The Evolution of Music. 399 



advances from rude attempts to a complete system, but 

 through an exceedingly slow development. From what we 

 can learn of the notation of Greek music, and that of the 

 early middle ages, it was alphabetical namely, letters above 

 the words indicated the tone or intonation. Musical critics 

 are now generally agreed that the invention of line and 

 space notation is not to be ascribed, as it had uniformly 

 been, to Guido of Arezzo. Hucbald, mentioned above, was 

 likewise the originator of a peculiar space notation. In the 

 tenth century we meet for the first time the beginning of 

 line notation one line only the position of the marks 

 relatively to the line indicating the tone to be taken. In 

 the eleventh century three more lines were added, and 

 through various intermediate steps, among which was the 

 use of colored lines to indicate variety of tone, was wrought 

 out the notation invented or at least perfected by Franco, 

 of Cologne, which was the immediate precursor of our mod- 

 ern system. Not until his day do we find any indication of 

 the respective length of notes, or division into bars. Such 

 had not really been necessary. Great latitude was allowed in 

 the declamatory recitation of music, and not much more was 

 needed than indication simply for the rising and falling of 

 the voice ; but with the advent of part-singing and the move- 

 ment together of several voices, length of tone had to be 

 clearly marked. In all this the law of evolution was clearly 

 apparent, from alphabet to space-writing, from space- to 

 line-writing, and this progressed contemporaneously with 

 the immense extension of the polyphonic school of compo- 

 sition. 



Those who will compare a modern fugue with the simple 

 note-succession of Greek and middle-age music can not fail 

 to be impressed with the wonderful demonstration which 

 our law of evolution receives in the practically unlimited 

 number of tone combinations of which music has been 

 shown to be susceptible, and which, in combination with 

 fertility of melodic invention, has developed musical art to 

 its present results. Concurrently with this increasing com- 

 plexity in harmony, notation, and instrumentation has been 

 the distinct operation of the correlative law of Integration ; 

 that principle of evolution whereby cosmic, biological, soci- 

 ological, and art growth tend to a unity in variety, and to 

 structural completeness. Compare the unrelated tone suc- 

 cessions of ancient and mediaeval music, having in them- 

 selves no art significance, with the modern oratorio or sym- 



