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MUSIC 
 ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
The International Scientific Series 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 JULES COMBARIEU 
 
 PEOFESSEUK D'HISTOIKE DE LA MUSIQUE 
 AU CCllJiGE DE FRANCE 
 
 AUTHORIZED TRANSLATION 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1910 
 
 £5 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Principal aspects of music — Its place in the history of 
 civilization — Its relations to the Moral and Natural 
 Sciences — A'arious methods of obtaining a definition of 
 music — Plan followed in this book . . . 1 
 
 FIRST PART 
 MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Analysis of a Melody — The Impression conveyed by 
 a Melody cannot be expressed in Word? 
 
 II. Examination -of some Opinions 
 
 § 1. Music and the Pleasures to the Ear 
 
 31 
 31 
 
 S 2. Music and Formalism — Arabesques of Sound 3.") 
 
 40 
 48 
 
 g 3. Music and Sentiment 
 S i. Music and the Abstract Emotions 
 S -5. The D)-namics of the Passional Life and 
 Musical Thought 
 
 II L Musical Images — {Examples 58 
 
 IV. Organization of Images . .65 
 
 .§ 1. Melody, Simple and Ornate 66 
 
 15 2. Grace Notes and Variations . . 69 
 
 i; 3. Canon 72 
 
 § 4. Simple Counter-point 74 
 
 S 5. Double Counter-point 76 
 
 S 6. Tlie Methods of Counter-point in Pure 
 
 Melody 80 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 =^K r,i. 1 
 
 §7. Rhythmical Organization and limbre . 
 § 8. Conclusion of this Analysis . 
 
 Music and Magic . • • " " 
 
 Ji 1. German Opinions on Music . . • • 
 § 2. Primitive Folk and Musical Magic 
 
 § 3. The Magic Chant 
 
 § 4. Identity of Primitive and Modern Ideas on 
 Music 
 
 PAGE 
 
 83 
 84 
 
 89 
 
 91 
 
 95 
 
 101 
 
 lOo 
 
 § 5. Conclusions of First Part . . 107 
 
 SECOND PART 
 
 MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 I. Apparent Antinomy — The Melodious Elements of 
 
 the Musical Art 109 
 
 §1. Perfect Consonances: the Octave and the 
 
 Fifth . . ... .112 
 
 §2. Mixed Consonance : the Fourth . . .114 
 
 I 3. Origins of Thirds 115 
 
 § 4. General Remarks on the Intervals . . 117 
 §5. The Scale . . . . . 119 
 
 § 6. The Major Mode 122 
 
 S 7. The Minor Mode .... .126 
 
 S 8. The Origin of our Two Present Modes . 131 
 
 II. The Rhythmical Elements of the Language of Music 
 
 and Social Life . . . . . . .134 
 
 § 1. Work and Musical Time . . .135 
 
 § 2. Rhythm and Social Life . . .144 
 
 III. Music and Love . 150 
 
 § 1. Critical Observations on Darwin's Theory . 155 
 
 IV. Music and Language . . , . . .164 
 
 § 1. Descriptive Music and Natural Language . 169 
 § 2. Language and Rhythm ..... 173 
 
 V. The Evolution of Music in regard to Social Conditions I70 
 § 1. Primitive Folk .... 170 
 
 § 2. Music among the Greeks . . . ,180 
 
GONTEKTS VII 
 
 PACK 
 
 §3. Plain-song ... . . 183 
 
 § 4. Counter-point and its Fundamental Rules . 191 
 § 5. Analysis from the Sociological Point of View, 
 
 of J. S. Bach's Sonata in A Minor . .194 
 § 6. Music under the Ancient Regime and during 
 
 the Revolution ... . 200 
 
 § 7. The Present State of Music . 201 
 
 § 8. Conclusions of the Second Part . . 206 
 
 THIRD PART 
 
 MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 Generalities 209 
 
 I. The Function of the Ear . . , .21.5 
 
 §1. Capacity of the Ear for Education . 223 
 
 II. Localization of Images .... . --(> 
 
 § 1 . Aphasias and Amusias . 230 
 
 HI. Musical Intelligence 23.5 
 
 g 1. Tone Deafiici^s and Musical Deafness: 
 
 Degrees of Musical Intelligence . . 243 
 
 §2. Conclusions of the Third Part . 2.53 
 
 FOURTH PART 
 
 MUSICAL THOUGHT AND,\ THE LAWS OF NATURE 
 
 I. Music and Periodic Phenomena .... 2o.'> 
 
 p. Outside the Ear 2.5.J 
 
 § 2. Vibrations — A First Agreement of the 
 
 Musical Mind with Objective Laws . . 2.58 
 
 S 3. The Harmonics 260 
 
 § 4. Musical Sounds and Colours . . , . 266 
 
 § 5. Place of Music amid Periodic Phenomena . 276 
 
 II. Music and Mathematics 283 
 
 § 1. Mathematics as a Means of Simplification 
 
 and Analysis . ... 286 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 S 2. Mathematics surest the Idea of Necessary 
 
 Corrections -"°' 
 
 § 3. Mathematics as a Means of Discovering Im- 
 portant Analogies 293 
 
 298 
 
 III. Music and Living Beings 
 
 § 1. Assimilation and the Musical Mind . 299 
 
 § 2. Musical Evolution and Living Beings . . 302 
 
 § 3. Generation and Music 308 
 
 Conclusion 316 
 
 Erratum 
 
 Page 73. Second musical quotation, fourth bar. The second crotchet 
 
 should have a rest added to it, increasing its value by one-half. 
 
 Page 78. Musical quotation, second bar. The same treatment should 
 be applied to the first crotchet. 
 
MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The chief aspects of music — Its place in the history of civilization — 
 Its connection with the Moral and Natural Sciences — Different 
 modes of defining music — Plan here adopted. 
 
 We know that the waves rising on the surface 
 of the sea are not uniform, and that each of them 
 is made up of independent wavelets, added together 
 in such a way as to make but one mass and move- 
 ment. In acoustics this fact is generally used as a 
 comparison when one wishes to explain the decompo- 
 sition of a sound-wave ; but the aesthete and the 
 psychologist may also employ it to give an idea of . 
 the very numerous and different phenomena, which, 
 like an indefinite harmonic series, enter into musical 
 expression and there find their unity.* Music is a 
 breath which passes away, a wave of the air. 
 
 If we only considered the sensation produced, 
 nothing would be more ephemeral or more decep- 
 tive ; but in this breath the soul of a Beethoven 
 may speak eloquently : it is capable of bringing 
 before us, with the help of a special technique and 
 the projection forth of itself of a rare personaUty, 
 an image of social life, of race, of humanity, and of j 
 certain laws of nature, together with something 
 
2 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 superior to all these, or at any rate differing from 
 them. 
 
 If verbal eloquence and recited poetry were 
 known to us merely by the material ear, even they 
 would be a brief and empty gratification of the 
 senses. Like them, music owes its magical gift of 
 exciting emotion to its extraordinary complexity. 
 
 The interpreter and creator of deep psychical con- 
 ditions, the deUcate emanation of the mind, the 
 subtle force of the moral life, it is at once feehng 
 and thought. Into the enchantment of sounds it 
 puts logic for the intelligence, a language of love 
 for the heart — an art of construction and of form 
 for the imagination. It is the meeting-point of the 
 law of numbers which rules the world, and the un- 
 fettered fancy which creates the possible. Although i 
 hemmed in on every side by its relation to ordinary j 
 hfe, it is yet a glorious example of that spontaneity 
 of the reason which attains " to greater heights than 
 theology or philosophy " (Beethoven). By bring- 
 ing agreement into these contraries, it represents, 
 and, by widening the small domain of the ego, causes 
 to act upon us, the harmony of different worlds. 
 Great musicians, unlike great poets, do not employ 
 the medium of the word : they imderstand by 
 direct intuition, and they see farther afield. We 
 might have said that, in comparison with the 
 sublime interior into which they raise us, the 
 sublime exterior of the ocean seems vulgar, and 
 that of the stars icy. 
 
 'lln order to explain this sound-wave formed out 
 of other waves, this aerial and fugitive thing so 
 complex and rich in meaning — the secret of which 
 
INTKODUCTION 3 
 
 we must give up the attempt to completely fathom 
 — many sciences must be invoked. I reckon as many 
 as seven. Occupying, as they do, domains with 
 over-lapping frontiers, they divide the work between 
 them, and each endeavours to solve a series of dis- 
 tinct problems. Each of them also opens up a vista 
 of wonders.''' 
 
 In the first place, what is a sound ? How are 
 sounds measured ? On what do their qualities of 
 force, of timbre, and of shrillness depend ? What 
 essential difference is there between those produced 
 by the human voice, by strings, and tubes, and 
 those given out by skins, plates, and metal rods ? 
 The first special domain to be explored is that of 
 acoustics. 
 
 How do we perceive the sounds once objectively 
 emitted according to the independent laws of our 
 will ? What is the mechanism of the ear ? Does 
 our auditory apparatus accommodate itself, as a 
 whole, to the impressions of sound, or is there 
 indeed an organ of perception ready - made for 
 each separate sound ? What is the meaning of 
 consonance and dissonance ? / Here is a second 
 domain, viz. physiology. 
 
 Can the principles brought to light by these two 
 sciences be explained — as Pythagoras, Descartes, 
 and Euler would have it — by the more or less \ 
 simple relations of numbers ? Must we hold with i 
 Leibnitz " that music is an unconscious act of cal- I 
 culation " ? /Here is a third domain, viz. mathematics. 
 
 When these impressions of sound have penetrated 
 into us and the consciousness has grasped and re- 
 duced them to a unity, what becomes of them ? 
 
4 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 What does the memory, the sensitiveness, the ima- 
 gination, and the inteUigence do with them ? What 
 mental conditions do they induce ? By what pro- 
 cess of abstraction does the musician raise himself 
 to a mode of thought totally different from that of 
 the poet and other artists ? What action uncon- 
 sciously goes on within him ? ^Here is a fourth 
 domain, viz. psychology. 
 
 We have nothing further to do with sounds ; 
 henceforward we shall deal with syntheses of sounds, 
 i.e., with a whole work. What do we mean by a 
 work ? Is there any criterion by which its value 
 may be estimated ? ' Here we find a fifth domain, 
 viz. cesthetics. 
 
 It is not merely a single work, but the collection of 
 all works, their origin and their connection through- 
 out the ages, that we wish to be acquainted with. 
 How have the many different kinds of compositions 
 been formed ? What part has music played in 
 civiUzation from its most humble beginnings ? 
 Here comes in history with its supplements, 
 archaeology and the study of monuments made 
 in primitive times, when written notes were not. 
 Philology is here indispensable, because all the 
 treatises on Western music until the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, with rare exceptions, are written in Latin or 
 Greek. /iThis leads us to palcwgraphy, or the art of 
 deciphering the musical writings of antiquity and 
 the Middle Ages. 
 
 Finally, what is the part of the common life in 
 the formation of the different types of music 7^ Do 
 not the elements forming what may be called the 
 grammar of the language of sounds (and, d fortiori, 
 
INTEODtrCTION 5 
 
 the general character of the works founded on that 
 basis, with their meaning and evolution) pre- 
 suppose a society which imposes upon them pro- 
 visional forms, and without which technical rules 
 could not exist ? //Such questions come under the 
 head of sociology, which, as a trial of its strength, 
 could scarcely find better subjects than the follow- 
 ing : The primitive incantation, plain-song, counter- 
 point, the fugue, and the symphony. 
 
 Such a programme is somewhat disconcerting by 
 reason of its fullness, and the necessity of a method 
 is at once apparent. 
 
 If we wish to have an accurate idea of music, 
 ought we not to formulate a system of study corre- 
 sponding to what appears to be the natural order 
 of facts ; that is to say, to interrogate in turn these 
 different sciences, each of which has the task of 
 explaining a portion of our subject ? We should, 
 then, begin with acoustics, and end with what are 
 called the moral sciences. 
 
 /jihis method would be legitimate and fairly safe. 
 A person who undertakes to speak or write on the 
 art of music should begin by practising it ; and, 
 without going into too many details, we shall not 
 fail to give here the substance of the programmes it 
 suggests. But this order of research cannot form 
 the plan of our work without three objections. 
 
 If we confine ourselves to tracing the material 
 basis of music, from the moment when it is consti- 
 tuted outside ourselves to that in which it blossoms 
 forth within us as a melody or a symphony, and to 
 characterizing each stage of its evolution, we shall 
 
6 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 have at first nothing but juxtaposed ideas. The 
 bird's-eye view needful to a " scientific philosophy " 
 would be lacking to us. In the second place, those 
 ideas would appear contradictory to each other. ^ 
 
 Lastly, we should run the risk of establishing 
 our theory on very unstable foundations, because, 
 in spite of the authority of the great scholars who 
 have made so much progress in them since the 
 eighteenth century, acoustics, and especially physi- 
 ology, are yet very far from accepting, uncondition- 
 ally, the principles with which these sciences have 
 wished to supply the elementary grammar of music. 
 Our first requirement, therefore, in music (and not 
 in a sister-science such as acoustics) is an experi- 
 mental basis of certainty. 
 
 "A second method would be to consider the sub- 
 ject solely on historical lines, and to deviate from 
 it only to draw conclusions. Beginning at the 
 period of the earliest known appearance of music, 
 its development throughout the ages could be de- 
 scribed without troubUng oneself about philosophic 
 generalizations. Acoustics and physiology would 
 be mere episodes in the path traversed ; they would 
 be introduced in their place in the succession of 
 facts at the moment when they were formed into 
 sciences — that is to say, rather late in the day. 
 This long review once finished, an endeavour would 
 have to be made to gain therefrom a bird's-eye 
 view. 
 
 v^ This last method is fascinating, because by it,^in- 
 stead of the theorist, the things themselves are, as it 
 were, made to speak. It is, however, impracticable. 
 If, before investigating any period of history, we 
 
INTBODrrCTION 7 
 
 do not begin by giving as exact an answer as possible 
 to the question ,^'jrAa^ is music ? how can we recog- 
 nize, and, especially, how interpret the facts which 
 interest us ? 
 
 Our first task, then, must be to give a definition, 
 and this we shall look for from the domain of 
 psychology. Our starting-point can only be from the 
 musical feeling itself, the state of mind, that is, of 
 the average listener at the concert or the theatre 
 during the performance of a symphony by Bee- 
 thoven, Berlioz, or Cesar Franck, an opera by Bizet 
 or Wagner, one of Schumann's lieder or Chopin's 
 nocturnes, one of those works, in fine, which, to use 
 an old metaphor, " inflicts on the soul a voluptuous 
 wound and leaves the point therein." 
 
 'A good definition ought to be apphcable only to 
 the object defined. If, for example, we attribute to 
 music any quahty which may also be affirmed of 
 poetry, our definition is worthless. What we ought 
 to bring to light is the essential originaUty, or the 
 specific difference. 
 
 I' We think that we shall satisfy this rule by stating 
 that music is the art of thinking in sounds. ' 
 
 This primary notion, somewhat disconcerting to 
 grammarians and psychologists of the ancient 
 classical school, is arrived at, chiefly by the use of 
 contrasts, or by comparing thoughts expressed by 
 music with those expressed by words. In every- 
 day life, in hterary work, or even when communing 
 with ourselves, we use words ; each of these words 
 is the symbol of a concrete object, represented in 
 our minds by an idea, or, as it is called in philosophy, 
 a concept. If I say, " the earth turns round the 
 
8 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 sun," I utter a thought made up of four concepts : 
 the two material bodies, rotation on itself and move- 
 ment round a point. 
 
 Our ordinary life is pervaded, filled, and directed 
 by representations of a similar kind. 
 
