212 Evolution and Adaptation 
ence to his daily habits of life, they must be ranked amongst 
the most mysterious with which he is endowed.” 
Man is supposed to have possessed this faculty of song 
from a very remote time, and even the most savage races 
make musical sounds, although we do not enjoy their music, 
or they ours. 
“We see that the musical faculties, which are not wholly 
deficient in any race, are capable of prompt and high de- 
velopment, for Hottentots and Negroes have become excel- 
lent musicians, although in their native countries they rarely 
practise anything that we should consider music. Hence the 
capacity for high musical development, which the savage 
races of man possess, may be due either to the practice by 
our semi-human progenitors of some rude form of music, or 
simply to their having acquired the proper vocal organs for 
a different purpose. But in this latter case we must assume, 
as in the above instance of parrots, and as seems to occur 
with many animals, that they already possessed some sense 
of melody.” 
Darwin sums up the evidence in the two following state- 
ments, the insufficiency of which to explain the phenomena 
is I think only too obvious: “All these facts in respect to 
music and impassioned speech become intelligible to a certain 
extent, if we 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 this case would be likely to call up vaguely 
and indefinitely the strong emotions of a long past age.” 
Thus the difficulty is shifted to the shoulders of our long 
lost savage ancestors; or even, in fact, to our simian fore- 
fathers, as the following paragraph indicates :— 
“As the males of several quadrumanous animals have 
their vocal organs much more developed than in the females, 
