53 



ON THE 



PHYSIOLOGICAL CAUSES OF HAEMONY 

 IN MUSIC. 



A Lecture delivered in Bonn during the Winter of 1857. 



LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, In the native town of Beethoven, the 

 mightiest among the heroes of harmony, no subject seemed 

 to me better adapted for a popular audience than music itself. 

 Following, therefore, the direction of my researches during the 

 last few years, I will endeavour to explain to you what physics 

 and physiology have to say regarding the most cherished art of 

 the Rhenish land music and musical relations. Music has 

 hitherto withdrawn itself from scientific treatment more than 

 any other art. Poetry, painting, and sculpture borrow at least 

 the material for their delineations from the world of experience. 

 They portray nature and man. Not only can their material be 

 critically investigated in respect to its correctness and truth 

 to nature, but scientific art-criticism, however much enthusiasts 

 may have disputed its right to do so, has actually succeeded in 

 making some progress in investigating the causes of that aesthetic 

 pleasure which it is the intention of these arts to excite. In 

 music, on the other hand, it seems at first sight as if those were 

 still in the right who reject all ' anatomisation of pleasurable 

 sensations.' This art, borrowing no part of its material from 

 the experience of our senses, not attempting to describe, and 



