26 
In all savage and half-civilised nations we find a great delight 
in pure sounds, and especially in rhythm. The Lecturer expressed 
his dissent from the views of Herbert Spencer, who regards the 
origin of music as purely vocal, and omits all reference to the rude 
instruments which must have preceded that systematising of 
emotionalised speech which, in Mr. Spencer’s opinion, was the 
origin of music. The most barbarous savages accompany their 
orgies with anything that will make a noise ; and this use of the 
phenomena of sound in essentials remains the same to this day in 
the East and in Africa, the only other use being to give signals in 
war. Neither the Orientals nor the ancient Greeks ever produced 
anything important in music, the reason being that music was by 
them associated with either dancing or poetry, and not allowed to 
exert its own powers. This did not happen until the invention of 
harmony. We shall never know how and when harmony came 
into favour, but it was known in all the north-west of Europe one 
thousand years ago. About the same time the use of signs written 
on a line, above and beneath the line, had been used to determine 
notes, and the advantages were so obvious that other lines were 
added, and the present notation came into use. The importance 
of having a special notation for music, instead of using letters of 
the alphabet as the Greeks did, must not be underrated. 
Before the year 1100, at Paris,a number of musicians are known 
to have used the devices technically called Counterpoint and 
Imitation, which served to differentiate pure vocal music as a special 
branch of the Art. The famous Reading Rota, a piece for six 
voices written in the year 1226, is a great landmark in the history 
of music. On mentioning this, Mr. Davey paused to show by 
actual illustrations the difference between embryotic music and the 
development reached in the 13th century. He sanga number of 
African airs, one of which consisted of only two notes, and others 
of only three. Savage and half-civilised nations find a great delight 
in repeating one of these phrases for hours together, exactly as 
birds do. This peculiarity may be traced even in our own music, 
for very popular melodies repeat the same note several times. 
Among civilised Asiatic nations music assumes a somewhat 
different character. The Chinese and Hindoos both have an 
ancient system of music, very ugly and out of tune to us, as ours 
is to them. But there is one part of Asia, where, more than 2,000 
years ago, music took a different form, which has had a very great 
share in the development of the Art to its present lofty standard. 
The chants sung in the temple services of the Jews contained a 
kernel of inner strength and purity upon which foundation a vast 
structure could be erected, as the event has proved. Their style 
of chanting afterwards passed into the ritual of the Christian 
religion, and the long-held notes proved, after the use of harmony, 
extremely favourable for the construction of elaborate pieces of 