 The originality of the musician consists in sup- 
 pressing the concepts in the acts of the inteUigence. 
 Does he thus arrive at a vague formula ? By no 
 means. 'The ehmination of words and the employ- 
 ment of the activity, pure and simple, of the mind 
 in the linking together of sounds seems rather to 
 favour the free exercise of thought, and sometimes 
 even to allow it to become deeper. ^'To the true 
 musician music is more inteUigible than speech ; in 
 fact, words may even obscure it. ','The sense of a 
 beautiful passage from Bach or Handel can be ren- 
 dered by no other language except that of sound, 
 and in such manner only can it be properly grasped. 
 Composers frequently write above a stave of music, 
 for the guidance of the player, " with expression " ! — 
 Expression of what ? There is no need for such 
 minuteness, and only mediocre musicians would 
 condescend to such directions. '^Every good melody 
 carries within itself its sense and its explanation. 
 '■'^To think without concepts, not for the losing sight 
 of the objects the concepts represent, but rather to 
 penetrate better their meaning ; to dissolve that 
 surface personality encumbered with words and 
 turned outwards, which envelopes and conceals one's 
 true personality f to return to the state of nature, 
 to the free disposal of oneself, to the ingenious and 
 yet skilful use of our internal energies ;\ to subtly 
 intellectuahze the sensitiveness and to pour into the 
 
INTRODtrCTIOlir 9 
 
 intelligence a diffused emotion, so as to produce, as 
 it were, a delicate emanation from both — such 
 appears to me to be the privilege of music. 
 
 It will not be difficult to justify the definition 
 given above, without which the aesthetics of music 
 is an inextricable chaos. 
 
 What appears certainly more difficult is, after 
 having chosen such a starting-point, to show the 
 connection of music with the sciences enumerated 
 above — on the one hand, history and sociology ; on 
 the other, physiology and acoustics. 
 
 First Objection. What we have just termed 
 " musical thought " is found particularly in the 
 great modern symphonists (period of Bach and 
 Handel to Beethoven). But is it not a fault in 
 method to generalize one type of music, recent 
 and, in short, exceptional ? Are we not about, in 
 order to remain faithful to our first declaration, to 
 isolate ourselves in the region, no doubt very 
 exalted, of the pure ether of Beethoven, where we 
 shall nevertheless lose grip, to a certain extent, of 
 the rude reahties of history as well as those of social 
 life ? Are we not putting ourselves in the category 
 of those who wish to build by beginning with the 
 roof? 
 
 Second Objection. If we see in music the enfran- 
 chisement of thought and the free exercise of the pure 
 activity of the mind, what can we say of the deter- 
 minism of acoustic laws ? A definition of the art 
 of music, if it is applied only to composers of the 
 first rank, is but the opinion of a dilettante or of a 
 critic on a few points culled from the immense field 
 of facts : it is neither philosophic nor scientific, in 
 
10 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 the first place, because it is not general, and, in the 
 second place, because it isolates the art by cutting 
 its lines of communication with nature. 
 
 (1) As regards the difficulty of covering by our 
 definition the whole range of the history of music 
 in time and space, from the melodious stammerings 
 of an Esquimaux or an Australian to a Cesar Franck, 
 I might say, first of aU, that to understand the 
 nature of an art such as music, which has passed 
 through its various phrases slowly (except since the 
 ! time of Haydn, after whom its progress has been 
 extraordinarily rapid), it must perhaps be observed 
 in its state of maturity and of development, when 
 it becomes real in a complete way, and not in its 
 embryonic stage. Before an oriental puUing at 
 the single string of a toy violoncello, I should 
 willingly repeat the words of Nietzsche : " Thy true 
 nature is not in thee : it is infinitely above thee " 
 (which brings to mind the saying — dangerous, per- 
 haps — of Malebranche, that to know man another 
 line than direct observation must be, taken, and 
 God must be contemplated). But I need no such 
 metaphysical " bias," which is absolutely repugnant 
 to that followed in this work. One very simple 
 observation wiU suffice. 
 
 Musical thought has as many forms and degrees 
 as hterary thought, although it is very different from 
 it. It may be subUme, beautiful, modest and 
 mediocre, feeble, and rudimentary. It may be 
 applied to a thousand different objects. It may 
 possess more or less brilliancy, depth, strength, 
 clearness, etc. The hterary author who contem- 
 
tNTEODTTCTION 1 1 
 
 plates writing, for example, a history of comedy, 
 first forms for himself a certain idea of^his subject, 
 according to Aristophanes, Plautus, Terence, or 
 Moliere ; but he considers it essential, and by no 
 means contradictory, to go back to the drunken 
 scenes and obscenities of the Atellanae, to the farces 
 which preceded and prefaced the masterpieces. In 
 the same way, we shall be in no way embarrassed by 
 speaking of the melodious stammerings which exist 
 at the outset of civihzation ;> and in the presence 
 of the songs of primitive folk (whether the real primi- 
 tive folk of history or the existing non-civihzed races 
 resembling the primitive) we shall not say "it is 
 musical thought," but " it is their thought." 
 
 And if a thesis should be found to be implied in 
 such a statement, positive documents to justify it 
 will not be wanting. We shall see that, by the side 
 of their speech, formed of concepts more or less 
 closely connected, primitive folk had a special 
 language with untranslatable formulas, which was 
 attached in their minds to something entirely dis- 
 tinct from the ideas of the current language ; we 
 shall see that the first use they made of song is found 
 in the rites of magic, which presupposes a conception 
 of the expressive power of music, at bottom identical 
 with that possessed by the great German meta- 
 physicians Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer, and 
 the great composers down to Richard Wagner. 
 ' Thus it was not solely of the first rank of com- 
 posers that we think when we define music. The 
 griot of the African negroes is as much worthy of 
 the attention of the observer as the aoiSos of the 
 Greeks ; the liturgical mechanism of the strophes 
 
12 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 and antistrophes which, at the time of Sophocles, 
 were sung round the altar of Dionysos has no 
 deeper meaning than the chanted dances of the 
 Abipones, who, with a priestess wearing little^beUs 
 on her wrists and ankles, celebrate at midnight the 
 reappearance of the Pleiades in the sky. It is the 
 whole of musical history that we claim to include 
 in our definition when we study the art of thinking 
 in sounds. 
 
 (2) In what concerns the relations between music 
 and sociology, far from evading the problem, we 
 shall approach it from its most difficult side. Were 
 we to confine ourselves to the easy ta;sk of demon- 
 strating that the state of social life has always 
 exercised an infiuence on the evolution of music, 
 so that a LuUi working for a. court like that 
 of Louis XIV does not write the same' operas 
 as a Gustave Charpentier or an Alfred Bruneau, we 
 should misunderstand its true nature. Although 
 it would not be capable of an entirely exact 
 solution, the question puts itself in the following 
 form : What are the elements of the grammar of 
 music which have an individual origin ? What are 
 those furnished and forced upon us by the common 
 life? 
 
 The French or German author writing a book 
 has, in short, only a hmited personaUty ; many of 
 his ideas come from heredity, education, or imita- 
 tion ; to express them he uses a vocabulary, a syn- 
 tax, and written symbols which he has not created 
 himself, but the meaning of which has been deter- 
 mined for him by a tacit agreement of the com- 
 munity, which exercises upon him a constraint. Is 
 
INTEODtrCTION 13 
 
 it the same for the composer ? To give an answer 
 to this quite novel question, suggested by studies 
 now fashionable, we must enter into some technical 
 analyses ; from this point we can fit them into a 
 frame of general observations. 
 
 Music is neither an exceptional nor an inter- 
 mittent fact in history, a chance auxihary to re- 
 hgious ceremonies, a passing expression of joy, 
 or sadness, or dreaminess ; nor yet is it an art 
 of luxury, a pastime invented by men of leisure. 
 It is a fact as natural and universal as lan- 
 guage itself, characterized, like it, at first by in- 
 coherent efforts, but appearing wherever there 
 are men ; and it can be attached, if the forms in .' 
 which it manifests itself are considered, to the deep " 
 and permanent laws of social hfe. There are peoples 
 more or less gifted in song, as there are those who 
 are more or less artistic, and others more or less 
 warlike ; but there are none who, savage or civihzed, 
 do not know chant and rhythm at the same time as 
 speech, even if they only make use of a few notes 
 of the scale. 
 
 The field of musical history stretches beyond our 
 sight. The most ancient document we possess is a 
 Chaldean bas-relief representing a harpist, dis- / 
 covered by M. de Sarzec at the palace of TeUoh, on 
 the left bank of the canal which connects the Tigris 
 and the Euphrates. Good judges, hke M. Pottier, ■ 
 attribute it to the thirtieth century before the' 
 Christian era. There is no paradox in saying that 
 music is more ancient than poetry, and that it has 
 provided poetry with its structural laws. From the 
 most distant ages to the present time the series of 
 
14 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 facts is unbroken. It has even happened that in 
 the modern period music has acquired an exception- 
 ally representative value. Every one knows the 
 names of Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven ; 
 but how many of us know the names of the painters, 
 sculptors, and architects who were their contempo- 
 raries in Germany ? 
 
 As it appears in history, music has always been 
 united to the manifestations of social Hfe, or, more 
 accurately, to the working of its essential organs. 
 It has never been, as philosophers put it, " an end 
 in itself," for we have always subordinated it to 
 some important act of pubhc life. 
 
 Nowadays we betake ourselves to a theatre or 
 concert-hall with no other object than to hear a 
 beautiful opera or a fine symphony, and to taste an 
 entirely disinterested pleasure ; the singers and 
 players have nothing to do with our public or 
 private affairs, and we rather ask them to make us 
 forget them. Music, indeed, frequently accompanies 
 certain religious ceremonies, but this is either a 
 survival of ancient customs or in order to lend 
 them an ornamental and pleasing appearance, like 
 the objects we put in a drawing-room. Formerly 
 it was quite different. Music was associated, as an 
 organic and essential element, with the acts of re- 
 ligious and profane Hfe, of war and of peace. It 
 was by incantation that primitive man, in his 
 ignorance and fear in the presence of nature, tried 
 to defend himself against sickness, death, or the 
 cruelty of the gods. Now magic, as we shall prove, 
 presupposes the constitution of a society. 
 
 Religion and verbal language are the sociological 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 phenomena par excellence, and music cannot, at 
 first, be separated from them. Music is never repre- 
 sented alone on sculptured monuments ; it is always 
 part and parcel of a group, performing a particular 
 ceremony. This custom lasted for a very long time, 
 and must not be lost sight of if we wish to under- 
 stand certain great composers who flourished in the 
 first half of the eighteenth century. Music was; 
 hardly cultivated for its own sake elsewhere than 
 in a few " academies of music " or in certain middle- 
 class circles. A musician Uke Bach, with some 
 rare exceptions, has always put his genius at the 
 service of a community ; it was the same with 
 Handel ; and those concerti grossi which they 
 wrote for pure art are an exception. HenceH 
 under the old regime, musical criticism, as we now ' 
 understand it, did not exist : no one ever dreamt 
 of discussing a mass, a cantata, a motet, or an 
 oratorio, and of characterizing them by an aesthetic 
 judgment, because such works formed part of the 
 acts of a community, and these acts were the! 
 principal thing. 
 
 For these reasons music is the only popular art. It 
 draws its substance from social hfe, as a plant draws 
 its substance from the soil into which its roots plunge. 
 There is no popular painting nor popular sculpture. 
 Architecture is too complicated an art, too loaded 
 with technical knowledge and archaeology, and too 
 much subjected to the prejudices of luxury or to 
 special needs, to be the spontaneous product of a 
 community. To music alone and to its younger 
 sister, poetry, belongs this privilege. . 
 
 Such are the principles we shall elucidate when re- 
 
16 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 viewing different peoples and ages. Taking as our 
 basis the first proposition, that miisic is the art of 
 thinking in sounds, we shall reserve to ourselves the 
 right of adding this, which is founded on observa- 
 tion : musical thought is the manifestation of a 
 general and deep instinct, more or less hidden, hut 
 everywhere recognizable in humanity. 
 
 If we can come to a satisfactory demonstration 
 on these two points, the half of our task — but the 
 half only — will have been accomplished. We shall 
 have laid down a definition, marking the specific 
 character of the musical art ; we shall have shown 
 that this definition can cover while it illuminates 
 the immense variety of historical facts, and that it 
 does not exclude the sociological point of view at 
 which we to-day like to place ourselves for the pur- 
 pose of accounting for things ; and aU the connec- 
 tions of our subject with " the moral sciences " 
 will have been put in evidence. But we shall have 
 ousted the physical sciences from a discussion in 
 which they have sought to intervene, and of which 
 they have claimed the direction. How shall we 
 put ourselves in agreement with physiology, with 
 acoustics, and with mathematics ? What part shaU 
 we assign to them in our theory of music ? 
 
 Between musical thought, the free exercise of the 
 pure activity of the ego, and everything included 
 under the term determinism, coming from the outer 
 world, there appears at first sight conflict and irre- 
 ducible antinomy. On the one hand are physical 
 instruments, ciphers, and all the apparatus of 
 science ; on the other, works of art. 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 One method, which is by no means new and 
 which can rely on very serious testimony, con- 
 sists in doing away with the difficulty by simply 
 abolishing the first of the two terms to be recon- 
 ciled. To the scholar who attempts, with the help 
 of mathematics, to formulate the laws of multiple 
 resonance, or to describe the mechanism of the ear 
 in order to deduce therefrom the principles of 
 grammar, we might say : " With what are you 
 meddling, you musician of the laboratory, when you 
 dare to point out the path and to lecture true 
 musicians ? Your labours have, no doubt, the 
 interest which attaches to the observation and ex- 
 planation of weU-ascertained facts, but among all 
 your experiments there is not one which has for its 
 object a musical phenomenon. You study a note 
 given by such and such an elastic body, and you 
 are able to analyse it ; you teU us what happens 
 when two sounds produced at the same time have 
 or have not common harmonies ; you measure andi 
 you explain by numerical ratios an interval of an; 
 octave, of a fifth, of a fourth, etc., etc. ; hut all this 
 is not music, any more than the letters of the alpha-{ 
 bet are literature, or a few words made up of those 
 letters are poetry. We can do without you. The 
 syren of a Cagniart de la Tour has nothing in 
 common with the syrens of antiquity ! " 
 
 To take up this attitude, we might first rely on 
 the almost unanimous evidence of those musicians 
 who hold the interference of " men of science " to 
 be useless or annoying, and are much against hsten- 
 ing to them at all. But as their opinion may be 
 considered biassed, we might also claim support for 
 
 c 
 
18 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 the students of acoustics by taking advantage of their 
 own disagreements. Helmholtz, who in 1863 flat- 
 tered himself that he had given a scientific founda- 
 tion to the A B C of musical composition, has been 
 completely confuted by von Ottingen ; and many 
 people consider that Professor Stumpf, of the Uni- 
 versity of Berlin, gave the decisive blow to his 
 theory. 
 
 A French philosopher, M. Guillemin, Professor at 
 the Algiers School of Medicine, thus sums up the 
 matter : " Good cooking was known long before 
 chemistry made its appearance ; and even chem- 
 istry, since it has grown up, has not helped much 
 to perfect cooking ; in fact, some people assert 
 that it has destroyed the art. It may be the same 
 with music." Thus the existence of harmonics is 
 denied by M. QuiUemin. 
 
 Nevertheless, this will not be our attitude. It is 
 an easy matter to seek out oppositions, to draw 
 impassable lines of demarcation between the domain 
 of artistic activity and that of objective nature ; 
 but what is really interesting is to search out the 
 hidden harmony of things which appear as the 
 most opposed to each other, or to see music in 
 thought, thought in mankind, mankind in society, 
 society in universal nature, all mth incessant and 
 minute interpenetration, crossings of lines, series of 
 facts forming the transformations of force, and in 
 sum that magnificent and stupendous harmonic 
 whole called life. It appears certain that, before they 
 are organized within us, and take, under the influence 
 of imagination, the shape of a melodious synthesis, 
 sounds receive outside ourselves a primary organiza- 
 
INTRODTTCTION 19 
 
 tion which prepares and conditions the work of the 
 artist. These laws are made visibly manifest by] 
 experiments on a vibrating string or a small metal 
 plate covered with fine sand. When a bow is drawn 
 along the edge there appear in the sand nodal lines 
 and curious geometrical figures. Nature is not a 
 musician and yet she composes : she has a plan and 
 a method ; and she obeys inflexible laws. A Mozart__i 
 or a Beethoven are completely ignorant of them, and 
 yet they conform with them unknowingly. This we 
 shall prove by the ' analysis of certain musical 
 texts. By the production of facts, and not of per- 
 sonal theories, we shall endeavour to prove that the ' 
 musical composer, standing at the point where two 
 groups of influences meet, obeys instinctively laws 
 which at one and the same time may be referred, 
 both to social life and to physics. 
 
