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; 



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