154 THE NATURE OF MUSIC 



power as concentrated in the musical moment we will 

 next briefly consider music's originality and unique 

 position as an art. 



Tone has just been described as a complete whole 

 to which nothing can be added, from which nothing 

 can be taken away. Tone is unique, therefore 

 original; there is nothing like it or comparable to it 

 in the entire realm of expression in which it has but 

 one rival, speech. But the spoken word describes, 

 defines, voices something not itself and is a means 

 to an end, while tone directly voices itself, only itself, 

 and is at once both means and end. Again, the 

 spoken word has a specific meaning, a meaning put 

 into it, while tone has a universal meaning, a meaning 

 not put in but inherent, which is harmony. Tone is 

 directly presentative ; tone-language ^presents itself and 

 nothing else; it does not and cannot represent or 

 misrepresent, nor can it be represented in artificial 

 substances or forms. Music is idea in tones, no 

 more, no less. Tone-rhythm embodies and presents 

 the music-idea, nothing else. When we contem- 

 plate music we contemplate the reality, the thing 

 itself, music. A statue or portrait of a man is a 

 statue or a portrait, but not the reality, the thing 

 itself, a man. Tone-rhythm is substance and form 

 in one. Substance and form of what.? Of the 

 music-idea, which is melody, the composite of rhythm 

 and harmony. Unlike the substances which the 

 other arts change from their original form into some- 

 thing else, into a building, a statue, a painting, the 

 substance of music permanently preserves its original 

 form, is immutable, cannot be shaped into anything 