 If this end is attained our task will, so far, be 
 finished. We shall have brought back to unity all 
 the branches of our subject, dominated by a single 
 principle. Instead of a mere'ljuxtaposition of facts, 
 we shall have an intrinsic and essential co-ordination 
 
 J 
 
 of the sciences enumerated at the beginning of 
 this introduction : to wit, acoustics, mathematics, 
 psychology, aesthetics, history, and sociology. 
 
 There we shall cry halt. As we claim never to 
 stray outside observation and to defend only a 
 thesis that can be verified, we shall not follow cer- 
 tain philosophers who desire to go further still. 
 
 In Book VII of his "Republic," Plato laughs at 
 those musicians who Umit themselves for the ex- 
 planation of their art to arithmetic added to physics, 
 and trouble not as to what is above this. To him 
 
20 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 the relationship of numbers, to which the grammar 
 of music may be reduced, appears to be but the 
 first stage of dialectics, that is to say, of a conca- 
 tenation of ideas, ascending ever higher and higher, 
 the last of which is that of the Good. According to 
 him, it is this Idea of the Good which radiates 
 through aU the domains of life and makes its unity. 
 
 According to Schopenhauer, whose opinions are 
 equally bold, it is Force, or, if I rightly understand 
 it, an Idea pre-existent to concrete realities and 
 concepts {universalia ante rem). Admirable sys- 
 tems, whose least defect is that they overshoot the 
 mark and escape from all control. To arrive at the 
 supreme solution which such metaphysicians seek, 
 " one must," as Glaucon says, " be a god ! " 
 
 If we do not venture into this region of clouds, 
 where the mind, thinking it can reach the First 
 Cause which gives the secret of things, only builds 
 up its own dreams, our reason is not merely to 
 exclude from our studies those tendencies to mysti- 
 cism to which they have often given birth and 
 which are the rocks ahead of them. There is ini 
 music something which is and must be inexplicable,, 
 under pain of being no longer musical. Such facts 
 are not to be examined by the same disposition of 
 mind which we bring to the exegesis of a printed 
 text or the working out of a theorem of geometry. 
 
 The emotion which suddenly and utterly invades 
 us when we hear beautiful voices or a beautiful 
 orchestra renders undefined the trinity of the indi- 
 vidual consciousness ; it reveals to us the harmony 
 of different worlds, and founds our powers'" of egoism 
 in the feeling of this harmony. But part of its 
 
 ] 
 
INTRODtrCTION 21 
 
 charm is due to the mystery which always accom- 
 panies it, for we are far from miderstanding all the 
 causes of what we feel. We enjoy our emotion 
 in a haK-conscious state, astonished at having sud- 
 denly become the meeting-place of so many recon- 
 ciled forces. 
 
 To obstinately endeavour to reduce such a sub- 
 ject to clear and distinct notions, that is to say, 
 beyond certain analyses, would be to misunder- 
 stand the originaUty of it. 
 
 Let us finally remember that we shall be obliged 
 to touch upon a certain number of subjects, which 
 professional scholars are still investigating with 
 fervour, without being able to arrive at any 
 final doctrine. The musical theorist meets those 
 scholars more than once on his journey, and he is 
 pleased to note that, although their tasks are most 
 dissimilar, their foundation is the same ; but his 
 part is not to supersede the speciahsts in elucidating 
 those weighty problems of which the solution belongs 
 to them alone. 
 
FIEST PAET 
 MUSICAL THOUGHT AI^'D PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 The Analysis of a Melody— The Impression conveyed by a 
 Melody cannot be expeessed in Words 
 
 I WILL give forthwith an example of what I call 
 musical thought. Below is a popular air, charming 
 and quite simple ; I intentionally leave out the 
 words, which, moreover, have nothing to do with 
 the musical text — 
 
 ^i P^^'^\^^^''\nH - 
 
 V l^^'t^^^^^O'i\nH 
 
 There is one analogy, and only one, between this 
 combination of sounds and a verbal sentence — 
 namely, that caused by the rhythm. Our air, taken 
 as a whole, can be compared to an oratorical period. 
 
MUSICAL THOtJGttT AND PSYCHOLOGY 23 
 
 In the first place, it has a beginning, a middle, 
 and an end. The dropping of the tonic Fa- — 
 for which the singer substitutes the lower fourth. 
 Do, as if retreating for a greater spring — and return 
 to the tonic. Secondly, this period is divided 
 into three propositions ; the two first, which are 
 merely the same formula repeated twice, finish 
 in the fourth bar on the mediant (or third) La, 
 which forms an imperfect cadence, so that the 
 caesura, indicated here by a crotchet rest, is equiva- 
 lent to a semicolon ; the third and last proposition 
 finishes on the tonic, which is a perfect cadence, 
 after which there is, so to speak, a jull stop. 
 
 In addition, each of these propositions is sub- 
 divided into " sections," marked in our score by a 
 little vertical linSi indicating a slight caesura. The 
 first proposition has two sections, the last four, 
 thus forming two symmetrical groups. 
 
 If we take a period from Bossuet, Rousseau, or 
 Chateaubriand, we shall see that it is constructed 
 in the same way. The plan is identically the same, 
 and this identity may be traced to a common origin 
 — namely, the necessity for taking breath, and of 
 making these breathings coincide with the logical 
 divisions. We might, perhaps, hesitate as to the 
 punctuation of the sections, but not as to the more 
 important propositions which form the main design 
 of the period. If, for example, instead of inserting 
 the chief caesura, the semicolon, on the rest, it were 
 placed before the preceding note, we should have a 
 phrase as ridiculous as the following — 
 
 Oui, Je viens dans son temple adorer I'Eter ; 
 nel je viens selon I'usage, etc. . . . 
 
24 MtfSIC : ITS LAWS AJST) BVOLUTIOK 
 
 Hence there is, so far, a perfect analogy between 
 the construction of the sounds and that of the words. 
 But let us not push our search for resemblances 
 further. Here are facts which lead us further and 
 further from the literary point of view. 
 
 1st. In the first place there is something here 
 which, in verbal — that is to say, artistic — language, 
 would be considered a serious fault or, at least, a 
 blunder, but which in music is perfectly allowable — 
 namely, the repetition of the first part of the 
 period, consisting of four bars. If a philologist, in 
 reading a manuscript of Demosthenes, Cicero, or 
 Bossuet, were to come across a part of a sentence 
 repeated twice, without any intermediate expres- 
 sion, he would simply ascribe the repetition to an 
 error on the part of the copyist, such as may happen 
 to any transcriber, and would pay no further atten- 
 tion to it. In music, on the contrary, not only is 
 repetition allowable, but it is of normal and con- 
 stant occurrence, and the artistic method par 
 excellence. 
 
 2nd. This air has a basis of construction. This is 
 the scale of Fa and the two essential chords arising 
 from it — ^namely, the tonic chord Fa, La, Do, and 
 the dominant Do, Mi, Sol, which, augmented by a 
 minor third, Sib, forms the chord of the seventh. Do, 
 Mi, Sol, Sib, the mainspring of movement and modu- 
 lation, because it is a dissonance which calls for a 
 solution. Another third, Reti., added will give the 
 chord of the ninth, which is in the same case. AH the 
 notes figuring in our period are understood by us 
 harmonically, that is to say, in conjunction with 
 the chord of the tonic or that of the dominant 
 
MUSICAL THOtreST AKD PSYCHOLOGY 25 
 
 (excepting certain notes occurring on a weak 
 beat, which may be a simple passing note, like the 
 Sib in the first bar, or the iJet] in the second bar, 
 which is an embroidery). 
 
 Even when not figuring on the stave, this tonic 
 Fa, with Its satellite Do, placed a fifth higher, is the 
 centre of attraction round which the whole revolves, 
 and which gives its uniformity to the whole. 
 
 3rd. Consequently, the notes are perceived not 
 directly and in themselves, but according to their 
 relations with each other and with the tonic. 
 Melody is a system of relations ; now a ratio is not"^ 
 conveyed by a sensation (especially when one of the 
 two terms of the ratio is understood or suggested, 
 as here). A ratio is an abstraction ; it is the work 
 of him who hears, the creation of the intelligence 
 which steps in to compare and appreciate. Therein 
 lies the fact, to my mind, which renders a musical 
 thought possible, since philosophers teach that to^, 
 think we must abstract and unite. 
 
 But we have, so far, analysed only modalities. 
 We have the skeleton of a body ; it stiU lacks flesh, 
 and blood, physiognomy, and fife ! 
 
 4th. This life of the melody is that musical mean- 
 ing which it bears within itself. All those ratios of 
 sound which go to make up our period are presented 
 to us in the form of a synthesis ; and a special act 
 of the composer's mind has endowed this synthesis 
 with a value not found in any of its component 
 parts. He has given it a signification which we 
 should seek in vain to express by words, and which, 
 although only to be reached through the musical 
 sense, has for it perfect clearness. 
 
26 MXJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 It is not any subtle metaphysics of the art which 
 allows us to speak thus ; it is observation and ex- 
 perience. Indeed, no musician can fail to see this. 
 Hearing this popular song, he distinguishes it from 
 an unmeaning formula ; a non-specialist would 
 make this distinction as well as he. 
 
 The following wiU prove that we are not the 
 dupes of illusion when we attribute a positive con- 
 tent to a work of this kind. We can very well 
 suppose a concatenation of sounds — such as every 
 pianist is accustomed to improvise mechanically — 
 in which the tonic and dominant chords are associ- 
 ated in conformity with the rules of musical theory, 
 and which yet have no signification ; that would 
 form, to borrow an expression from Leibnitz, 
 " regular sequences," and nothing more. There 
 exists, consequently, an essential difference between 
 the formula which is simply correct and one which 
 says something. 
 
 In order to make inteUigible the impossibiUty of 
 translating this proprium quid into words, we wiU call 
 to mind the following remarks on literary thought. 
 Music is like the last term of a series. A business 
 letter or a report may be without difficulty trans- 
 lated from one language into another ; a page from 
 Plato or Virgil lends itself much less easily to an 
 operation of this kind because the thought is of a 
 higher quahty ; a poem of Lamartine would render 
 stiU more difficult the translator's work, and can 
 only very imperfectly and with serious loss of 
 meaning be rendered into German or Swedish. As 
 for the sense of a musical phrase, it is impossible 
 to describe it by verbal formulas, because here 
 
MUSICAL THOTTGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 27 
 
 the thought, though not necessarily superior, is of 
 a different order. 
 
 To ask the meaning of a melody is impertinent, 
 inartistic, and beside the question, like the tourist 
 who, on seeing a beautiful statue of Parian marble, 
 inquired how many poimds sterhng it was worth. 
 
 If, instead of examining a very simple specimen 
 of popular music, we examine an air of Schubert, 
 Mozart, or Handel, we should find new meanings, 
 differing greatly from each other, but all possessing 
 the characteristic just mentioned. By pushing our 
 investigations further, and running through the 
 dazzling variety of works in which the musical 
 phrase is enriched by the inexhaustible resources of 
 rhythm and orchestral timbre, we should find that 
 the musician treats all kinds of subjects. He has 
 written on coffee, on toothache, on the declension 
 oi hie, hcec, hoc, on children's games, and on the 
 Passion — in fine, on all matters which observation, 
 history, or fancy is able to supply. He is a land- 
 scape painter ; he depicts at will light and shade or 
 chiaroscuro. The orchestra, to him, is a palette 
 whence he obtains combinations of undefined colours 
 appropriate to a given theme. In such cases it is 
 perfectly legitimate to translate into ordinary lan- 
 guage the ideas which guided him and the success 
 with which he has realized them ; but these de- 
 scriptive feats at his service only represent an 
 optional use of his art ; while, at aU times, and 
 under all circumstances, whatever the reahstic 
 tendency to which he yields, he is compelled, 
 unless he would produce a vain and unmusical 
 work, to give to his sonorous constructions a mean- 
 
28 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 ing^intelligible in itself and by itself alone, to the 
 exclusion of any specified object. 
 
 This is what Schumann wished to imply when he 
 said to a young man who was explaining the pro- 
 gramme of his sjnnphony : " Play your music first ; 
 your programme will add to my pleasure if the music 
 is good." 
 
 I cannot point out too forcibly the confusion 
 existing in the minds of some eminent philosophers 
 regarding two orders of facts. 
 
 [ 1st. Among the numerous characteristics of music 
 a certain number are to be found otherwhere than in 
 music. We shall study these later on ; but, though 
 recognizing their importance, we shall take care 
 not to seek in them the elements of the exact 
 definition we require. " If, after having given a 
 definition of life," says M. le Dantec,* " there should 
 be discovered in material substances some of the 
 pecuMarities hitherto considered to be the appanage 
 of living beings, it will simply prove that we have 
 made a mistake, and the work will have to be done 
 over again." A good definition should, in fact, mark 
 the specific difference of the object defined. If, for 
 example, I am told that music is a " game " which 
 absorbs a " surplus of energy," or a " language of 
 the sentiments," or an " unconscious arithmetic," 
 or a means of " pleasing the ear," I shall without 
 difficulty recognize that each of these formulas con- 
 tains a part of the truth ; but I should not accept 
 them as definitions, and if they are forced on me 
 as such, I can only attribute them to an incorrect 
 and deceptive use of the word " music." 
 
 * La Luite universelle. Paris, 1906. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 29 
 
 There exists in music one characteristic which 
 can be found nowhere else. It is neither the 
 use of intervals, nor consonance and dissonance, 
 nor timbrie, nor bar, nor rhythm : it is the 
 untranslatable sense, which yet is acknowledged 
 by every one (even if its value be disputed) in 
 certain combinations of sounds. It is this " some- 
 thing," this proprium quid, which renders the 
 musical text given above neither a casual sequence 
 nor even a simply regular sequence of sounds and 
 values of duration, but a melody. This forms the 
 principle of our definition. I simpHfy it by sajdng : 
 music is the art of thinking in sounds. 
 
 Let us not be told that " to think " is, according to 
 Descartes, Kant, and all the standard philosophers, 
 " to unite concepts." The philosophers of the old 
 school were not musicians ; if they were, they erred 
 in giving an exclusive character to their statement. 
 It is also needless to object that it is impossible for 
 us to define musical thought by indicating its 
 content. In the first place, this impossibiUty results 
 from the very nature of the fact in question ; in 
 the second, we are suificiently explicit when we 
 state that the thought of the musician, while sui 
 generis, is as variable and has as many degrees as 
 that of the literary man. 
 
 Finally, there must not be demanded from psych- 
 ologists definitions more precise than those current 
 in all sciences save mathematics and geometry. 
 
 Do we know what electricity^is ? We are told, 
 " It is produced by atoms caHedjlectrons." A great 
 step forward, indeed ! The term to be defined is 
 reproduced in the definition, as formerly in the case 
 
30 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 of light. In biology, as Qaude Bernard has pro- 
 claimed it, nothing is defined. A few years ago 
 M. Dastre pubKshed in the Revue des Deux Mondes 
 a very fine study on foods ; and, after examining a 
 certain number of hypotheses, he wound up by 
 declaring himseK incapable of defining a food. 
 Nevertheless, there exists an art or a science of 
 nutrition and Uving, just as there is a science of 
 electricity. 
 
 Does " to think without concepts " appear a con- 
 tradiction in terms ? What, then, shall we say of 
 the physicists who define the ether as " a solid with- 
 out density or weight, yet more rigid than steel " 
 (Lord Kelvin) ? And yet this ether is indispensable ; 
 on it, we are informed, depend hght, heat, radiant 
 electricity, gravitation, and the course of the stars. 
 Here we have a decided superiority : we do not 
 arrive at our principle by a logical conclusion ; 
 we simply found it on observation. 
 
