XVI 



Music of the lower animals — Of savage man and Hindoos — ^Music 

 of the stone age — The cannibal Pan — Singing of savages — 

 Origin of song — Diderot and Herbert Spencer — The cries of 

 passion — Music founded on passion and play — Music older 

 than speech — Origin of rhythm — Impassioned speech in 

 savage and civilised man — Song in speech and speech in 

 song — Darwin's theory — Herbert Spencer's theory of the 

 function of music — What is Poetry? — Spiritual senses — 

 Music and Poetry sister arts — Furthest apart at their 

 greatest, and nearest at their lowest. 



WHEN I stated in conclusion of the last 

 chapter that the ass possessed the highest 

 musical performance of the mammalians 

 known to me, I was tempted to include primitive 

 or savage man; but that would have been a hasty 

 judgment founded on what I have heard of savage 

 music, which is very poor, little if at all better than 

 the musical performances of howling animals. Nor 

 is it in savages only that we find such poor singing, 

 seeing that in India we have a people civilised longer 

 ago than anyone can tell us; we know at all events 

 that they were as highly civilised in the time of 

 Alexander the Great as they are to-day. Yet their 

 singing is of the most primitive or barbarous kind, 

 and offensive to European ears. Judging from the 

 little I have heard, it resembles the singing or chant- 

 ing of savages, but is less pleasing owing to some 

 disagreeable quality in the tone — the timbre. We can 



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