268 THE FUNCTION OF MUSIC 



It would be idle to labour the point further; the 

 light of nature is enough to show to anyone the falsity 

 and the absurdity of Herbert Spencer's theory of 

 what he magnificently calls the function of music. 

 Here let me say that after this chapter had been 

 written I came by chance on Wallaschek's Primitive 

 Music, a neglected and perhaps a forgotten book, 

 to find that he has anticipated some of my criti- 

 cisms of Darwin's and Spencer's theories, but about 

 Spencer's theory concerning the function of music 

 he has nothing to say. Something, however, must 

 be said as to the other point already touched on 

 concerning the extended meaning sometimes given 

 to the word. Let us suppose that Herbert Spencer, 

 instead of being helplessly wrong, was right about 

 the improvement of speech through song; this would 

 not have been the function of music, but merely an 

 accidental benefit or use which had come in course 

 of time, one of numberless such chance or accidental 

 uses we get from other faculties and arts, which may 

 endure and which may come like shadows, and so 

 depart in the long life of the race, but are not 

 functions proper to their faculties or arts. 



What, for example, is the function of painting? 

 Religious, historical, decorative — anything you like; 

 or you may say that it is to provide wealthy persons 

 with beautiful pictures in heavy gilt frames for the 

 decoration of their houses; or, better still, that it 

 is for the elevation of the lower orders at the East 

 End of London by means of exhibitions. 



These and all the other chance or incidental 



