FASHION AND SELECTION 301 



take it. Such a book would appeal to a very large 

 public, which would not be of music-lovers only, 

 but would include all who are interested (and who 

 is not ?) in the history of oujr race and civilisation 

 from the point of view of evolution. 



No doubt there is fashion in instruments as in many 

 other things. Have the old instruments been cast 

 aside merely from caprice, or because others were 

 invented or improved and become the fashion, just 

 as in the case of lap-dogs, which ladies keep to fondle 

 in their drawing-rooms, one sees a pug or griffon in 

 favour one day and cast off the next for a Pekinese ? 

 The effect of fashion and caprice cannot be whoUy 

 excluded, but the main cause of all changes has been 

 a principle of selection, of accumulating improve- 

 ments, deliberately sought or hit upon by chance. 

 Thus, we know how it has been with the pianoforte. 

 We hardly want our musical masters to tell us, 

 when we listen to performances on the virginal, 

 spinet and harpsichord, that it was the thinness 

 of the music of these and of the instruments which 

 preceded and were their prototypes — psaltery, dul- 

 cimer, monochord, etc. — which acted as a perpetual 

 prick to inventive musical minds — a sense of dis- 

 satisfaction which was in itself prophetic of a fuller, 

 deeper, richer music. The better in due time came 

 to be: thus, we have the pianoforte of to-day, 

 and it is inconceivable that there should be any 

 further improvement in it, since any advance, 

 any change, would simply mean its transformation 

 into a different instrument. 



