182 THE NATURE OF MUSIC 



completely harmonizes with our common feeling and 

 percept of minor, and its validity is demonstrated and 

 confirmed by the self-reports of melody. 



Reverting to our theses on page 179 it may be asked, 

 why fix upon the specific tones do and la for the origin 

 of minor? Among previously extant diatonics are 

 there no other combinations of two tones in which the 

 requisite relation of a small third is potential ? Ages 

 upon ages before there was any conscious perception 

 of harmony, melody had brought forth both the major 

 mode and minor mode in one voice. In connection 

 with this early formative period of melody when feel- 

 ing of harmony was in its incipient stages of develop- 

 ment we could not confidently speak of specific tones 

 or of specific relations generating specific forms of har- 

 mony, in short, we could not answer the above ques- 

 tions, were it not for harmony in one voice, its definite 

 self-reports and its demonstrable principles. Admit- 

 tedly the refined harmonic sense of to-day is connected 

 with, rooted in, and the evolutionary product of, the 

 harmonic sense of the entire past, or briefly, of yester- 

 day, and it follows that the harmonic percepts of 

 to-day spring from the harmonic feelings of yesterday, 

 that the common self -reports of melody so clearly per- 

 ceived to-day are the same which yesterday were but 

 dimly felt. Thus harmony in one voice is the connect- 

 ing link between the harmony of the present and that 

 of the entire past, and by means of its self-reports we 

 can trace the genesis of tone upon tone, relation upon 

 relation, harmonic form upon harmonic form; and 

 because these self-reports are common and apply to all 

 music in one voice it matters little whether our illustra- 



