An Introduction to a Biology 



my mind's eye when, as a young man, I read in 

 scientific books that such and such a person had 

 discovered the laws governing such and such pheno- 

 mena was very like my boyhood's notion of tunes. 

 I had no reason for supposing that those who wrote 

 what I read had not thought carefully over the 

 meanings of the words they used. I took what I 

 read to be literally true ; I believed that phenomena 

 were governed by these laws ; that they really were 

 passive agents in the hands of the powerful laws 

 which controlled them. These laws had existed 

 from all time, and were part of the order of the 

 Universe. The law of Natural Selection had been 

 discovered ; but there might perhaps be one or two 

 laws of heredity still undiscovered. And just as I 

 had wanted to discover a tune, so, now, I wanted 

 very much to discover a law. In my innocence I 

 believed that if I " discovered " the law " governing " 

 a particular phenomenon, I should have got to the 

 bottom of that phenomenon. 



The second stage in the history of my theory of 

 music consisted in abandoning the view I have 

 described, and in rushing to the opposite extreme 

 of believing that tunes were simply invented by 

 musicians, " out of their own heads," as one would 

 have expressed it. This view raised the question 

 why it was that some men could put together notes 

 which the world would recognise as music, whilst 

 others, amongst whom I was compelled to recognise 

 myself, could not. But I imagined that if anyone 

 chose to take the trouble to learn harmony and 

 counterpoint and the rest, and contrived to construct 

 a symphony which he could entice people to listen 



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