 No doubt, after we have isolated the musical 
 phenomenon, we shall demonstrate in the second and 
 other parts of this book that it is in harmony with 
 social life as weU as with the laws of physiology and 
 those of objective nature ; but there wiU here be 
 no contradiction. A harmony is an adaptation ; 
 it does not exclude real differentiations. 
 
 Before we start on the analysis of a subject which 
 it is easier to write round than to describe, let us 
 strengthen our point of view and clear the ground 
 by examining rapidly a few celebrated definitions 
 of music. Of those, I take three. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 EXAMINATION OF SOME OPINIONS 
 § 1. Music and Sensation— The Pleasure to the Ear 
 
 In J. J. Rousseau's time, music was defined as " the 
 art of combining sounds so as to please the ear." 
 Some modern scholars have endeavoured to give 
 this sajdng a formal character and to justify it by 
 scientific demonstrations. They maintain that con- 
 sonance and dissonance act on our organism quite 
 independently of all aesthetic judgment, in the same 
 way as a burn or the contact of ice, a sweet or a 
 bitter taste, a sting or a caress. 
 
 The Httle concert given in the Jardin des Plantes, j 
 on the 10th Prairial in the Year VI of the Repub- | 
 lie, to two elephants whose names history has ' 
 handed down — Hans and Marguerite — seemed to 
 prove that animals are susceptible to the influence 
 of music in the sense that they are affected by it as 
 by a series of impressions from which it is not 
 possible to escape. 
 
 In 1863, Helmholtz built up his musical theory 
 on the study of sound-sensations, by dwelling on 
 this point, that they act the chief part and deter- 
 mine all the other effects ; and, twelve years later, 
 Wundt set forth clearly the principle of the same 
 thesis : " The first condition of a sound method of 
 
 31 
 
32 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 research in these matters," he wrote, "is to consider 
 consonance and dissonance as phenomena of sen- 
 sation, and to separate them from the feelings 
 which are linked with them." 
 
 Since then interesting experiments have been 
 made in Russia, in Italy, and in France. M. Fere, i 
 not to quote others, has made researches on the \\ 
 influence of sounds on persons without artistic in- 
 teUigence, incapable even of perceiving the differ- 
 ences of musical intervals — in fact, persons afflicted 
 with musical deafness — and he has noted certain 
 effects. 
 
 From all this it appears to us that a well-estab- 
 lished but partial truth may be drawn, and that we 
 must abstain from any general deduction. 
 
 If physiology brings us, on our way, supple- 
 mentary information and clear views, so much the 
 better ; but if, at our first step, it proposes to bar 
 our progress and subject us to its laws, it is an 
 impossible aid. 
 
 It is plain that sensation pure and simple plays, 
 or may play, an important part in music. Certain 
 combinations of sounds draw from us, instinctively, 
 a cry of impatience or of pain ; I prefer to hear 
 a piece played on a Stradivarius rather than on a 
 poor violin, etc. . . . But if we adopt the conclusion 
 that sensation is the principle of pleasure from 
 music, what a number of objections can be raised. 
 I will mention a few of them. 
 
 1st. Why have not the sensations of smell, in 
 themselves as independent as those of hearing, 
 given^birth, like the latter, to a liberal art ? Why 
 does not perfumery rank as high as music ? 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 33 
 
 2nd. Any sensation of the touch always has its 
 own value, even when isolated, and resulting from a 
 single impression of the external object on the 
 periphery ; the contact of a hot coal always causes 
 pain ; an iced beverage always gives pleasure to a 
 thirsty person, etc. ... On the contrary, one single 
 consonance heard by itself leaves a musician, in 
 most cases, perfectly indifferent. It has no appre- 
 ciable value ; to give it one it must be attached 
 to something else, to what precedes or what 
 follows it. In music everything is done by com- 
 parison. It is only relations which count. The^i 
 perception of sounds is at once memory and ex- v 
 pectation. 
 
 Admitting that a fifth is an agreeable consonance, 
 if preceded by two other fifths having a similar 
 movement it will be very unpleasant. Conversely, 
 a group of notes in itself dissonant and painful may 
 be admirable thanks to the context. In one of 
 Schumann's finest melodies, Mondnacht, we meet 
 with a Mii\ under a Miij^ ; now this conjunction, 
 extremely harsh by itself, becomes, by reason of 
 the plan of the phrase, an exquisitely sentimental 
 and poetical feature. In such a case the thought 
 dominates the sensation. 
 
 3rd. If music were solely the art of flattering the 
 ear in the physiological sense of the word, it would 
 never make use of anything but consonances. 
 Now, there are no compositions for parts, vocal or 
 instrumental, which are in this case. This would 
 infer that one could never experience pleasure from 
 music in a pure and complete state, which is con- 
 trary to common experience. The pleasure would 
 
34 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 always be thwarted ; if we kept solely to conso- 
 nances, the most we could say would be, with the 
 scholar of old, that our keenest joys are but 
 griefs appeased. 
 
 4th. Why do the impressions produced by music 
 vary in different persons ? Why do they vary in 
 one and the same person ? Is not a sting painful 
 to every one under aU circumstances ? Why did 
 Berlioz declare that he did not understand the pre- 
 lude to Tristan and Iseult ? Does any one ever 
 hesitate to acknowledge a burn after putting one's 
 hand in the fire ? Why have we to Usten several 
 times to certain symphonies of the present day in 
 order to understand them ? . . . 
 
 When physiologists, in order to show the effects 
 of the sensations caused by sound, take graphs 
 of the respiration, the capillary pulse, or the 
 motions of the heart ; when a particular case 
 enables them to note the rush of blood which, 
 under the influence of sounds, increases the volume 
 of the brain ; or when they register, by the aid of 
 Mosso's ergogram, the muscular energy expended 
 by a person receiving acoustic impressions, they 
 are effecting useful work, from which, however, it is 
 impossible to frame general conclusions and laws, 
 because the facts observed would not perhaps 
 be the same with aU persons. Now, musicians, 
 never disagree as to the fact that an air has a 
 meaning. 
 
 Physiology has a part to play in the theory of 
 music, but it is not within its province to frame a 
 definition of the art. It must be limited to a'"con- 
 tribution in aid. The nature of this we shall specify 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 35 
 
 later in a special chapter of this book (Part III). 
 Arrived at a certain degree of culture — that, pre- 
 cisely, when real problems are put before it— the 
 ear no longer creates music by a kind of passive 
 receptivity, just as a mould impresses its shape on 
 the liquid poured into it ; the intellect intervenes 
 to judge, to undo and remake, in a certain measure, 
 the work of the auditory organ, and to give it, by a 
 ■ secondary creation, a definite meaning or one pro- 
 visional and variable, like the mind itself. There is 
 here a transformation of the acoustic phenomenon 
 into a musical phenomenon, in which the activity 
 of the mind plays sometimes a part more important 
 than that of the ear. The mistake made by certain 
 scholars arises from their not rising to this, but 
 remaining on the threshold of the question. They 
 think they have grasped music, while they have but 
 touched the fringe of her garment. 
 
 § 2. Music and Foemalism — The Arabesques op Sound 
 
 There exists a doctrine akin to the above called 
 Formalism. According to this, the characteristics 
 and the beauty of a work of art should be 
 sought for, not in the sentiments, thoughts, and 
 ideas it may contain, but solely, and as if deahng 
 with an architectural construction, in the relations 
 of the respective parts of this work of art. In litera- 
 ture, for instance, one must take account of the 
 plot, the style, the choice of expressions, the syntax 
 (in the widest acceptation of the word), the rhythm, 
 the imagery, the sonority of the period or of the 
 verse ; but the meaning expressed may be ignored 
 in accordance with the dictum of Herbert : " The 
 
36 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND BVOLTJTION 
 
 beauty of a temple cannot be enhanced by the 
 furniture placed in it." 
 
 Very paradoxical when appHed to the works of 
 jEschylus, of Dante, of Shakespeare, this doctrine 
 jars less on common sense when apphed to the 
 musical art, which, not being associated with con- 
 cepts, never possesses the analytical clearness of 
 verbal language. 
 
 This application was made by the Viennese critic, 
 Hanslick, in 1854, in a celebrated httle work abound- 
 ing in extremely good ideas, — without attaining the 
 conclusions one would have wished, — but promul- 
 gating an inadmissible definition of music. 
 
 In the mind of Hanshck there is an ornamental 
 art which may help us to understand how it is 
 possible for music to create forms which, while of 
 great value, contain no exact sentiment : it is 
 the art of the arabesque. Let us imagine arabesques, 
 which, instead of being inert and without life, Uke 
 those of the dehneator, should form themselves be- 
 fore our eyes, the work of a mind endeavouring 
 to depict, by the movement of lines, an endless 
 phantasy. This would be an exact image of music. 
 
 When, after having pulverized sentimentalism, 
 Hanslick discourses, with infinite good sense, of 
 musical ideas, of specifically musical beauty, one 
 would expect to find him showing exactly the part 
 played by the mind, asserting the existence of a 
 thought sui generis, special to the language of sound, 
 and thusTgiving compensation, jn the domain of 
 reason, to' an art, the traditional rights of which he 
 had contested in the domain of emotion. Nothing 
 of the kind. To his mind the word " idea " (musi- 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 37 
 
 cal) is synonymous with image, form, and nothing 
 more. So that, according to the doctrine of the 
 Viennese aesthete, the art of music is thrust back on 
 itself on two sides at once — that of inteUigence and 
 that of sensibility ; it has no more hold on 
 thought than on sentiment. This " arabesque," 
 to which it is reduced, resembles a frontier line 
 subsisting all alone after the vanishing of the two 
 great empires which it formerly separated — that 
 of intelligence and that of sentiment. Certainly 
 there is a plastic art of sounds ; but to assert that 
 formalism defines the whole art of music is strange. 
 
 1st. What arabesques could Hanshck have had 
 in mind when applying such a word to music ? It 
 was not, evidently, those so weU-known and so 
 admired works of the decorative painters of the 
 sixteenth century, whose arabesques are so largely 
 drawn from natural models : — twining vines, laurel 
 branches, ivy leaves, flowers, fruits, panthers, 
 leopards, lions, and, lastly, human figures. Nor 
 can he have had in mind the arabesques of 
 the Alhambra, or the mural decorations of Hercu- 
 laneum and Pompeii ! It is evidently a question, in 
 his theory, of some particular arabesque which 
 could only have been suggested by the association 
 of several simultaneous melodious movements.* 
 But an arabesque of this kind (I refer only to the 
 design which would embody it) exists neither in 
 nature nor in art. What Kght can we expect from 
 
 * Nicomaque de Gdrase {Mmiuel d'Harmonigue, chap, iv.) 
 defined sound as "a degree, without breadth, of the melodious 
 voice." As M. Ch.-E. Ruelle points out, this metaphor is 
 borrowed from geometry, and tends towards discovering in music 
 a system of lines forming arabesques. 
 
38 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 a chimerical fact as the explanation of an actual 
 one ? Ohscurum per ohscurius. 
 
 2nd. The three or four parts, in different move- 
 ments, of which is composed, for instance, a fugue, 
 might call to mind flexible hnes sometimes super- 
 posed, and sometimes interlaced ; but the language 
 of an orator, with its multiple inflexions, might 
 likewise have as a diagram a line of this kind ; this 
 diagram, however, would be a long way from repre- 
 senting the eloquence of the speaker ! We should 
 be informed according to what laws the arabesques 
 are organized : 
 
 3rd. I took a piece of music, the adagio of the 
 Pathetic Sonata, and on thin paper I traced the 
 arabesque resulting from following the Knes of the 
 melody. It is difficult to imagine anything more 
 displeasing, more incoherent and absurd. The ex- 
 periment seems to me interesting, for, however 
 much Hanshck may harp on his " sonorous lines" 
 we can only figure them as lines situated in space. 
 Now, such Hnes are only a worthless grimoire. 
 
 4th. An arabesque is always an ornament acces- 
 sory to a whole ; it may add to the splendour of a 
 monument (the Baths of Titus, the galleries of the 
 Vatican, Hadrian's Villa, etc.), but it is never an 
 independent work complete in itself. Is this the case 
 with a symphony ? 
 
 5th. An arabesque is subject to no physical law ; 
 the art of music, on the contrary, cannot free itself 
 from the determinism of the laws of acoustics nor 
 from those of respiration (rhythm). 
 
 6th. There are, in music, many essential things 
 which a linear arabesque could not reproduce, even 
 
MXrSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 39 
 
 as a distant analogy : the tonality, mode, time, 
 scale, modulations, and register employed. How is 
 it possible to reproduce, in drawing, an enharmonic 
 modulation ? or a dramatic accompaniment like that 
 of Schubert's Erl King ? A note long repeated is 
 the opposite of an arabesque, yet it can produce a 
 very musical effect. 
 
 7th. One of the most interesting things to use 
 in a symphony is the development of an idea. 
 Is there anything of this in an arabesque ? 
 
 8th. Even were music but a system of arabesques, 
 would it be necessarily void of all psychological 
 value ? Is not writing itself a system of lines ? 
 Yet do not graphologists, not wholly wrongly, 
 discover therein an appreciable reflection of the 
 writer's character ? Why should we not admit 
 that in time, and by the aid of certain genius-gifted 
 artists, the most arid forms have become capable of 
 expressing life and conveying a meaning ? Quatre- 
 mere de Quincy said of Raphael : " He has made 
 the arabesque a figurative langtiage of which the 
 hieroglyphics, known to aU, still give the specta- 
 tor the pleasure of guessing them." And Hittorf 
 affirms that in the arabesque there must be sought, 
 above all, "unity of thought." 
 
 If an art is neither thought nor sentiment, if it 
 resembles that game which consists in tracing in 
 darkness, lines in space with the point of a 
 burning stick, in what way can it interest us ? 
 There are oriental carpets of which the designs are 
 meaningless, yet the effect is charming ; but do 
 they affect us as does music ? For these reasons 
 we are unable to adopt the theory of Hanshck. 
 
40 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 § 3. Music and Sektimint 
 
 A theory partly founded on truth, more seductive 
 than but quite as inadmissible as the foregoing, 
 because it ignores some essential facts, perceives 
 in music " the adequate language of sentiment." 
 This was Aristotle's opinion. To his mind, music is 
 not an expression of psychical states obtained by 
 the aid of more or less conventional signs (cDy/xem), 
 but an absolute and direct reproduction {/j.L/j.rjcns) 
 of these states ; hence it should be a great factor 
 in education, for by expressing certain habits of the 
 soul it may communicate them to the young 
 listeners, and even incite them to practise the 
 actions which are the consequences of these habits. 
 The Germans have often recurred to this theory ; 
 to convey the fact that music expresses the affec- 
 tive states they have a word (Nachahmung) which 
 is a literal translation of Aristotle's /uLijutja-i^. 
 
 That sentiment is at the origin and at the basis 
 of all music cannot be doubted. Beethoven affirmed 
 that all emotions, even anger, could be sources of 
 musical inspiration ; he was rallied for this statement, 
 and it was said that, in that case, his housekeeper, 
 who had a bad temper, ought to share the com- 
 poser's fees ! With good reason we regard a great 
 musician as a very passionate man, endowed with 
 keener sensitiveness than an ordinary man. But 
 from the fact that emotion is a necessary starting- 
 point, it by no means follows that it should find its 
 adequate expression, by a kind of law, in sonorous 
 combinations, and that, in order to create " a work," 
 it should have no need of anything quite different to 
 
MUSICAL THOXTGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 41 
 
 itself ; in the second place, the sentiment expressed 
 in music is not one which can be translated into 
 verbal language. Music comes from far greater 
 depths than those superficial emotions which are 
 defined by an ordinary t3rpe, and it requires some- 
 thing more than sensitiveness to be what it is. The 
 theory of pure sentimentalism must be rejected 
 on account of certaia inexact assertions, and, above 
 all, because it is as incomplete as the physiological 
 theory. 
 
