53 THOUGHTS UPON THE MUSICAL SENSE [X. 



dissecting instruments. The fact that we can now solve more 

 difficult problems than at the beginning of this century, or 

 in Aristotle's day, does not depend upon any increase in 

 the capacity of the human brain or any improvement in the 

 delicacy of the faculty of observation ; but it depends upon the 

 heritage which we have received from our ancestors, viz. 

 higher problems left for our solution together with better 

 means and appliances for their investigation. // is as impossible to 

 explain the development of music by an increase and perfecting of 

 the musical talent, as to explain the superiority of our pianists over 

 those of MozarV s time by a recent improvement in the dexterity of 

 the human hand. The very hands which, in Bach's day, could 

 only give a bald and imperfect performance on the spinet, 

 would now, upon a Steinway's or Bechstein's grand piano, 

 produce all the enchanting effect of an orchestra. The causes 

 of this immense change are manifold. First, a gradual im- 

 provement in the instrument, — itself a result of tradition which 

 permitted an advance upon the acquirements of earlier 

 generations ; secondly, parallel with this advance, the develop- 

 ment of appropriate music ; lastly, the immense improvement 

 in pianoforte technique which we associate with the names of 

 Haydn, Mozart, Clementi, Hummel, Moscheles, Thalberg, and 

 Liszt. No one would dream of suggesting that this advance in 

 'technique' is due to an improvement, as regards piano- 

 playing, in the powers of the human hand, produced by the 

 practice of several consecutive generations. Such an origin is 

 indeed impossible, because, happily, every one does not play 

 the piano, because everj^ pianist is not a performer of eminence, 

 and because the children of such performers rarely become 

 performers themselves. Liszt's father was a clerk in an 

 accountant's office. Among all our living performers I only 

 know one, Pauer of London, whose son is a pianist. It is clear 

 that in this case also the possibility of higher performance does 

 not depend on higher talent, but upon the tradition of improved 

 technique which enables the young artist to strive, from the 

 very first, after a higher ideal. 



It is the same, I believe, with music itself— nay with all the 

 arts. That emotional instrument wherewith we make music, 

 whether developed within us or received from without, 

 has been innate in man, and has undergone hardly any 



