318 MYTH AND SCIENCE. 



to the Church, but it gradually assumed a character 

 of its own, was dissociated from the Church, and 

 became a secular art, diverging more and more from 

 the mythical ideas with which it had before been 

 filled. When instruments increased in number, and 

 became more perfect in quality ; when harmony, 

 strictly so called, was developed and became more 

 efficient, instrumental music still continued to be the 

 servant of vocal music, and was employed to give 

 emphasis, relief, warmth, and colour to the art of song, 

 which continued to be supreme. Song had its pecu- 

 liar musical character, and the human voice, alone 

 or in a chorus, might be regarded as the type of 

 instrumental music, rendered more effective by the 

 words which expressed the ideas and sentiments of 

 such songs by harmonizing the various vocal instru- 

 ments in accordance with their tones and varying 

 timbre. Instrumental music, by the melodious har- 

 mony of artificial sounds, had however a vast field 

 peculiar to itself, and an existence independent of the 

 human voice. This was and is, in addition to its 

 release from the bonds of myth, the necessary result 

 of the evolution of this highest art. 



Instrumental music, considered in itself, with the 

 symphony as its highest expression, has been de- 

 clared by a learned writer to be the grandest artistic 

 creation, and the ultimate form of art in which the 

 vast cycle of all things human will find its develop- 

 ment. A symphony is an architectural construction 



