266 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



by experience with the necessary comprehension, it 

 becomes the most significant and profoundly moving 

 of the arts. Musical faculty to the extent of pleas- 

 urable experience from serious compositions is a 

 widespread gift, but one not widely cultivated with 

 seriousness. In some, the pleasure comes largely 

 from a ready perception of certain quantitative rela- 

 tions in rhythm and pitch ; in others, this instinctive 

 analytical power is replaced by emotional sensibility; 

 and in others, still, both these faculties are united. 

 We must conclude that the nervous instruments of 

 receptivity in the sense organs and their cerebral con- 

 nections are constitutionally different in different 

 persons. Great refinement in the receptive appara- 

 tus, e.g. the organ of Corti, may perhaps determine 

 the nice perception of pitch, while rhythm may be 

 related to the organs of the labyrinth. It is perhaps 

 the close connection of the auditory nerves and nuclei 

 with the nuclei of the vagus nerve that makes it 

 possible for music to arouse such profound emotion, 

 and it may well be true that in different persons these 

 interneural links are not equally close and rich. 

 The vagus nerve is connected with many organs on 

 which well-being depends, and we may fancy that 

 disturbances in these organs may sensitize the cen- 

 tral nuclei of these nerves in such a way that they 

 would be overactivated by the stimulation of the 

 adjoining auditory nuclei, and so lead to the excessive 

 emotional response observed in some invalids. The 

 magic manner in which in some persons music domi- 