 We only know sentiment, in a direct way, by the 
 consciousness. Without the consciousness we are 
 only cognizant of its effects or of its representation by 
 images and symbols, of which the accuracy, entirely 
 relative, depends upon the association of ideas. 
 An imitation, in the antique sense of the word, of 
 love or jealousy is a chimsera. The impossibility 
 one experiences of showing any real resemblance 
 between a sentiment and a sound-formula musically 
 constructed has given rise to a vague and contra- 
 dictory terminology which the best writers use 
 without concern and as if they understood them- 
 selves, but which betrays a manifest gap. In French 
 we say that music expresses, and translates, and 
 these words require elucidation, for there is nothing 
 more vague than the word " expression " in art. 
 
 Among the Germans it is far worse. Music is 
 the language of emotions (Kant) ; it is the art 
 of sentiment (Hegel) ; music represents (darstdlt) 
 the passional life ; it embraces it (erfasst) ; reveals 
 it (kundthuet) ; proclaims it (verkundet) ; calls 
 it forth {hervorruft) ; expresses it {sie driicktaus) ; 
 reflects it (wiederspiegelt) ; echoes it {wieder- 
 
42 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 UiTigt) ; traces its images (abbildet) ; draws atten- 
 tion to it (zeichnet) ; publishes it (offenbart) ; relates 
 it (erzdhlt). . . . Nor is Helmlioltz himself any clearer. 
 According to him and to a doctrine which we shall 
 discuss later on, music expresses not the sentiment, 
 but the state into which the soul is brought and the 
 tone which it gives to it [Gemiiihsstimmung). This 
 equivocal term of Oemuthsstimmung Helmholtz 
 hastens to explain : " By this I mean," he says, 
 "those properties of the psychical states which 
 music is able to reproduce ; that is to say, the 
 general character presented at any given moment 
 by the course of our ideas. ..." And, for lack of 
 a clearness which he here seeks with evident 
 trouble, Helmholtz further defines what he under- 
 stands by "course of ideas" (Fortbewegung der 
 Vorstellungen) : " Our thoughts can move rapidly 
 or slowly ; they can wander here and there, without 
 rest and without object, in anxious agitation, or 
 follow, with precision and energy, a fixed end ; 
 they can let themselves be drawn, with ease and 
 without effort, into pleasant musing, or else, Hnked 
 with sad remembrances, change their subject but 
 slowly, painfuUy, without energy, and step by step. 
 All this can be imitated and expressed by the 
 melodious movement of sound." It will be granted 
 that this materialism of images, quite natural in a 
 literary man, is a little singular from the pen of a 
 physiologist and physicist who asserts the close 
 connection of music with the exact sciences. At all 
 events, it is not clear. 
 
 We have come to one of the knotty points of the 
 problem. Sentiment is the life of music ; it is as 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 43 
 
 necessary to it as sap to the plant ; but it is strange 
 that we should have so much difficulty in explain- 
 ing ourselves in that regard, and that what is most 
 alive in us cannot be expressed ! " Everything in- 
 dividual is ineffable," was the profound remark of 
 Leibnitz. In any case, we cannot define music by 
 sentiment alone. 
 
 One simple question : all part music is based 
 on the art of counter-point, and all the forms of 
 counter-point are gathered together in the fugue. 
 What relation of real resemblance exists between 
 any given emotion and the setting forth of a 
 fugue or of a motet ? Unless we are to be satis- 
 fied with mere words, we must put the problem in 
 that way. No doubt, the writer of a fugue is an 
 accomplished musician, and it will be granted that 
 he would not have become a musician had he not 
 had a sensitive character and obeyed the movements 
 of his sensitiveness. But if that is all he is, and 
 all he can do, we can affirm positively, with the 
 authority of history added to that of evidence, that 
 he will never do any good. 
 
 A critic (Ferdinand Hand, 1837) has gone to the 
 point of saying that the laws of sentiment are 
 likewise those of music. Nobody knows this, 
 for the laws of sentiment are very imperfectly 
 known, which is by no means the case with 
 musical composition ; if the two are identical, why 
 has not music arrived, at one bound, at the bring- 
 ing into play of all its resources ? Every musical \V 
 work is a construction, and every construction 
 presupposes a plan, a logic, and a method, reached 
 by slow degrees as the fruit of long experiment. 
 
44 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Now, pure sentiment, if considered apart from 
 the thought which intervenes and regulates it, is re- 
 pugnant by nature to all this. Logic is foreign to 
 it. As regards method and the idea of a plan, it 
 is an element of incoherence and a solvent. 
 ^ Music is a special act of the inteUigence, interven- 
 ing in the chaos of the emotional hf e to bring into it 
 order and beauty. Instead of saying that it reflects 
 certain sentiments, we might just as well maintain 
 that it creates sentiments which without it would 
 not exist, or of which we should have no knowledge. 
 To measure the distance which separates an art of 
 imitation from an art which dominates imita- 
 tion, compare the attitude of the public in a picture 
 gallery and in a concert haU. Before the pictures 
 — portraits, landscapes, scenes from middle-class 
 and low life — the public is quite at its ease and 
 feels at home ; it perceives without any effort the 
 effect the artist intended to produce ; it discusses 
 with a perfect competence the resemblance of the 
 images, the truth of the physiognomies, the dresses, 
 attitudes, and furniture, and the correctness of the 
 drawing and colours. 
 
 How does it behave when Hstening to a quartet or 
 a symphony ? Its attitude should be the same if 
 it be true that music imitates, repeats, echoes, re- 
 presents outwardly, etc., sentiments already felt. 
 Now this is not the case. The public only perceives 
 in a vague and very confused way the relations 
 between what it hears and what it habitually 
 feels ; it is touched, but is far from recognizing 
 its own personaUty[[in [what is said to it. It 
 tries to establish a connection between the melody. 
 
MUSICAL THOTTGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 45 
 
 or the tones of the orchestra, and its own anterior 
 psychical conditions, but only succeeds imperfectly 
 and intermittently; even then it only succeeds 
 by a variable act of its own fancy, and not by 
 virtue of a law of perception. It wonders ; it 
 admires. 
 
 It drifts about in a shadowy world of sensations, 
 of sympathetic tendencies, of memories, of associa- 
 tions of ideas, in which the curiosity of the intelli- 
 gence, anxious to understand, acts a greater part 
 than does memory. It feels itself in the presence 
 of an enigma to be solved. 
 
 This arises from the fact that music brings to it 
 something new which goes beyond and troubles its 
 experience. Gne can hardly conceive its being 
 otherwise. The composer himself is often astonished 
 at what he has written. He may happen to take 
 as the starting-point "of his work the idea of some 
 possible aesthetic effect, and to only perceive after- 
 wards the exact relation of the formula he discovers 
 to the sentiment chosen. It was thus that in many 
 of the scenes in his operas Wagner composed the 
 air before the words. 
 
 As noticed by Darwin, who studied the question 
 with admirable impartiaUty, the sentiments " ex- 
 pressible " in music clearly and unmistakably are, 
 in reality, very restricted in number. They are 
 all reduced to a few rather indistinct types. ^The 
 formula used at the beginning of the second act 
 of Lohengrin to " translate " the shame and 
 despair of two detected criminals is almost the 
 same as that used by Berlioz to " translate " the 
 boredom of Faust in his study. Yet what a differ- 
 
46 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 ence between the two conditions. Take the charm- 
 ing overture to the Magic Flute : what sentiment 
 are we to recognize in the fugue it contains ? The 
 irritation of the merchants who are quarrelling ? A 
 wild outburst of joy ? The chattering of old 
 women all speaking at once ? Does it even deal 
 with any certain sentiment ? Is it simply a dis- 
 play of skill ? And in the very improbable case 
 of our being able to express in words what it is 
 about, do we really think that this would sufficiently 
 explain such a composition ? 
 
 There are some who have gone so far as to assert^ 
 that to each sentiment there corresponds a sound 
 of the voice pecuhar to it which music makes its 
 own. In the first place, music only begins when 
 there is a synthesis of sounds ; and, in this syn- ^ 
 thesis, each element loses its own peculiar value to 
 take that imposed on it by its' relations to the whole. 
 But let us admit that the composer puts in juxta- 
 position, as in a kind of mosaic, exact representa- 
 tions of sentiment. Then would there be a sort 
 of " ear-deception " for the expression of the 
 emotional states, as there is an " eye-deception " for 
 material objects. Would this "ear-deception" be 
 music ? Would the musician possess in his art 
 an exactness and precision analogous to those of 
 the photographer ? This far from artistic concep- 
 tion, does away, in melodious constructions, with 
 everything invented, original, and interesting. It 
 renders the art both useless and displeasing. Two 
 remarks out of a hundred ! At the theatre, singers 
 who l^desire to give the illusion of real emotion use 
 means (attack of the note from below, slurring the 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 47 
 
 voice, liberties with the time, shrieks in lieu of the 
 musical note, hiccough, catching of the breath, etc.), 
 which, plainly, have an anti-musical character. Yet 
 these artifices bring them closer to the real emotional 
 state ; the Id canto, the " style," removes them 
 further from it. There have been imitative styles 
 — the pantomimic, the atellan, the farcical ; they 
 were only able to become works of art by an 
 evolution which essentially transformed them and 
 kept them at a distance from the type suppHed by 
 reality. 
 
 Some aesthetes have taken a bias, and have 
 attributed to music the power of expressing not 
 real emotion, but its " analogues " (Riemann, 
 Wundt) ; they have said it translates fictitious senti- 
 ments (Ed. de Hartmann), or sentiments of imi- 
 tation (Karl Groos). What they mean to say is this. 
 You read a novel which provokes certain emotions 
 in your mind ; these emotions are abstract ; • they 
 have neither the depth, the intensity, nor the dura- 
 tion of those you would feel in actual hfe, in face of 
 corresponding objects. Here are the fictitious pas- 
 sions, the Scheingefiihle (Hegel, de Hartmann), which 
 constitute the domain of music. . . . Notwithstand- 
 ing the great authority of the principal philosopher 
 who has developed this theory, I do not think it is 
 more acceptable than the former, or that it avoids 
 the same objections. Between the two categories 
 of emotions, fictitious and real, there is but a differ- 
 ence of degree ; whether it is a question of one or 
 the other, the difficulty of passing thence into 
 musical art is the same. There is an abyss to be 
 got over. 
 
48 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 § 4. Music and the Abstract Emotions 
 
 Thought does not subject itseK to ready-made 
 means of expression which come to it from without ; 
 it creates the language itself requires, and its 
 resources are infinite. It can project itself into any 
 system of signs whatever and can make it its own. 
 As Montaigne says, the human mind is a great 
 worker of miracles. We need not therefore be 
 astonished at the idea of being able to think in 
 sounds. Kant and Descartes, who were not 
 musicians, have asserted that we can only think 
 by the aid of concepts, but we cannot do away 
 with an observed fact for the convenience of a theory. 
 
 We do not understand by " musical thought " 
 merely an act of intelligence, but also a work of 
 feeUng, giving this latter word a meaning 
 different from the usual one. The difficulty is to 
 know how these two .things go together. Certain 
 scholars do not consider their connexity proved by 
 experience : they make them appear at distinct 
 moments in a process of which they beheve they 
 can reconstitute the history. This question is, 
 _ above aU, psychological ; we shall only refer to it 
 here in so far as it bears on a definition of music 
 and gives us a new opportunity of confirming our 
 theory. 
 
 In his Psychologic des Sentiments, M. Th. Ribot, 
 wishing to show how a work of art can come forth 
 from emotion, puts forward the very shrewd idea 
 that side by side with intellectual memory there is 
 an emotional memory, that is to say, a real survival 
 or an attenuated prolongation of the emotion itself. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 49 
 
 This survival is made up of partial sensations, 
 weakened like an oft-repeated echo ; these are the 
 residues of suffering or of pleasure — in a word, they 
 are abstract emotions, analogous to abstract ideas. 
 These emotions, reduced to the state of remem- 
 brances, may fuse themselves into one single state of 
 consciousness, and finally, following the moving ten- 
 dency which rules us, terminate in a musical work. 
 What we call the creative imagination of a com- 
 poser would only be the outward expansion of these 
 states preserved within us by the emotional memory 
 and carried further and further away from the 
 circumstances in which they are produced. The 
 concrete reality, tangible and visible, is thus trans- 
 formed by the musician into an immaterial con- 
 struction of sounds. 
 
 The plastic imagination furnishes us with a coun- 
 ter-proof of this ; it turns it round the other way : 
 does a musical impression pass through the brain ? 
 It excites it, but issues forth transformed into 
 visual representations. Thus, Weber, after having 
 contemplated a landscape near the Cascade of 
 Geroldsau, writes a page of his Der Freischiitz. 
 Goethe, on the contrary, after listening to a piece 
 of Bach's, said : " How grandiose and full of 
 pomp this is ! It brings before me the vision of a 
 procession of great personages in gala dress, de- 
 scending the steps of a gigantic staircase." The 
 first has the musical imagination, which purifies 
 and spiritualizes the reality ; the second, the plas- 
 tic imagination, which materializes abstractions.* 
 
 * Th. Ribot, Essai sur Vimagination criatrke, 3e. partie, chap. 
 II. Alcan, 1900. 
 
50 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Such a clear-cut theory as this is very attractive. 
 It revives with originahty an old idea : that to 
 create is to remember. By reducing the invention 
 of the composer to an entirely internal work it 
 satisfies the most exalted musical sense, which con- 
 siders descriptive music as inferior, and finds its 
 highest satisfaction in pure symphony. Yet it is 
 disturbing from its extreme simphcity. Does any 
 one really think that the emotional memory and the 
 motor tendency which throws forth the residues 
 unified by the consciousness suffice to pro- 
 duce a sonata, a motet, a stringed quartet, or 
 even a melody of eight bars ? You enter into a 
 garden, your foot presses a plate, and immediately 
 a Neptune springs up, trident in hand. It would 
 seem that impressions from outside, absorbed 
 by a musician, end, by as prompt a mechanism, 
 in a work of art ! However, I do not fancy that, 
 in describing this process in such a general way, 
 the eminent philosopher intended to propound a 
 theory of music and to exclude other analyses. 
 
 Would a work fike the Sonata of Beethoven 
 dedicated to the Archduke Rodolph be formed 
 out of the cold refuse of common emotions ? 
 Rather is it an exaggeration, a conflagration which 
 takes place in the composer's mind. What is neces- 
 sary to him, if he is to write anything good, is the 
 exaltation of sentiment, enthusiasm, and " Intoxi- 
 cation." 
 
 I fail to see how the passage from the commence- 
 ment of the evolution to the final term, could happen 
 everywhere automatically. The fusion of peculiar 
 abstract emotions into a single state of conscious- 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 51 
 
 ness is an impossible or barren synthesis from an 
 artistic point of view, without the intervention of 
 certain ideas of charm, of special technique, and of 
 beauty. From the outset of the series of phe- 
 nomena, the subject may be struck with impo- 
 tence, unless he is endowed with a peculiar mind. 
 To show that in music emotion is useful in every- 
 thing, but sufficient for nothing, and that, if the 
 mind is unable to grasp it at once and use it as 
 the vehicle for a grand idea, emotion is rather an 
 obstacle, we have a typical example, that of J. J. 
 Rousseau. 
 
 Rousseau was par excellence the man of senti- 
 ment. Over his contemporaries and disciples he 
 exercised, through sentiment, an influence which I 
 need not recall. He loved music with extraordinary 
 persistence. He insisted on composing ; yet he was 
 never able to become a true musician. He was a 
 slave to his sensitiveness. It was impossible for 
 him to escape it or to master it. His great mis- 
 take was to believe himself a musician because he 
 had the emotion of music, just as he believed 
 himself virtuous because he ^had the emotion of 
 virtue. Berlioz was far more sensitive than Bach 
 or Handel ; he is not, however, their equal as a 
 composer. It i^ not then sufficient to have emotion , 
 in order to compose ; a special act of the mind^is / . 
 necessary to which sensitiveness alone cannot 
 attain. 
 
 We have therefore to point out the part played 
 by the mind in musical work. Several roads are 
 open to this end. 
 
