228 THE ORIGIN AND FUNCTION OF MUSIC. 



the ten centuries which we know it took, to devclope this 

 four-toned recitative into :i vocal music having a range of 

 two octaves. 



Not only may we so understand how more sonoroiM 

 tones, greater extremes of pitch, and wider intervals, wero 

 gradually introduced ; but also how there arose a greater 

 variety and complexity of musical expression. For this 

 same passionate, enthusiastic temperament, which naturally 

 leads the musical composer to express the feelings possessed 

 by others as well as himself, in extremer intervals and more 

 marked cadences than they would use, also leads him to 

 give musical utterance to feelings which they either do not 

 experience, or experience in but slight degrees. In virtue 

 of this general susceptibility which distinguishes him, he 

 regards with emotion, events, scenes, conduct, character, 

 which produce upon most men no appreciable effect. The 

 emotions so generated, compounded as they arc of tho sim 

 pler emotions, are not expressible by intervals and cadences 

 natural to these, but by combinations of such intervals and 

 cadences : whence arise more involved musical phrases, 

 conveying more complex, subtle, and iinusu.il feelings. 

 And thus we may in some measure understand how it baj*- 

 pens that music not only so strongly excites our more 

 familiar feelings, but also produces feelings we never lad 



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before arouses dormant sentiments of which we had not 

 conceived the possibility and do not know the meaning ; 

 or, as Richtcr says tells us of things we have not seen and 

 shall not see. 



Indirect evidences of several kinds remain to be briefly 

 pointed out. One of them is the difficulty, not to say im 

 possibility, of otherwise accounting for the expressiveness 

 of music. Whence comes it that special combinations of 

 notes should have special effects upon our emotions ? that 

 one should give us a feeling of exhilaration, another of 



