40 THOUGHTS UPON THE MUSICAL SENSE [X. 



but has been true from times immemorial, that the choice of 

 husband and of wife are determined by quahties other than 

 musical gifts, viz. by youth, beauty, strength, and not least by 

 mental endowments, not to speak of the various external 

 inducements which are always apt to intervene. No one will 

 be prepared to maintain that men who cannot sing and lack any 

 remarkable musical talent, are or ever were at a disadvantage 

 in gaining wives. On the contrary, we know that such men 

 have no difficulty in finding unmusical partners, and indeed 

 that they not uncommonly marry those in whom this taste is 

 strongly marked. If this be so any increase of the musical 

 talent by means of sexual selection is rendered impossible. 



I feel sure that many will at this point inquire whether it is 

 impossible for musical talent to have grown in exact proportion 

 to its exercise. We are all familiar with the fact that by constant 

 practice every organ is improved and its power increased. We 

 cannot doubt this when we think of the marvellous delicacy of 

 touch acquired by the finger-tips of a blind man who attempts 

 to make up for the loss of vision by means of the tactile sense. 

 Why then should not the musical sense have been increased 

 during the course of unnumbered generations in each one of 

 which the mind and ear were exercised in the composition of 

 music and in its enjoyment ? And such exercise appears to 

 have actually taken place, for, as far as we are aware, nearly 

 all savage nations, not only the Polynesians, but the American 

 Indians, negroes, and Asiatic tribes, — possess some sort of 

 musical utterance. 



This explanation would certainly be a very simple one, and it 

 would be equally useful in many other directions, provided only 

 that it were the true one. Up to the present time it has been 

 regarded as valid, and many, even now, consider it to be so. 

 But the explanation before us involves a supposition which a 

 close examination does not allow us to admit, — the supposition 

 that those modifications of an organ which are due to its 

 exercise during the individual life can be transmitted to off- 

 spring. The supposed increase of the musical sense in the 

 course of generations can only have occurred in the manner 

 suggested, provided that this supposition be granted. If how- 

 ever the results of practice cannot be handed down it is clear 

 that the increase of the sense starts in the descendant at the 



