the various languages 

 by means of which men hold converse with each other are the 

 particular manifestations. Speech is the abstract genus, language 

 the concrete species. 



I am happy to say it does not fall within the scope of my pres- 

 ent purpose to discuss the origin of language, a mysterious prob- 

 lem, on which the human brain has exercised itself so much and 

 to so little purpose, that some years ago, I believe, the French 

 Academy declined to receive any further communications on the 

 subject. The origin of the voice is a different matter. The vocal 

 function is primarily a means of expression. I see no reason for 

 disagreeing with Darwin, when he says that " the primeval use 

 and means of development of the voice " was as an instrument of 

 sexual attraction. The progenitors of man, both male and female, 

 are supposed to have made every effort to charm each other by 

 vocal melody, or what they considered to be such, and by constant 

 practice with that object the vocal organs became developed. Dar- 

 win seems inclined to believe that, as women have sweeter voices 

 than men, they were the first to acquire musical powers in order 

 to attract the other sex, by which I suppose he means that the 

 feminine voice owes its greater sweetness to more persevering cult- 

 ure for purposes of flirtation. I do not know whether the ladies 

 of the present day will own this soft impeachment, or whether 

 they will be flattered by the suggestion that their remote ances- 

 tresses lived in a perpetual leap-year of courtship. Other emo- 

 tions, however, besides the master passion of love had to be ex- 

 pressed ; joy, anger, fear, and pain had all to find utterance, and 

 the nervous centers excited by these various stimuli threw the 

 whole muscular system into violent contractions, which in the 