 Let us state exactly the antinomy we have to 
 
52 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 resolve, and which it ought to be possible to 
 resolve. 
 
 1st. In a letter dated 27 March, 1828, addressed 
 to his friend Plechsig, Robert Schumann, who has 
 rightly been called the poet of music, expresses 
 himself thus : " Love and friendship pass their 
 life on this earth with veiled face and closed 
 lips. No human being can convey to another how 
 he loves him ; he simply feels that he loves him. 
 The inward man has no language ; he is dumb." 
 This declaration — which Schumann borrowed from 
 Jean-Paul Richter and repeats in another letter 
 (28 Jan., 1828) — recalls the words of Musset, who 
 indeed defines music as " the language of the 
 heart," but adds that it is a mysterious language — 
 
 . . . ou la pensee, 
 Cette vierge craintive et d'une ombre ofpens^e, 
 Fasse en gardant son voile. 
 
 To sum up, between a psychical state and any 
 formula, verbal or otherwise, there can be no possible 
 resemblance. Such is the statement of Schumann. 
 
 2nd. And yet for the crowd, as for many com- 
 posers whose testimony might be quoted, music 
 and sentiment are two inseparable things. 
 
 Here are two truths, one resting on as solid a 
 basis as the other. Can they be made to agree ? 
 A priori, we must answer in the aArmative. Our 
 researches into this agreement will carry us a little 
 more closely into the study of musical thought. 
 
 § 5. The Dynamics of the Passional Life and 
 Musical Thought 
 
 Music cannot translate directly any given feel- 
 ing, but it translates the intensity, the internal 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 53 
 
 and general dynamics of the psychical life with all 
 its gradations ; and this mode of expression, joined 
 to the images which complete it, is one of the 
 secrets of its power. 
 
 FeeUng always manifests itself in us by quanti- 
 tative variations, which may be observed first of all 
 in the " crescendo " or the " diminuendo " of all 
 the functions of our organs. According to whether 
 we are deeply or slightly moved, the heart beats 
 faster or slower, the vessels contract or relax, and the 
 secretions increase or diminish. All these phe- 
 nomena may be easily measured. By the aid of 
 ingenious appliances (the registering apparatus 
 of Marey, Fran9ois Franck, Potain, and Hallion- 
 Comte) every one of the variations in the pulse, the 
 heart, the respiration, and the troubles of the cir- 
 culation can be exactly noted. If, from organic 
 troubles, we pass to psychological observation, we 
 find phenomena which it is no longer possible to 
 measure, but are, in a certain sense, of the same 
 nature. What we note is activity, accelerated, 
 moderated, or in its normal state. Our vital and 
 moral forces may be likened to a sort of internal 
 capital in a state of perpetual renovation and, 
 under the influence of feeling, subject to losses 
 and to gains. An emotional state, whatever it may 
 be (whether, as M. Th. Ribot says, a neuralgia, or 
 the grief which Michael Angelo exhales in his 
 Sonnets), may be summed up as an exaltation or 
 a depression of the energy. 
 
 Now, it is first of all this — to take the simplest 
 instance — that music can "render." It ignores the 
 representations and the concepts bound up in the 
 
54 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 emotional state ; it retains only its energy. It is, so 
 to say, the dynamometer of the sentimental life. It 
 appears indeed as if the great classical composers 
 had thus understood their art. At the beginning 
 of their finest symphonies they have written these 
 simple words : adagio, allegro, andante, vivace, 
 presto. Composers nowadays deHght in multiply- 
 ing the Uterary indications above a musical 
 score ; they sometimes pile up five or six in 
 the same bar, and daily add to their vocabulary 
 to apprise us of what they want to say. This 
 characteristic tendency of modern works is that 
 of an art which is ignorant of its limitations and 
 desires to come forth from itself at the risk of 
 losing itself or of compromising its originality. 
 There was nothing of this formerly. In the 
 manuscripts of Bach no other indication is found 
 save that of the "tempo." In this custom is the 
 best aesthetics. 
 
 Let us follow up the consequences of this fact. 
 Through neglecting the concepts and the external 
 circumstances inseparable from an emotional state, 
 music becomes what the Germans have called an 
 "art of inwardness," and what we may call simply 
 an art of intimacy. The e^o, said Fichte, is pure 
 activity. Music, therefore, attains personality in its 
 essence. By binding itself to the reproduction of 
 the dynamics of passion taken from its deep source, 
 and nothing more (as far as direct imitation is 
 concerned), music acquires as much generality as 
 power ; for this energy of which it marks the in- 
 tensity is not that unfolded by an individual in 
 his love or hatred for some other individual : it 
 
MUSICAL THOtJGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 55 
 
 is the vital force itself, taken at its source, freed 
 from all concrete meanings, and grasped in its 
 universality. 
 
 What is it that interests us when listening to the 
 Symphonie Fantastique of Berlioz ? That which 
 moves us is not Henrietta Smithson ; it is the in- 
 tensity of Berlioz's passion ; it is, above all, the act 
 of generalization by which the composer, rendering 
 more vast and more magnificent the horizons of love, 
 succeeds in universalizing a personal state, in ab- 
 sorbing it into the feehng of the general life. As 
 Nietzsche remarks, the essential point in the act 
 of artistic creation and in the effects produced on 
 the hearer is the feehng of increased force and 
 of plenitude. "Under the influence of this feehng. 
 we yield to circumstances, we force them to take 
 a part of ourselves, we do violence to them, and 
 this process is called ideahzation. It does not 
 consist, as is generally believed, in a deduction, 
 in the subtraction of everything small and acces- 
 sory ; what, on the contrary, is decisive in it is 
 a formidable projection forth of the principal 
 features in such a way that the remaining 
 features disappear. In this state one enriches 
 everything from one's own fulness. What one 
 sees, what one desires, one sees compact, power- 
 ful, overflowing with richness. Man then transforms 
 things until they reflect his power, till they become 
 reflections of his own perfection." 
 
 This brings us back to the admirable complexity 
 of the musical art. The composer does not create 
 with feeling alone, but " with his whole soul " ; 
 that is to say, that to the increased passional force 
 
56 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 is added an act of the mind, already observed in 
 what we are about to call the images. The emotion 
 and the thought mutually penetrate each other. 
 It is doubtful if in fact the first is not ordinarily 
 mingled with the second ; iia any case, if it is 
 disjoined from it, the musical art would be im- 
 possible. Notice that between the dynamics to 
 which we have just referred and the rhythmic 
 sections, and the cadences of a period having 
 necessarily a limited extent, there is no analogy. 
 The thought is so intimately bound up with the 
 emotion that in this torrent of composition which 
 carries all before it, one may at times think it 
 predominates. 
 
 This is why Beethoven affirms that " Music is a 
 higher revelation than Science or Philosophy." 
 Carefully listening " to that which the Spirit in- 
 spired in me and told me to accompHsh " (letter 
 to Schott, 17 Sept., 1824), he tells Goethe that 
 his greatest desire "is in no way to produce in 
 my hearers a more or less disquieting emotion, but 
 to touch their inteUigence and be understood by 
 it"; and he was only partly in error when, in a 
 letter — addressed, curiously enough, to a woman he 
 loved, Bettina d'Arnim — he says : " Emotion is only 
 good for women (all my excuses) ; for man, music 
 must draw fire from his mind .' " He meant by 
 " emotion " those superficial troublings of the moral 
 being always associated with concepts. The force 
 he claimed to express was more general and came 
 from greater depths. 
 
 There is another means of solving the antinomy 
 mentioned above. We will demonstrate in the 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 57 
 
 following chapters that, in order to depict feeling, 
 music takes a very ingenious bias by bringing 
 in imagination, and that will put us in the right 
 way to define later the part played by the in- 
 telligence. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MUSICAL IMAGES — EXAMPLES 
 
 When we cannot represent directly a psychological 
 phenomenon, a feeling, or an abstract idea, we 
 employ a symbol, an image of which the exactness 
 depends not on the real resemblance between the 
 sign and the thing signified, but on the association 
 of ideas which intervene and serve as a link between 
 the two termsi' This is the process continually 
 used in ordinary language. We lend to ideas 
 a weight. We talk of heavy or Kght ideas ; or a 
 colour : as when we speak of clear, sombre, bright, 
 black ideas (to see things rose-coloured, to have 
 the blues) ; or dimension : as in large, narrow, pro- 
 found ideas ; or localization in space : as in elevated, 
 subHme, grovelling ideas ; or quality of resistance : 
 as in strong or solid ideas (a hard, a soft heart) ; 
 or geometric formulas : as in a pointed wit, a square 
 head, a circle or a sphere of ideas ; or flavour : 
 as in bitter, sweet, or insipid thoughts ; or tempera- 
 ture : as in a warm, cold, or icy heart. . . . 
 Such are the intermediaries with which instinct 
 suppHes us to express a phenomenon of the moral 
 life ; and we are about to make the best use of 
 all this to explain our unexplainable music ! But 
 
 58 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 59 
 
 let US follow the steps which will lead us to this 
 end. 
 
 It is in the artistic language of poetry that these 
 images multiply and develop. The usual role of 
 a poet is not to invent feeUngs, but to translate 
 into more figurative forms the ordinary emotional 
 states. Victor Hugo knows the life of the soul no 
 better than Racine ; it may, however, be said that 
 he is a greater poet because he uses more images. > 
 Images are not everything in poetry — far from it ; 
 but they are of the utmost importance. Take a 
 piece of poetry or a page of sublime eloquence ; 
 rob it of its metaphors, there will remain but a 
 skeleton. 
 
 In music the expression is made up of sonorous 
 sensations and not of concepts ; but is not the 
 process often the same ? These sonorous sensations 
 (a kind of realized images) have an imitative 
 value only by the association of ideas that they 
 awaken. Let us try to represent to ourselves 
 Chopin improvising at the piano, under the in- 
 fluence of a powerful emotion, a nocturne or a 
 baUad. He masters his sensibiHty ; the problem 
 he has set himseK (a problem which he solves with- 
 out effort and by instinct because he has genius) is 
 to create with sounds a plastic form capable of 
 representing that which by its nature fights against 
 aU plastic form. He thus suppresses the an- 
 tinomy of the moral and of the sensible world ; 
 he projects the soul (hervorruft) into a system 
 of fornls ; he has performed a kind of miracle 
 which astonishes us — but by processes of which 
 we may say that they imitate nothing directly 
 
60 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 and that they can imitate everything indirectly. 
 Considered from the point of view of expression, 
 music would be a series of metaphors formed out 
 of sensations and not concepts. 
 
 At times, the composer translates into musical 
 metaphors feeUngs or objects known to both 
 himself and his hearers (songs with words, sym- 
 phonies with descriptions) ; at other times he 
 translates feelings known to himseK alone, and 
 which he does not think it expedient to indicate to 
 us exactly. Thus Haydn, it is said, when writing 
 a symphony, not seldom wrote down a sort of 
 s3Tiopsis for his own use. At other times, again, 
 he translates feehngs of which neither he nor 
 his audience have any clear notion, because they 
 are hardly conscious of them. 
 
 Let us deal with the first only. To constitute the 
 metaphors, or the images which express them, the 
 musician rehes on associations of ideas which imply 
 partial resemblances between two groups. 
 
 Gluck, in the pastoral of Armide (" plus j 'observe 
 ces lieux et plus je les admire . . ."), wishes to 
 express the sharp struggle of Rinaldo, who, seized 
 by the remembrance of his knightly duty, would 
 tear himself away from the seductions which sur- 
 round him. How does he effect this ? He employs 
 — in defiance of all rules, I note in passing — three 
 consecutive fifths, and the harsh impression pro- 
 duced associates itself in the hearer's mind with the 
 idea of that which is painful in the struggle of the 
 hero against himself. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 + + + 
 
 61 
 
 {Glnc]i)Armide,l\,5. 
 
 Does Beethoven wish to express an intense, 
 grievous or distracted passion ? He strikes a chord 
 of the ninth, of which the dissonance is accentuated 
 by a prolonged shake followed by a rapid run, dis- 
 orderly in appearance, which puts in relief all the 
 elements of the dissonant chord and gives the 
 impression of a moan by reason of the happily 
 placed intervals of semi-tones : 
 
 Presto de la Sonate op.27n9 2 (Beethoven) 
 
 To depict the majestic and harmonious course of 
 the Rhine, Wagner uses an analogous effect differ- 
 ently worked out ; he uses two ninth chords, one 
 atop of the other, or rather one chord of the ninth 
 with a repetition of the lower fifth and a pedal — 
 which awakens an idea of grandeur. But he writes 
 these two chords in arpeggios so as not to leave a 
 painful impression, and follows them up with a 
 run which, instead of being inflected, irregular, and 
 broken at every moment, as in the score of 
 Beethoven given above, has the direct movement 
 of a regular scale. The Gotterddmmerung (Act III, 
 
62 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 sc. 1) gives us the following image of the Rhine 
 with its powerful and harmonious flow — 
 
 Bach employs the same moaning and painful 
 chromatics as Beethoven to give an image of the 
 Agony of Jesus on the Cross. He naturally sup- 
 presses the passionate and free character of the 
 rhythm ; for he wants to represent human suffering 
 (he does so by means of an admirable altered chord 
 of the seventh) — but also the suffering of a man-God 
 dying with a thought of pardon, and with serenity. 
 Hence this melody, which descends by intervals of 
 semi-tones, slowly and with dissonances, ends with 
 a last tragic dissonance and resolves itself at once 
 as it were into an infinitely sweet and resigned 
 tenderness — 
 
 In aU this we may say that there are images 
 accumulated upon each other. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 63 
 
 When the author of the Pastoral Symphony 
 wishes to express in an Andante the calm of nature, 
 he employs successions of thirds, which by their sym- 
 metrical grouping and their rhythm reahze the 
 image of the poet — 
 
 Le bercement des flots sous la chanson des branches. 
 
 In the ball scene in Don Juan, Mozart wishes to 
 depict the contrast formed by very different persons 
 — ^lords and clowns — in proximity ; he puts one on 
 the other, so that they may be heard simultaneously, 
 a waltz associated in the mind of the hearer with 
 ordinary people and their affairs, and a minuet 
 associated with the idea of the aristocratic life. 
 
 To express terror, Berlioz proposed the following 
 image : a diminished seventh chord {Sol, Do j, 
 Mi ^,Si\>) played on four clarionets, of which two are 
 bass. In music, the rhythm, time, movement, in- 
 tensity of sounds, melodious design, harmony, con- 
 sonance and dissonance, the timbres, everything — 
 the rests, even silence itself — can form, or help to 
 form, an image. It is by no means necessary for 
 this image to be complete. It is enough that, on 
 certain well-chosen points, the musician enables us 
 to see a relation of resemblance between the lan- 
 guage he is speaking and its subject, for our imagi- 
 nation, co-operating with his, to set obediently to 
 work and construct a finished whole. This recon- 
 struction is effected by association of ideas which 
 play an intermediate part, and which, not being 
 the same in the minds of all hearers, cause music 
 not to be interpreted by every one in the same way. 
 
 We cannot pass in review all those ideas with 
 
64 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 which the composer deals ; his art consists in 
 creating and enforcing upon us the association of 
 ideas utterly unforeseen. Images are the creation 
 of the artistic mind, and do not result from simple 
 observation, as we should have to say if it were 
 true that there is "a natural language of feel- 
 ing." The imagination displays in them the 
 highest and the most delicate resources of the 
 invention, for the problem, solved at every moment 
 by the musician, consists in discovering images 
 capable of expressing what is, by its nature, inex- 
 pressible. 
 
 An image is never musical on account of its 
 (partial) resemblance to a given reality. Herein 
 lies an important fact, which admonishes us that 
 we are only at the first stage of our study. Not a 
 single one of the musical metaphors we have just 
 quoted is the imitation of a real fact. Every 
 one of them is the fragment of a thought which has 
 occasionally taken a symboKcal form. We have to 
 show that a metaphor is only musical if it be organ- 
 ized, and to relate how this organization is effected. 
 
