298 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



This observation applies to the physical and 

 physiological conditions of the phenomenon, since 

 primitive men could not speak without rhythmic 

 modulation of words. We are not quite without hope 

 of discovering by induction the origin of wind or 



unable to prove his assertion that the effect produced by music is a 

 negative pleasure. Moreover, the Darwinian ob.-ervations to which 

 he traces the origin of the enjoyment of music, not only rely on an 

 arbitrary hypothesis, but do not explain why males should derive any 

 advantage from their voice, nor what pleasure and satisfaction females 

 find in it. And this, as Heiuach justly observes in the Ecvue Pliilo- 

 sophique. is the point on which the problem turns. 



Clark has recently suggested in the American Naturalist another 

 theory worthy of consideration. A musical sound is never simple but 

 complex; it consists of one fundamental sound, and of other harmonic 

 sounds at close intervals ; the first and most perceptible intervals arc 

 the 8th, 5th, 4th, and ord major. Each of the simple sounds which, 

 taken together, constitute the whole sound, causes the vibration of a 

 special group of fibres in the auditory nerve. This fact, often repeated, 

 generates a kind of organic predisposition which is confirmed by 

 heredity. If from any cause one of these groups is set in motion, the 

 other groups will have a tendency to vibrate. Therefore, if a singing 

 animal, weary of always repealing the same note, wishes to vary its 

 height, he will naturally choose one of the harmonic sounds of the 

 first. The ultima). origin of the law of melody in organized beings is 

 therefore only the simultaneous harmony, realized in sounds, of in- 

 organic nature. This theory is confirmed by the analysis which has 

 been often made of the song of some birds: the intervals employed 

 by these are generally the same as those on which human melody is 

 founded, the 8th, oth, 4th, and 3rd major. Reinaeh, however, observes 

 that Beethoven, who in his Pastoral Symphony has reproduced the 

 song of the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the quail, makes their melodies 

 to differ from those assigned to them by Clark. 



The method and direction of the theories proposed by these authors 

 arc excellent ; but 1 do not believe that they have discovered the real 

 origin of the sense of music and dancing. I think that the suggestion 

 given in the text, although it requires development, is nearer the 

 truth. Consciousness of the great law by which things exist in a 

 classified form seems to me to be the cause of the sense of graduated 

 pleasure, which constitutes the essence of all the arts. 



