2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



according to the kind of excitement ; whereas Mr. Darwin argues 

 that music arises from those sounds which the male makes during 

 the excitements of courtship, that they are consciously made to 

 charm the female, and that from the resulting combinations of 

 sounds arise not love-music only but music in general. That cer- 

 tain tones of voice and cadences having some likeness of nature 

 are spontaneously used to express grief, others to express joy, 

 others to express affection, and others to express triumph or mar- 

 tial ardor, is undeniable. According to the view I have set forth, 

 the whole body of these vocal manifestations of emotion form the 

 root of music. According to Mr. Darwin's view, the sounds which 

 are prompted by the amatory feeling only, having originated 

 musical utterance, there are derived from these all the other varie- 

 ties of musical utterance which aim to express other kinds of feel- 

 ing. This roundabout derivation has, I think, less probability 

 than the direct derivation. 



This antithesis and its implications will perhaps be more 

 clearly understood on looking at the facts under their nervo-mus- 

 cular aspect. Mr. Darwin recognizes the truth of the doctrine 

 with which the foregoing essay sets out, that feeling discharges 

 itself in action : saying of the air-breathing vertebrata that 



" When the primeval members of this class were strongly excited and their mus- 

 cles violently contracted, purposeless sounds would almost certainly have been 

 produced ; and these, if they proved in any way serviceable, might readily have 

 been modified or intensified by the preservation of properly adapted variations." 

 {The Descent of Man, vol. ii, p. 331.) 



But though this passage recognizes the general relation between 

 feelings and those muscular contractions which cause sounds, it 

 does so inadequately; since it ignores, on the one hand, those 

 loudest sounds which accompany intense sensations the shrieks 

 and groans of bodily agony ; while, on the other hand, it ignores 

 those multitudinous sounds not produced " under the excitement 

 of love, rage, and jealousy," but which accompany ordinary 

 amounts of feelings, various in their kinds. And it is because 

 he does not bear in mind how large a proportion of vocal noises 

 are caused by other excitements, that Mr. Darwin thinks " a strong 

 case can be made out, that the vocal organs were primarily used 

 and perfected in relation to the propagation of the species" 

 (p. 330). 



Certainly the animals around us yield but few facts counte- 

 nancing his view. The cooing of pigeons may, indeed, be named 

 in its support ; and it may be contended that caterwauling fur- 

 nishes evidence ; though I doubt whether the sounds are made 

 by the male to charm the female. But the howling of dogs has 

 no relation to sexual excitements ; nor has their barking, which 

 is used to express emotion of almost any kind. Pigs grunt some- 



