566 THE DESCENT OP MAN. 



Music arouses in us various emotions, but not the more terrible 

 ones of horror, fear, rage, &c. It awakens the gentler feelings of 

 tenderness and love, which readily pass into devotion. In the 

 Chinese annals it is said, "Music hath the power of making heaven 

 "descend upon earth." It likewise stirs up in us the sense of 

 triumph and the glorious ardor for war. These powerful and min- 

 gled feelings may well give rise to the sense of sublimity. We can 

 concentrate, as Dr. Seemann observes, greater intensity of feel- 

 ing in a single musical note than in pages of writing. It is prob- 

 able that nearly the same emotions, but much weaker and far less 

 complex, are felt by birds when the male pours forth his full 

 volume of song, in rivalry with other males, to captivate the fe- 

 male. Love is still the commonest theme of our songs. As Her- 

 bert Spencer remarks, "music arouses dormant sentiments of 

 "which we had not conceived the possibility, and do not know the 

 "meaning; or, as Richter says, tells us of things we have not seen 

 "and shall not see." Conversely, when vivid emotions are felt 

 and expressed by the orator, or even in common speech, musical 

 cadences and rhythm are instinctively used. The negro in Africa 

 when excited often bursts forth in song; "another will reply in 

 "song, while the company, as if touched by a musical wave, mur- 

 "mur a chorus in perfect unison."" Even monkeys express strong 

 feelings in different tones — anger and impatience by low, — fear 

 and pain by high notes.''' The sensations and ideas thus excited 

 in us by music, or expressed by the cadences of oratory, appear 

 from their vagueness, yet depth, like mental reversions to the 

 emotions and thoughts of a long-past age. 



All these facts with respect to music and impassioned speech 

 become intelligible to a certain extent, if we may assume that 

 musical tones and rhythm were used by our half-human ancestors 

 during the season of courtship, when animals of all kinds are ex- 

 cited not only by love, but by the strong passions of jealousy, 

 rivalry, and triumph. From the deeply-laid principle of Inherited 

 associations, musical tones in this case would be likely to call up 

 vaguely and indefinitely the strong emotions of a long-past age. 

 As we have every reason to suppose that articulate speech is one 

 of the latest, as it certainly is the highest, of the arts acquired by 

 man, and as the instinctive power of producing musical notes and 

 rhythms is developed low down in the animal series, it would be 

 altogether opposed to the principle of evolution, if we were to ad- 

 mit that man's musical capacity has been developed from the tones 

 used in impassioned speech. We must suppose that the rhythms 

 and cadences of oratory are derived from previously developed 



" Winwood Reade, 'The Martyrdom of Man,' 1872, p. 441, and 'AfrScaa 

 Sketch Book,' 1873, vol. ii. p. S13. 

 "* Kengger, 'Saugethiere von Paraguay,' s. 49. 



