736 TSE DESCENT OF MAN 



to captivate the female. Love is still the commonest theme 

 of our songs. As Herbert Spencer remarks, "music arouses 

 dormant sentiments of which we had not conceived the pos- 

 sibility, and do not know the meaning; or, as Bichter says, 

 tells us of things we have not seen and shall not see." OoH" 

 versely, 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 

 Bong, while the company, as if touched by a musical wave, 

 murmur a chorus in perfect unison." " Even monkeys ex- 

 press strong feelings in different tones — anger and impa- 

 tience by low — fear and pain by high notes." The sensa- 

 tions 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 excited 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 the 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 ac- 

 quired 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 prin- 

 ciple of evolution if we were to admit that man's musical 

 capacity has been developed from the tones used in impas- 

 sioned speech. We must suppose that the rhythms and 



»> Winwood Eeade, "The Martyrdom of Man," 1872, p. 441, and "African 

 Sketch Book," 1873, vol. ii. p. 313. 



" Eengger, "Saugethiere von Paraguay," a. 49. 



