lo BIRD LIFE GLIMPSES 



so fraught with the sense of mystery, so full of hurry 

 and impatience, has a fine inspiriting effect ; it 

 sweeps the soul, one may say, filling it with wild 

 elemental emotions. What is this ? Is it not a 

 yearning back to something that one once was, a 

 backward-rushing tide down the long, long line of 

 advance ? I believe that most of those vague, un- 

 defined, yet strongly pleasurable emotions that are 

 apt to puzzle us — such, for instance, as Wordsworth 

 looks upon as " intimations of immortality " — have 

 their origin in the ordinary laws of inheritance. 

 What evidence of such immortality as is here 

 imagined do these supposed intimations of it offer ? 

 Do they not bear a considerable resemblance to the 

 feelings which music calls up in us, and which 

 Darwin has rationally explained ? ^ " All these 

 facts," says Darwin, *' with respect to music and im- 

 passioned speech, become intelligible to a certain 

 extent, if we may assume that musical tones and 

 rhythm were used by our half-human ancestors 

 during the season of courtship, when animals of all 

 kinds are excited, not only by love, but by the 

 strong feelings of jealousy, rivalry, and triumph. 

 From the deeply-laid principle of inherited associa- 

 tions, musical tones, in this case, would be likely to 

 call up, vaguely and indefinitely, the strong emotions 

 of a long-past age. Thus, in the Chinese annals it 

 is said, ' Music ' (and this is Chinese music, by the 

 way) ' has the power of making heaven descend 



^ The late F. W. H. Myers explains music in his own way — in 

 forced accordance, that is to say, with his subliminal self 

 hypothesis — without even a reference to Darwin ! Did he not 

 know Darwin's views, or did he think himself justified in ignoring 

 them? 



