318 SEXUAL SELECTION: MAN. [Part U 



most mysterious with which he is endowed. They are 

 present, though in a very rude and as it appears almost 

 latent condition, in men of all races, even the most savage ; 

 but so different is the taste of the different races, that our 

 music gives not the least pleasure to savages, and their 

 music is to us hideous and unmeaning. Dr. Seeman, in 

 some interesting remarks on this subject, 31 " doubts 

 whether even among the nations of Western Europe, inti- 

 mately connected as they are by close and frequent inter- 

 course, the music of the one is interpreted in the same sense 

 by the others. By travelling eastward 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 possessed, like the 

 before-mentioned gibbon, the capacity of producing, and 

 no doubt of appreciating, musical notes, we have every 

 reason to believe that man possessed these faculties at a 

 very remote period, for singing and music are extremely 

 ancient arts. Poetry, which may be considered as the 

 offspring of song, is likewise so ancient that many persons 

 have felt astonishment that it should have arisen during 

 the earliest ages of which we Lave any record. 



The musical faculties, which are not wholly deficient 

 in any race, are capable of prompt and high development, 

 as we see with Hottentots and Negroes, who have readily 

 become excellent musicians, although they do not practise 

 in their native countries any thing that we should esteem 

 as music. But there is nothing anomalous in this circum- 

 stance : some species of birds which never naturally sing, 

 can without much difficulty be taught to perform ; thus 



31 'Journal of Anthropolog. Soc' Oct. 1870, p. civ. See also the sev- 

 eral later chapters in Sir John Lubbock's 'Prehistoric Times,' second 

 edition, 1869, which contains an admirable account of the habits of sav. 

 ages. 



