90 MEANS OF EXPRESSION Chap. IV. 



language — one which, so far as I am aware, no one has 

 been able to analyse, and which the ingenious specula- 

 tion of Mr. Herbert Spencer as to the origin of music 

 leaves quite unexplained. For it is certain that the 

 melodic effect of a series of sounds does not depend in 

 the least on their loudness or softness, or on their abso- 

 lute pitch. A tune is always the same tune, whether it 

 is sung loudly or softly, by a child or a man; whether 

 it is played on a flute or on a trombone. The purely 

 musical effect of any sound depends on its place in what 

 is technically called a i scale; ' the same sound produc- 

 ing absolutely different effects on the ear, according as 

 it is heard in connection with one or another series of 

 sounds. 



" It is on this relative association of the sounds that 

 all the essentially characteristic effects which are summed 

 up in the phrase ' musical expression/ depend. But 

 why certain associations of sounds have such-and-such 

 effects, is a problem which yet remains to be solved. 

 These effects must indeed, in some way or other, be con- 

 nected with the well-known arithmetical relations be- 

 tween the rates of vibration of the sounds which form 

 a musical scale. And it is possible — but this is merely 

 a suggestion — that the greater or less mechanical facility 

 with which the vibrating apparatus of the human larynx 

 passes from one state of vibration to another, may have 

 been a primary cause of the greater or less pleasure pro- 

 duced by various sequences of sounds." 



But leaving aside these complex questions and con- 

 fining ourselves to the simpler sounds, we can, at least, 

 see some reasons for the association of certain kinds of 

 sounds with certain states of mind. A scream, for in- 

 stance, uttered by a young animal, or by one of the 

 members of a community, as a call for assistance, will 

 naturally be loud, prolonged, and high, so as to pene- 



