276 BIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HUMAN PROBLEMS 



that such music is by itself sufficient to completely 

 absorb the attention of even the most cultivated 

 and analytical ear. The simultaneous appeal to the 

 visual sense means division of attention and a dilu- 

 tion of the deepest auditory effect of which the 

 music is capable. This appears to be the experience 

 of the most gifted musical persons and apparently 

 rests on definite laws governing the expenditure of 

 the energy implicated in the maintenance of atten- 

 tion. It may be successfully contended that music 

 is not at its best when serving the drama, and there 

 appears a sound biological basis for this contention. 

 And we may go so far as to hold that music illus- 

 trated by words departs from the lines of greatest 

 purity of appeal by introducing an attempt at defi- 

 nition which, at least in some of its greatest examples, 

 may better be left to itself to work its full effect on 

 the imagination. We cannot, for example, conceive 

 of any poem or drama which would not rob the later 

 Beethoven quartets of something of their profundity. 



If we look at literature in its relation to the funda- 

 mental somatic and sexual instincts, as we have 

 already glanced at painting and music, it quickly 

 becomes obvious that the relation is more intimate 

 and springs into view more spontaneously than in the 

 case of either of these other arts. The reason for the 

 greater obtrusiveness of the roots of literature is to 



