334 SEXUAL selection: man. PartIL 



and unmeaning. Dr. Seemann, in some interesting 

 remarks on this subject/^ " doubts whether even amongst 

 " the nations of Western Europe, intimately connected 

 " as they are by close and frequent intercourse, the 

 " music of the one is interpreted in the same sense 

 " by the others. By travelling eastwards we find that 

 " there is certainly a different language of music. 

 " Songs of joy and dance-accompaniments are no longer, 

 *• as with us, in the major keys, but always in the minor." 

 Whether or not the half-human progenitors of man pos- 

 sessed, like the before-mentioned gibbon, the capacity 

 of producing, and no doubt of appreciating, musical 

 notes, we have every reason to believe that man pos- 

 sessed these faculties at a very remote period, for 

 singing and music are extremely ancient arts. Poetry, 

 Avhich may be considered as the offspring of song, is 

 likewise so ancient that many persons have felt aston- 

 ishment that it should have arisen during the earliest 

 ages of which we have any record. 



The musical faculties, which are not wholly deficient 

 in any race, are capable of prompt and high develop- 

 ment, as we see with Hottentots and Negroes, who have 

 readily become excellent musicians, although they do 

 not practise in their native countries anything that we 

 should esteem as music. But there is nothing ano- 

 malous in this circumstance : some species of birds 

 which never naturally sing, can without much difficulty 

 be taught to perform ; thus the house-sparrow has learnt 

 the song of a linnet. As these two species are closely 

 allied, and belong to the order of Insessores, which 

 includes nearly all the singing-birds in tlie world, it is 

 quite possible or probable that a progenitor of the spar- 



2^ 'Journal of Anthropolog. Soc' Oct. 1870, p. civ. See also the 

 several later chapters in Sir John Lubbock's ' Preliistoric Times,' 

 second edition, 18G9, which contain an admirable account of the habits 



of savages. 



