FIRST PRINCIPLES 37 



the cry of "Meat, meat!" suggests but one idea, though 

 sung to diverse tones ; emotions, not ideas, take possession 

 of its soul as it listens to its lovers as they serenade it with 

 the "song without a tune." Its ear fully performs its func- 

 tions if it discriminates a limited number of widely different 

 sounds. It is not the quality of the sound that interests an 

 animal so much as the direction from which it comes, the 

 distance away of its source, and the amount and character 

 of the intervening substances by which it is muffled. 



The ear gives to us but little information of the position 

 in space of the source of sounds. Our external ears, instead 

 of being long, movable trumpets which collect sounds, and at 

 the same time show their direction, are immovable append- 

 ages which may be lopped off without appreciably affecting 

 the value of our organs of hearing. Man uses the ear to but 

 a slight extent as an organ for investigating the universe. 

 He enjoys its great analytical power as an avenue, not to the 

 outer world, but to the mind of his fellow-man as expressed 

 through speech. Its external movable appendage has ceased 

 to be of importance, but the analysing apparatus of the 

 cochlea has been developed until it can distinguish several 

 thousand different tones. The enjoyment of music is a 

 remarkable illustration of the store which Man sets upon his 

 power of distinguishing tones. It is a pleasure to use this 

 sensitive mechanism for the recognition both of tones in 

 sequence and of tones in combination. Pure tones and per- 

 fect harmonies are listened to with delight. Imperfect 

 harmonies, which are difficult to analyse, and discords, give 

 pain to the trained ear. This is not the place to consider 

 the meaning of music, or even to discuss the question of 

 whether it has a meaning, until by association we assign one 

 to it ; but it is allowable to point out in passing that the 

 pleasure which we find in using the ear for the analysis of 

 musical sounds confirms our statement that it is for this 

 purpose that Man values it. Compare for a moment the ear 

 with the eye. Several pure colours flashed at the same 



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