 Here what we have to analyse is the pure work 
 of the mind acting on passional perceptions : we 
 are entering the subject of true music. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE ORGANIZATION OF IMAGES 
 
 Mtjsioal images, as we have said, tend to separate 
 from all concepts and to organize themselves into 
 independent systems. This organization is the 
 whole of music ; it is indispensable to examine 
 it closely if we wish to ascertain wherein lies the 
 originality of a composer's work. Unless we do so, 
 we run the risk of only studying accessory pheno- 
 mena, which are beside the real subject. It is cer- 
 tainly not the musical thought that we claim to 
 grasp in the analyses which follow, any more than 
 it can be grasped in a treatise on counter-point ; 
 but we can show its mechanism, its forms, and the 
 whole series of facts without which the language of 
 sounds would have nothing specific — and which, 
 by suggesting the idea of a superior and reasoned 
 work having no model in the reaMty, ought to main- 
 tain the idea of the musical art at a sufficient 
 distance from that which is not itself. 
 
 When a reader, without previous knowledge of 
 the subject, opens a book on advanced geometry 
 he is confronted with complicated figures and for- 
 mulas which appear to him somewhat cabalistic. Yet 
 geometry had an empirical origin, and developed 
 from the act of land measurement. Mathematics it- 
 self had a humble beginning. Certain experimental 
 
 F 65 
 
66 
 
 MTTSIC : ITS LAWS AND BVOLTTTION 
 
 data are first pondered over, then unexpected pro- 
 perties are discovered. We make abstracts and 
 progress, and hypotheses are framed without know- 
 ing whither they lead, until Httle by httle there open 
 out unexplored tracks, which the mind follows 
 with dehght, as if to the conquest of a new world. 
 Music has been formed in the same way. 
 
 I wiU take a very simple subject, the first five 
 notes of the diatonic scale — Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol — 
 which we wiU suppose to constitute (by movement,, 
 intensity, evenness of emission, timbre, or any other 
 quality) a rudimentary image, and, endeavouring 
 to place myseK in those frames of mind which have 
 marked, in succession, the principal epochs in the 
 history of this art, I wiU try to demonstrate how 
 this formula, subject to very varying treatment, 
 may culminate in a real musical work of a high 
 order. To commence with we will only deal with 
 the first three notes of our theme. 
 
 § 1. A Melody, fihst Simple, then Ornate 
 
 1st. We may, in the first place, repeat our for- 
 mula several times following, since repetition has 
 not the same drawbacks as in literature — 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 iJ iJiJ 
 
 2nd. It may be reproduced in the octave- 
 
 ^ 
 
 This is the form of the echo, frequently employed 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 67 
 
 in orchestral music, and even in compositions for 
 one instrument alone.* The first founders of in- 
 strumental music (Sweelinck, among others) often 
 used it. There is even in organs a special " echo " 
 stop. 
 
 3rd. We may pass on this motif over all the 
 degrees of the scale, and, in the case of a pol3rphonic 
 composition, through all its parts. If we reproduce 
 it as follows — 
 
 J. Jf '^■d ' =f^ 
 
 we have a march (and here we note a rather im- 
 portant fact, namely, that a reproduction strikes 
 the ear as sufficiently precise, even when aU the in- 
 tervals, semi- tones, whole tones, are not strictly 
 adhered to). If we reproduce the motif in the 
 same part by changing the pitch, it becomes a 
 transposition; if we reproduce it in another part 
 either by transposition or by simple repetition, it 
 becomes an imitation. 
 
 4th. We may reverse the motif, and apply to it 
 the different treatments indicated above. 
 
 $ 
 
 ^ 
 
 <F* 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 5th. We may increase or diminish the values, 
 either independently or together. 
 
 Cf. Beethoven, Sonatas, op. 81 et op. 90. 
 
68 
 
 MirSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 6th, We may make the notes which come on a 
 weak beat in this bar come on a strong beat. 
 
 7th. We may interrupt all the values of the motif 
 by separating them by a rest of equal duration, so 
 as to obtain a staccato instead of a legato. 
 
 8th. In the case of a melodious phrase of some 
 length, we may reproduce only a part of it, which 
 may itseK serve as an introduction to a new idea. 
 
 9th. We may adorn or ornament the notes of the 
 motif. 
 
 This will be like a person always the same and 
 always recognizable, who appears in different 
 clothes and altered gait. He may have a step 
 now heavy, now light. Sometimes he will walk 
 straight and with regular steps, and sometimes 
 sideways, or backwards, or will perform the regular 
 gymnastics of a dancer ; he will be clothed in a 
 grand ceremonial robe or wear the slightest pos- 
 sible clothing. Lastly his countenance may be 
 smiling and jovial, or thoughtful and melancholy. 
 But he will always be the person we know. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 69 
 
 § 2. Grace Notes and Variations 
 
 We are now arriving at the subject of musical 
 technique. As the idea just mentioned is of great 
 importance, we will pause a moment to show its 
 historical genesis and support it by a few facts. 
 
 Ornamentation, or flourish, must not be confused 
 with variations. It has been possible to write a 
 lengthy work on grace notes without mentioning 
 the art of variations.* The flourish was not always 
 written in old times ; the variation, as a work of art 
 and a personal work, could not fail to be written ; 
 but, historically, the one seems to be the origin of 
 the other. 
 
 From the thirteenth century we come across 
 flourishes, which were formerly termed figurce, 
 flores, colores. Pleasure was taken in decomposing 
 rhythmic values and ornamenting them. The 
 French writer Jean de Garlande (first half of the 
 thirteenth century), whose tractate de Cousse- 
 makerf published from the MS. of Saint-Die, lays 
 down the principle that every interval of a whole tone 
 may be decomposed into two intervals of a semi- 
 tone, and that, consequently, the chromatic altera- 
 tion may be made on every degree of the scale. 
 On this basis, he sketches out the theory of what, 
 later on, came to be termed embroideries and pass- 
 ing notes. Jerome of Moravia, who was in 1260 
 a Dominican monk in a convent in the Rue Saint- 
 
 '' Jliiskal Ornamentation, by Edw. Dannreuther. (Novello. 
 London, 189'J). The work commences at the end of the sixteenth 
 century with Diruta. 
 
 t Script, I, p. 157 sqq. 
 
;- 
 
 70 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Jacques, at Paris,* likewise concerned himself with 
 grace notes. He defines the shake, which he calls 
 procellaris vibratio (and was called, later on, balance- 
 ment in French, bebung in German, anAjremolo in 
 Italian). The Enghshman Tunstede, whoVas choir- 
 master to the Franciscans at Oxford in 1351, says 
 that in polyphonic singing the tenor may venture 
 on excursions to the note above or below, so long as 
 he refrains from disturbing the main part, the dechant. 
 Jean de Muris, born in Normandy, 1300, speaks, 
 with regard to the famous short penultimas of the 
 "flourishes," floraturce ; the phrase "nulla nota 
 brevis floreatur," with its barbarism, was even 
 current at that epoch. 
 
 A proof that these ornamentations were in great , 
 esteem is that Robert de Handlo, in his RegulcB,^ ' 
 places the 'flourishes among several kinds of com- 
 positions, which he enumerates as follows : " Ron- 
 delli, Balladse, Corese, Cantifractus, Estampitae 
 (dances), Florituroe." This word has so great an 
 importance that it reappears, in a symbolic sense, 
 among the titles — for instance, in the Flores musicce 
 omnis cantus gregorioni, one of the first collec- ] 
 tions printed (1488). In the eighteenth century, in 
 Nos. 2 and 3 of the Suites Anglaises, pubhshed under 
 the name of Bach (there is a doubt as to the authen- 
 ticity of one of the pieces), are to be found two \ 
 sarabands,, each repeated twice, one quite simple, 
 the other "with the ornaments,"so that the executant 
 can make his choice. I will not here detail the i 
 writings on this subject by Scheldt, (1624), Tosi I 
 
 * Coussemaker, Script, I, p. 157 sqq. 
 t Ibid., I. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 71 
 
 1(1723), Ph. E. Bach (1753), Marpurg (1755), Agricola 
 '(1757), Tiirk (1789). Between the grace notes of 
 our harpsichordists, the manners and the coquetries 
 of the eighteenth century, there is an evident con- 
 nection. 
 
 The Variation, still more important, demands a 
 distinct study. A point worth noticing is that we 
 see it appear, among the predecessors of Bach, as a j 
 means of giving unity to the Suite, by varying a 
 given theme instead of juxtaposing other themes. 
 Walther calls I'Allemande " a proposition from 
 which the other dances — the coranto, the sara- 
 band, and the jig — proceed, like parts from a 
 whole."* The art of variation, though foreign to 
 religious music, has played a great part in the six- 
 teenth and seventeenth centuries, and has found its 
 chief organ in the keyboard instruments. Swee- 
 linck, Frescobaldi, Cornet have used it extensively. 
 Samuel Scheldt, in his work pubhshed in 1624,f has 
 composed variations on all kinds of themes. The 
 history of music testifies, at each step, to the im- 
 portance of this form. Bach, imitating the Itahans 
 in this, has written, in the fourth part of his Clavia- 
 rubung, thirty variations on a saraband. On a 
 theme from Chaconne in Sol t| major, Handel has 
 composed sixty-two, which are one of the master 
 pieces of the musical art. Following Haydn and 
 Mozart, Beethoven has largely cultivated the same 
 form ; he has composed fifteen variations (op. 35) 
 ending up with a fugue ; twenty-four on the air 
 Vieni amore of Righini ; thirty-three on the waltz 
 
 * Spitta, /. S. Bach, I, p. 262 sqq. ; p. 693 ; and II, p. 649. 
 t Tabulatora nova, Cantiones, Variationes psalmorum. 
 
72 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 of Diabelli. I may also mention the piano sonatas 
 op. 26 and 109. Some very fine works of Schubert 
 and Schumann may be recalled. In a letter to Klinge- 
 mann, Mendelssohn declares that he has composed 
 some variations at the same time as a Passion, and 
 that he was divinely amused by it. It is a play, 
 it is true, but a play which three hundred years 
 before occupied the minds of the greatest, and 
 thanks to which the spirit of combination — that is 
 to say, nearly the entire musical mind — has, httle 
 by httle, rendered itself master of sonorous matter. 
 
 § 3. Canon 
 
 Here are the categories of new forms which 
 present themselves to us. 
 
 An attentive examination and the luck of re- 
 peated experiments open up to us a path in 
 which surprises of another order await us. Our 
 melody Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol is capable of many 
 other metamorphoses. It can act as an accompani- 
 ment to itself, and give us a composition in several 
 parts — 
 
 y 
 
 These bundles of notes are very heavy and 
 appear to have little music about them ! Here is, 
 at the prelude of a piece by Sweelinck (be- 
 gianing of the seventeenth century), a construction 
 which, founded on the same principle, is more 
 pleasing, clear, breezy and satisfying to the eye as 
 well as to the ear — 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 73 
 
 (Sweelinck, Toccata). 
 
 Imagine a person strolling by the side of some 
 clear water , and always followed by his own 
 reflection as travelling companion ; it will be 
 something analogous to this complex and melodious 
 movement. 
 
 We know that one of the parts may have a 
 slower or a more rapid movement — 
 
 Here we have the hare and the tortoise, starting 
 almost together and both arriving at the goal, but 
 at different rates of speed, which allows the more 
 nimble to return to the starting-point, to re-run 
 certain laps and to play the truant a little. 
 
 This melody, which accompanies itself, thanks to 
 its duphcation, is called a canon, and if we take 
 up the processes enumerated above relative to 
 the transposition, the movement (direction of the 
 design of the melody), bars, value of the notes, the 
 rhythm, the number of the parts, we shall soon dis- 
 cover the possibility of a great number of new 
 forms. These are canons in similar motion. 
 
74 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 canons in contrary motion,, canons with aug- 
 mentation, with diminution, with syncopation, 
 with unison, canons at the second, the third, the 
 fourth, the fifth, the sixth, the seventh, the oc- 
 tave. . . . We can make some of these forms simul- 
 taneous, and obtain, for instance, a triple canon by 
 means of differences of duration in the notes of the 
 three parts, etc. 
 
 § 4. Simple Counter-point 
 
 Up to the present we have combined our motif 
 with itself ; we can doubtless combine it with 
 another, or with several other motifs,* and when 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 ^ 
 
 PS 
 
 ^p 
 
 Such a fact shows that we are capable of simultaneous states 
 of consciousness. 
 
 seeking to make two dififerent ideas progress together 
 according to combinations, of which experience will 
 show the charm as weU as the stumbling-blocks, 
 many different paths open to us. This is what, in 
 the Middle Ages, was called descant or diaphony.f 
 The problem may be thus stated : We have 
 a given theme A; the question is to give it a 
 travelling companion B. How shall we set about it ? 
 
 * Thus in the Meistersinger of Richard Wagner (you will notice 
 the perfect chord at the beginning of the first theme). 
 
 t One of the best examples is to be found in MS. 383 of Saint- 
 Gall (written in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries). 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 75 
 
 To one note of A we can always add one note, 
 or two or three, or even a larger number of 
 the motive B which we are seeking (ex. 1, 2, 3, 
 5). This latter form is what was called in the 
 Middle Ages the broken or diminished counter- 
 point, or, again, dwplicatio, triplicatio, conglohatio. 
 
 We can also place the essential notes of the one 
 or other melody on the same long beats of the 
 measure, or else adopt syncopations (ex. 4) — 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 w 
 
 A 
 
 3 
 
 -ft 
 
 f 
 
 P 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 TJZ 
 
 ^ 
 
 m 
 
 ■1^^* 
 
 ^csz 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 -&- 
 
 
 Z 
 
 E^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 _ 
 
 ? — 
 
 " T? 
 
 r^^jxrz 
 
 -© — 
 
 
 
 -n — 
 
 — « 
 
 *sr-.:" -r. 
 
 P ■ 
 
 
 
 L-M 
 
 
 
 
 mtd 
 
 
 
 L_ 
 
 ■ mi .J 
 
 
 This little operation can be extended, while still 
 preserving the base Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, to three 
 
76 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 parts to which we should apply the same mode of 
 writing. ( 1 ) One note against one note ; ( 2) two notes to 
 one; (3) jour nates to one ; (4) a mixture of semibreves, 
 minims, and crotchets ; (5) syncopation ; (6) syncopa- 
 tion mixed with semibreves and minims, or with semi- 
 breves and crotchets ; finally, quavers mixed with the 
 other values. The same operation may be performed 
 with 4, with 5, 6, 7, or 8 voices (double chorus). 
 
 If, lastly, we imagine that the given subject 
 may be placed in any one of the parts, and 
 that the same holds good for the different pro- 
 cesses employed in the structure of the melodies 
 which happen to accompany the initial theme, 
 we can see the already very considerable number 
 of combinations possible. 
 
 § 5. Double Counter-point 
 
 In the course of these researches we note that it is 
 possible in certain cases to transpose two parts, to 
 put above the one which was below, and con- 
 versely. This is what is called double, or reversible, 
 counter-point. As in the fable the miller gets on 
 his ass, having previously been under it. In music, 
 where processes of this nature have a very great 
 importance, it is a new way of saying " milk and 
 water" after saying "water and milk," but it is 
 much less easy and inoffensive than in the verbal 
 language. First B accompanies A, and then A 
 accompanies B. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 77 
 
 This counter-point double a Voctave, used in 
 conjunction with some of the resources that we are 
 already acquainted with, allows constructions to be 
 effected which have the greatest importance in the 
 history of musical art, because they indicate the 
 complete formation and the final emancipation of 
 the musical mind. 
 
