The Evolution of Music. 387 



was the most demonstrative. So the barbarous races of to- 

 day are satisfied with the use of instruments of percussion 

 tom-toms, gongs, cymbals ; and even with the civilized Chi- 

 nese the favorite effects are produced by the beating of cop- 

 per plates, bells, stones, or wooden tubs. Khythmical 

 movement as in rude dancing, accompanied with gestures 

 expressive of war and revenge, with shouting and battle 

 cries, all appear together among the universal practices of 

 the earliest tribes of which we have any account ; by which, 

 however, the important fact clearly is shown that rhythm 

 answers to some innate necessity in physical expression. 

 The most effective and stately cadences in modern music 

 have for their prototype the barbaric yellings and fantastic 

 dancing of our savage ancestors. Nay, if we follow Darwin 

 and the evolution school into their speculations upon the 

 nebulous past of the race, we must allow that even some of 

 the lowest forms of animal life show marked sensitiveness 

 to musical tones. Even some crustaceans, says Darwin, 

 possess certain auditory hairs which have been seen to 

 vibrate when the proper musical notes are struck. All ani- 

 mals have their well-known peculiar cries. " The gibbon," 

 says Darwin, " further has an extremely loud but musical 

 voice," and he quotes Prof. Waterhouse as stating that " it 

 appeared to me that, in ascending and descending the scale, 

 the intervals were always exactly half-tones, and I am sure 

 that the highest note was an exact octave to the lowest." 

 Instances of musical instinct in animals are too numerous 

 to call for remark. 



But if the precise origin of the musical faculty is un- 

 known, so also, as we have said, are the beginnings of what 

 we call music. History does not go back to the time when 

 we do not find the earliest nations in the use of rude musi- 

 cal instruments, and with some capacity of rude vocaliza- 

 tion. Assyrians, Egyptians, Hindoos, the Chinese, Japa- 

 nese, and especially the Hebrews, have already when we first 

 know of them accomplished a very considerable advance 

 over savagery in the musical art. Stringed instruments ap- 

 pear to have made the greatest advance among the East 

 Indians. Of Hebrew music, grand as it undoubtedly was, 

 even in the early temple services, we know but little, except 

 that it was certainly antiphonal. It is claimed, however, 

 that a very few of the ancient Hebrew chants are still sung 

 in some of the synagogues in Europe. We have no space 

 to go into any of these debated topics nor into the uncer- 



