THE CRIES OF PASSION 257 
employed as an amusement of the mind and slightly 
varied, the harsher sounds eliminated. Listening to 
it, anyone who has heard savages and even civilised 
men speaking with passion becomes convinced of the 
truth of Diderot's idea that the cadences used in 
emotional speech afford the foundation from which 
vocal music has been developed. I would, however, 
go further back than Diderot and Herbert Spencer 
in his brilliant exposition, and say that music in 
man has its origin in the emotional sounds emitted 
by the human and semi-human species of the Plio- 
cene before articulate speech was invented. In other 
words, the root is the same in all mammals, man 
included. As the poet says : First the root, then the 
stalk; more airy thence, the leaves; and last, the 
bright consummate flower. We have it all in us, 
root to flower, and may say if we like that the lower 
animals (mammals) are still in the stalk stage, 
although some may hold that they have developed 
leaves. Again, in listening to the lower or more 
primitive music of Europe, in some of the folk-songs 
of all nations, especially in the ballads of the peasant 
Basques and in some of the more highly developed 
Hungarian music, one is sharply reminded of the 
Asiatic civilised music and the barbarous and savage 
music of America and Africa. The root in which it 
all originates is in itself a varied language, since it 
expresses a great variety of emotions, the war-cries 
expressing the fury and joy of battle with the shedding 
of blood; all sounds emitted by hatred and malice 
and revenge and anger in all degrees and shades; 
