ACCENT AND REGNANT HARMONY 151 



brating whole. Each moment in the short space of 

 a single human life is a rhythmic moment accentuat- 

 ing the individual struggle for physical, mental, social 

 and spiritual equilibrium or harmony. When we 

 consider that music is the direct language of equili- 

 brium or harmony, and that it directly presents the 

 universal message of all the arts, we can no longer 

 regard its universal power as a mystery not to be 

 penetrated and wholly insoluble. What choice or 

 will has man to resist universal energy, rhythm and 

 equilibrium, universal form and principle of form, 

 all of which underlie, are blended and idealized in 

 music .^^ I have pronounced music to be the only 

 universal and only purely spiritual language, but it 

 is more; it is the language of liberty and freedo^n, it 

 is a complete whole to which nothing can be added, 

 from which nothing can be taken away. Can you 

 add anything to or take anything from a tone, is not 

 a tone complete in itself.^ Music's elemental power 

 to absorb the whole attention and to annul all the 

 ordinary conscious activities of thought and volition 

 is due more to tone than to rhythm. Musical 

 rhythm 'per se does not possess this power. Why? 

 Because we are so pervaded with this law of motion 

 that we spontaneously take up an initial rhythm, 

 remember it, repeat it, and therefore anticipate it 

 without conscious effort of attention, in a word, with- 

 out knowing it. With tap of hand or foot we often 

 unconsciously take up any pronounced rhythm in 

 our environment and sharply mark the recurring 

 accents to which we sometimes hum an improvised 

 air. So fixed is the innate rhythmic habit of pre- 



