PHYSIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF MUSICAL EFFECTS. 220 



melancholy, another of affection, another of reverence ? 

 Is it that these special combinations have intrinsic mean 

 ings apart from the human constitution ? that a certain 

 number of aerial waves per second, followed by a certain 

 other number, in the nature of things signify grief, while 

 in the reverse order they signify joy ; and similarly with 

 all other intervals, phrases, and cadences ? Few will be so 

 irrational as to think this. Is it, then, that the meanings 

 of these special combinations are conventional only? that 

 we learn their implications, as we do those of words, by 

 observing how others understand them ? This is an hy 

 pothesis not only devoid of evidence, but directly opposed 

 to the experience of every one. How, then, are musical 

 effects to be explained ? If the theory above set forth bo 

 accepted, the difficulty disappears. If music, taking for its 

 raw material the various modilications of voice which are 

 the physiological results of excited feeling, intensifies, com 

 bines, and complicates them if it exaggerates the loud- 

 ness, the resonance, the pitch, the intervals, and the varia 

 bility, which, in virtue of an organic law, are the charac 

 teristics of passionate speech if, by carrying out these fur 

 ther, more consistently, more unitedly, and more sus- 

 tainedly, it produces an idealized language of emotion ; 

 then its power over us becomes comprehensible. But in 

 the absence of this theory, the expressiveness of music ap 

 pears to be inexplicable. 



Again, the preference we feel for certain qualities of 

 sound presents a like difficulty, admitting only of a like 

 solution. It is generally agreed that the tones of the hu 

 man voice are more pleasing than any others. Grant that 

 music takes its rise from the modulations of the human 

 voice under emotion, and it becomes a natural consequence 

 that the tones of that voice should appeal to our feelings 

 more than any others ; and so should be considered more 

 beautiful than auy others. But deny that music has this 



