THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. i 7 



by a fine chord. Clearly this vague emotion forms a large com- 

 ponent in the pleasure which harmony gives. 



While thus recognizing, and indeed emphasizing, the fact that 

 of many traits of developed music my hypothesis respecting the 

 origin of music yields no explanation, let me point out that this 

 hypothesis gains a further general support from its conformity 

 to the law of evolution. Progressive integration is seen in the 

 immense contrast between the small combinations of tones consti- 

 tuting a cadence of grief, or anger, or triumph, and the vast com- 

 binations of tones, simultaneous and successive, constituting an 

 oratorio. Great advance in coherence becomes manifest when, 

 from the lax unions among the sounds in which feeling spontane- 

 ously expresses itself, or even from those few musical phrases 

 which constitute a simple air, we pass to those elaborate composi- 

 tions in which portions small and large are tied together into 

 extended organic wholes. On comparing the unpremeditated 

 inflexions of the voice in emotional speech, vague in tones and 

 times, with those premeditated ones which the musician arranges 

 for stage or concert-room, in which the divisions of time are 

 exactly measured, the successive intervals precise, and the har- 

 monies adjusted to a nicety, we observe in the last a far higher 

 definiteness. And immense progress in heterogeneity is seen on 

 putting side by side the monotonous chants of savages with the 

 musical compositions familiar to us ; each of which is relatively 

 heterogeneous within itself, and the assemblage of which forms 

 an immeasurably heterogeneous aggregate. 



Strong support for the theory enunciated in this essay, and de- 

 fended in the foregoing paragraphs, is furnished by the testimonies 

 of two travelers in Hungary, given in works published in 1878 and 

 1888 respectively. Here is an extract from the first of the two : 



"Music is an instinct with these Hungarian gypsies. They play by ear, and 

 with a marvelous precision, not surpassed by musicians who have been subject 

 to the most careful training. . . . The airs they play are most frequently com- 

 positions of their own, and are in character quite peculiar. ... I heard on this 

 occasion one of the gypsy airs which made an indelible impression on my mind ; 

 it seemed to me the thrilling utterance of a people's history. There was the low 

 wail of sorrow, of troubled passionate grief, stirring the heart to restlessness, then 

 the sense of turmoil and defeat; but upon this breaks suddenly a wild burst of 

 exultation, of rapturous joy a triumph achieved, which hurries you along with it 

 in resistless sympathy. The excitable Hungarians can literally become intoxicated 

 with this music and no wonder. You can not reason upon it, or explain it, but 

 its strains compel you to sensations of despair and joy, of exultation and excite- 

 ment, as though under the influence of some potent charm. '' Sound about the 

 Carpathians, by Andrew F. Crosse, pp. 11, 12. 



Still more graphic and startling is the description given by a 

 more recent traveler, E. Gerard : 



VOL. xxxvm. 2 



