CENTURY IIT. 123 



and waking, when all the senses are bound and 

 suspended, music is far sweeter than when one is 

 fully waking. 



Experiments in consort touching the imitation of 

 sounds. 



236. It is a thing strange in nature when it is 

 attentively considered, how children, and some birds, 

 learn to imitate speech. They take no mark at all 

 of the motion of the mouth of him that speaketh, 

 for birds are as well taught in the dark as by light. 

 The sounds of speech are very curious and exquisite : 

 so one would think it were a lesson hard to learn. 

 It is true that it is done with time, and by little and 

 little, and with many essays and proffers : but all 

 this dischargeth not the wonder. It would make a 

 man think, though this which we shall say may 

 seem exceeding strange, that there is some trans 

 mission of spirits ; and that the spirits of the teacher 

 put in motion, should work with the spirits of the 

 learner a pre-disposition to offer to imitate ; and so 

 to perfect the imitation by degrees. But touching 

 operations by transmissions of spirits, which is one 

 of the highest secrets in nature, we shall speak in 

 due place, chiefly when we come to inquire of ima 

 gination. But as for imitation, it is certain that 

 there is in men and other creatures a pre-disposition 

 to imitate. We see how ready apes and monkeys 

 are to imitate all motions of man ; and in the 

 catching of dottrels, we see how the foolish bird 

 playeth the ape in gestures : and no man, in effect, 

 doth accompany with others, but he learneth, ere he 



