ITS INDIRECT BENEFITS AND PLEASURES. 231 



fications, intensifies them more and more as it ascends to 

 its higher and higher forms, and becomes music simply in 

 virtue of thus intensifying them ; that, from the ancient 

 epic poet chanting his verses, down to the modern musical 

 composer, men of unusually strong feelings prone to express 

 them in extreme forms, have been naturally the agents of 

 these successive intensifications ; and that so there has 

 Httle by little arisen a wide divergence between this ideal- 

 ized language of emotion and its natural language : to 

 which direct evidence we have just added the indirect 

 — that on no other tenable hypothesis can either the 

 expressiveness or the genesis of music be explained. 



And now, what is the fu7iction of music ? Has music 

 any effect beyond the immediate jDleasure it produces ? 

 Analogy suggests that it has. The enjoyments of a good 

 dinner do not end with themselves, but minister to bodily 

 well-being. Though people do not marry with a view to 

 maintain the race, yet the passions which impel them to 

 marry secure its maintenance. Parental affection is a feel- 

 ing which, while it conduces to parental happiness, ensures 

 the nurture of offspring. Men love to accumulate property, 

 often without thought of the benefits it produces ; but in 

 pursuing the pleasure of acquisition they indirectly open the 

 way to other pleasures. The wish for public approval im- 

 pels all of us to do many things which w^e should otherwise 

 not do, — to undertake great labours, face great dangers, 

 and habitually rule ourselves in a way that smooths social 

 intercourse : that is, in gratifying our love of approbation 

 we subserve divers ulterior purposes. And, generally, our 

 nature is such that in fulfilling each desire, we in some way 

 facilitate the fulfilment of the rest. But the love of music 

 fleems to exist for its own sake. The delights of melody 

 and harmony do not obviously minister to the welfare 

 either of the individual or of society. May we not suspect. 