 This inversion may sometimes take place when 
 dealing with two, three, or four parts ; one has 
 then the double, triple, or quadruple counter- 
 point — a delicate operation, requiring great care, for 
 the inversion of the intervals may bring about many 
 unforeseen effects. For instance, the intervals of 
 1,2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, or 8 diatonic degrees, when reversed 
 in the octave, become intervals of 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, or 1 
 degrees, and in their new order these parts have 
 to produce as satisfactory a harmony as in their 
 first.* 
 
 In these various realms, as will be easily seen, we 
 are dealing more and more with relations and ab- 
 stractions, leaving on one side any connection of 
 musical formulas with the expression of a sentiment 
 or of a picturesque idea. It is something like 
 the game of chess, where, while keeping his eyes 
 on the actual position of the pieces, the player 
 has all the time to think of the possibilities of 
 the move, bearing in mind the relative value of 
 the pieces and not only their proper value or 
 
 * Beethoven gives a fine example of double counter-point in the 
 octave, in the form of a canon in his Symphony in Si!?, allegro 
 vivace, I. It is not possible to quote here examples of double 
 counter-point at the 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th. (See the TraiU de 
 Contre-point et de fugue of M. Th. Dubois, Paris, Au Menestrel, 
 1901.) 
 
78 
 
 MTTSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTJTION 
 
 form. There is also the well-known game of 
 cat's cradle, which consists in stretching out a 
 circular thread in the form of a saw on the 
 fingers, held vertically with the two hands 
 apart. The opponent then transfers it, with many- 
 ingenious combinations, on to his own fingers. 
 Something akin to this is effected with melodious 
 themes. 
 
 The selection and the synthesis of the above- 
 mentioned processes lead us to the highest forms of 
 composition : the motet, and then the fugue. 
 
 I give here the first bars of a motet by Vittoria 
 (sixteenth century), duo Seraphim clamabant* — 
 
 $ 
 
 t'T'^^^irr riri ^ 
 
 I ji^f^jJ^rrifjH^^ 
 
 * I confine myself to transposing one note higher (to continue 
 with our theme : Do, B4, Mi, Fa, Sol) this prelude, which is quoted 
 by M. Vincent d'Indy in his TraiU du Composition, I. (published 
 by Durand). 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 79 
 
 The given theme, rendered by the second soprano, 
 is associated with another melodious design (B), 
 formerly called Comes, or " Companion," which we 
 have, so to speak, by withdrawing from it its person- 
 ality, turned into the "accompaniment." In this case 
 the " companion " is a counter-subject. Then we 
 have a permutation ; the theme A passes to the 
 alto part No. 2 (and also to the superius No. 1), 
 and B is laid upon it. 
 
 All this leads us directly up to the fugue. 
 
 To conclude, and to show whither the motive 
 Do, Be, Mi, Fa, Sol may get to, I will quote 
 this exposition of one of Bach's fugues, in which 
 the subject — our own theme — is first heard alone, 
 and then repeated in the dominant (reply) — a 
 combination which is reproduqed immediately 
 after in the converse order — 
 
 ^W 
 
 ^s 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 a 
 
 f 
 
 m 
 
 rm 
 
 p-Jflnj!] 
 
80 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTJTIOI>r 
 
 § 6. The Methods of Counter-point ix Pure Melody 
 
 The forms just mentioned raise in the mind a 
 construction in space with high, medium, and 
 low parts. No doubt the modern composer no 
 longer writes canons, motets, and fugues. But he \ 
 shows when writing a simple melodious period that j 
 he has deeply assimilated these methods. We will 
 prove this by an example which will at the same time 
 enable us to point out new resources derived from 
 rhythm. 
 
 The elementary scheme of the melody is as 
 follows — 
 
 Having taken as a base a tonic (Do), there is 
 first a passage from the rest to the movement (Sol), 
 then a return of the movement to the rest (Do). 
 
 ^ ^j}J'J^J'J'J J J J j ' JVj ^ 
 
 A formula of this kind is much too short to ex- 
 haust the feeling or the muscular power of the 
 singer and to please an assembly of men ; instinc- 
 tively we are led either to link it with another 
 formula or to amplify it. It is easy to understand 
 that the first and the final part, having a function 
 regulated by a kind of law, it is neither before or 
 after, but rather between A and B, that new matter 
 
MUSICAL THOITGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 
 
 81 
 
 should be introduced. The use of this last process 
 leads us to the following Gregorian melody* — 
 
 A is the first outburst of the phrase, the departure, 
 the abandonment of the tonic ; B is the conclusion, 
 the melody folding its pinions, returning to the 
 tonic and to the pause. Between the two are two 
 interludes, a and a'. The number of these can be 
 far greater. See how far Beethoven goes. Instead 
 of writing — 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 B 
 
 he writes- 
 
 iJ III i| . u^jl^"^^ 
 
 * Oantate domino canticum novum. {Paroissien romain^ Edition 
 des B4n4dicHns de Solesmes, 1903, Preface.) 
 
82 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 if^fffY^ 
 
 This admirable period, composed of thirteen or 
 fourteen sections, calls forth two observations : 
 (1) It may be considered as an image, the image 
 of an energy which, after two preliminary efforts, re- 
 turns to the task, with heroic obstinacy, and seems 
 to attack the obstacle by a series of successive as- 
 saults after having wished to surmount it at one 
 bound, arrives at last at the summit, plants there a 
 flag of victory, and, after an unchallenged triumph, 
 returns to rest again. (2) To a musician it is a work 
 which requires no verbal interpretation ; it contains 
 within itself a very complete and clear sense, the 
 worth of which has no need of any commentary 
 in order to be understood. If this be so, these four 
 lines derive their specific interest from certain 
 methods of composition : inversion of a subject, 
 transposition, repetition, and imitation. 
 
 In a word, the methods of construction analysed 
 above are not special to scholastic exercises. We 
 meet with them again in the structure of a simple 
 melody. They are therefore an essential part of 
 the musical art. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 83 . 
 
 § 7. ElIYTHMIGAL OUGANIZATION AND TiMBllE 
 
 Wo will continue our researches in this matter of the 
 simple melody. We have a period. Let us designate 
 it by the letter A ; and its repetitions by A', A", 
 etc. We can now discover, in the order of pure 
 sequence, combinations as interesting as in the order 
 of simultaneity. 
 
 By combining (melodiously) a new idea with our 
 period, we shall obtain the scheme A, b. A', which, 
 developed, will become A, b, A', c. A", d, . . . a series 
 more or less extended, in which the important idea, 
 enriched with episodes, is repeated in the form of a 
 refrain. This form is that of the Rondo, which 
 is found not only in the compositions bearing 
 that name, but in most musical works, and has 
 diverse forms : the rondo in two parts (rhyth- 
 mical) : A, b, A' ; the rondo in three parts : A, b, 
 A', c, A" ; the rondo in four parts : A, b, A', c, A", 
 d, A'". By subjecting this scheme to certain modi- 
 fications, we obtain a last form of the rondo : A, b 
 (1st part), c (2nd part). A', h' (3rd part) (example, 
 in the finale of Beethoven's Pathetic Sonata). 
 
 These various forms lead to the Sonatina — then 
 to the Sonata, which has more amphtude, and more 
 suppleness and unity ; it forms the phrases by 
 means of several subjects, the periods by means 
 of several phrases, and the systems by means of 
 several periods. The sonata no longer juxtaposes, 
 it concatenates ; it gives hfe and movement to the 
 subjects by transposition ; finally, it replaces repe- 
 tition pure and simple by the ornate repetition or by 
 one limited to a typical fragment. Henceforth, in 
 
84 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 this association of organized melodies, each com- 
 ponent element derives its true value from the 
 whole and not from itself. 
 
 Certainly there are many other constructions 
 which, by researches and ingenuity, the musician 
 has finally adopted. But let us indicate at once 
 the last category of his resources : the timbres. 
 
 It is singular that the most immaterial of all the 
 arts, that most exempt from all tangible reality and 
 visual impressions, should have among its most 
 moving and essential qualities, that of colour. Colour 
 of what ? Of an object called forth by the mind ? 
 Consequently, a colour created by pure imagination ? 
 By no means. A colour unreal, and yet at the same 
 time directly perceived ; a colour of musical ideas ; 
 I would almost say, the colour of movement ! 
 Timbres, we know, may be employed as images ; but 
 that is only a secondary and casual function. Their 
 organization is the grouping, by famihes or in 
 " choruses," of wood, brass, and stringed instru- 
 ments. It is, by a new progress and by a supreme 
 creation of the musical mind, the inexhaustible 
 series of combinations which can be effected with 
 the elements of these groups. 
 
 § 8. Conclusion of this Analysis 
 
 The forms which have just been briefly indicated 
 were fixed (save as regards orchestration) in a 
 period of some duration, of which the points of 
 maturity are the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 In themselves they are somewhat dry. But within 
 these learned outHnes there soon appears an ele- 
 ment of life which at first they did not enclose — 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 85 
 
 thought, and with thought all the brilliant freedoms 
 which it allows. History permits us, at least, to 
 grasp this new fact as the particular case of a general 
 evolution in the arts of rhythm. A few analogies 
 will throw light on this part of our exposition. 
 
 Let us see what took place in French poetry 
 Before the seventeenth century, with some rare 
 exceptions, there were, above all, writers who, in 
 works at once pedantic and very useful, discovered 
 extraordinarily comphcated combinations of rhymes. 
 They made, indeed, a sort of verbal counter-point, 
 and what they created was versification. After them 
 come the Corneilles and the MoUeres, who certainly 
 did not invent poetry, but who profited by the 
 instrument handed down to them to express lofty 
 ideas and human sentiments. 
 
 The same law appears in the history of Eloquence. 
 Among the Greeks appeared first the rhetori- 
 cians, who discovered the period and taught the 
 subtle symmetries of grammatical constructions ; 
 they also are makers of verbal counter-point. After 
 them comes Demosthenes, who into this skeleton 
 infuses movement, fire and life. Among the 
 moderns, Balzac and Voiture precede Bossuet and 
 prepare the way for him. But all this is subject 
 to the reservation that neither poetry nor eloquence 
 is of recent invention. 
 
 Let us now examine the situation of the artist- 
 musician who has gone through all the formal work 
 of which we have given the characteristics, or 
 who gathers the fruits of this work done by his 
 predecessors and is writing, let us say, about the 
 middle of the eighteenth century. 
 
86 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 In the first place, apart from music, a long here- 
 dity has formed him for the game of abstrac- 
 tions. Unknown to himself, he profits by the 
 special education which theologians and philoso- 
 phers have conferred on the human mind from very 
 remote ages. If, in addition, he belongs to a race 
 which seems to have, as innate gifts, the taste for 
 abstruse speculations, the aptitude for searching 
 analysis, a leaning to reverie — if, finally, he have 
 that spark of talent which we cannot explain — 
 those forms of composition which his predecessors 
 have rendered supple and pohshed in so many ways 
 become familiar to him. He then exercises over 
 them an absolute mastery ; they are no longer an 
 ideal to be attained ; but they form the materials 
 of a language of which the use will henceforth be 
 quasi-instinctive. Finding them handy by reason 
 of their immateriality, his reason grasps them, re- 
 acts upon them, and puts into them something of 
 its own. The fugues of the Clavecin bien temper e 
 and the six Brandenburg Concertos of J. S. Bach may 
 be cited as the finest specimens of the power of ab- 
 straction arrived at by a composer. 
 
 No doubt the modern musician will in future 
 rarely compose canons and fugues ; but in a simple 
 phrase of eight bars he will insert a thought which 
 will be due to a long practice of fugues and canons. 
 
 This thought will be an act of the intelligence ; 
 it will also be an irresistible impulse of the senti- 
 ment, a revelation of the whole mental man. Bach 
 is already, in the words of Spitta, " the master of 
 free fancy." With Beethoven and his successors it 
 is not only the most lofty reason, it is the whole 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 87 
 
 dynamics of human passion which comes to 
 animate musical forms. 
 
 We have all of us experienced the following in 
 many exercises : a series of movements, hav- 
 ing for aim some direct purpose, is at first 
 painful to us, and we only effect them awkwardly 
 and slowly ; then, by use, the co-ordination of 
 these movements becomes a simple sport ; it 
 passes into the unconscious state and, instead 
 of absorbing our attention, allows other concomitant 
 exercises. Something analogous takes place in 
 the technique of the art. Music is at first a work 
 of mere form ; afterwards it becomes a work of 
 reason and of feeling. 
 
 In his Notes thedtrales Schumann passes the 
 following judgment on the Euryanthe of Weber : 
 "It is the very blood of his heart and the noblest 
 he has ; this opera has cost him a slice of his hfe." 
 Schumann also shows us plainly the assimilation 
 effected in thought, in feeHng, and in the lan- 
 guage of sounds when he writes to his fiancee : 
 " I have noticed that my fancy never has more 
 wings than on the days when my soul is strained 
 with desire. . . . These last days, when I was ex- 
 pecting your letter, I have composed bookfuls. 
 At this moment / shoidd like to hurst into music.'''' 
 
 The man who speaks like this — and this language 
 might be that of every true composer — is a perfect 
 artist, arrived at the final stage of the musical and 
 psychical state. He transposes his feelings ; by an 
 almost necessary consequence of their intensity and 
 their identification with the idea of a special art 
 which has permeated the whole of his mind he 
 
88 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 renders them objects, he dominates them, he thinks 
 them in the language of sounds, and in that manner 
 causes them to blossom into a lofty generahzation. 
 Let us not forget that the secret of his " intoxica- 
 tion," as Nietzsche would say, is that such a strength 
 of sentiment, of imagination, and of desire, by tear- 
 ing him away from the world of concepts to replace 
 him at first in the heart of nature, makes him dimly 
 aware of the link between him and universal Hfe. 
 At the same time the special language that he 
 wields appears to him a gage of perfect independ- 
 ence. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 MUSIC AND MAGIC 
 
 We have now established the following conclu- 
 sions — , 
 
 1st. Music cannot directly express a concrete, ' 
 reciprocal, and conscious passion, maintained, so 
 to speak, on the surface of the soul by exact con- 
 cepts. It expresses a power much more general and 
 deeper, only half conscious, perhaps identical with 
 the sources of life and of which what we call 
 passion — the passion of Othello for Desdemona, 
 or that of Berlioz for Henrietta Smithson — is only 
 a modality. 
 
 2nd. It employs a system of imagery which con- 
 stitutes a wholly special language, uninteUigible to 
 the merely literary man, but perfectly clear to the 
 musician. 
 
 3rd. The fusion of these two elements — the one 
 springing from sentiment, the other from intelli- 
 gence and technique — is effected by means of an act 
 which we call the musical thought, which is at once 
 the obscure primum movens and the briUiant result 
 of " the organization of images." This thought is , 
 the most specific thing in the musical art. < 
 
 As a soUd foundation for this definition a demon- 
 stration may be produced whose object will 
 seem paradoxical, but brings together facts well 
 
 89 
 
90 MT7SIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 worthy of attention, and allows the verification, in 
 a positive field, of ideas one would be tempted, 
 at first sight, to abandon disdainfully to an aesthe- 
 tics suspected of mysticism. I propose to prove 
 that at all times music has been considered and 
 cultivated as a work of original thought, distinct 
 from the verbal thought. In order not to stray over 
 the whole of history, I shall simply take two ex- 
 tremes which will allow me to include, in my con- 
 clusion, that which separates them. 
 
 1st. In the most musical country known to us, 
 and one where poetry, romanticism, composition, 
 and metaphysics are provinces with uncertain 
 limits — that is to say, in Germany — philosophers 
 and artists, though they do not use the phrase 
 " musical thought," have given of music a de- 
 finition which exceeds but includes our own. 
 
 2nd. The German conception of hausical art, in- 
 stead of being a peculiar view of the modern mind 
 arrived at the highest pinnacles of abstraction, is in 
 accord with the most remote origins of the history of 
 music, i.e. with the opinion of primitive folk. 
 
 Nothing can less resemble each other than a 
 Hegel or a Schopenhauer, in possession of a re- 
 fined culture, and primitive man, who, in the 
 anguish caused by ignorance, has recourse to magic 
 and incantations. Yet they have exactly the same 
 idea of the expressive power of song. All that is 
 wanted to make this resemblance manifest is for 
 the German sesthetes to found'schools of sorcery con- 
 ducted by musicians, and for primitive men to have 
 made known, in beautiful books, the theory of 
 their acts. 
 
MTTSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 91 
 
 § 1. German Oi'inions on Mrsic 
 
 The systems which I am now going to sum- 
 marize by characteristic quotations have sometimes 
 been, even in Germany, accused of extravagance. 
 They certainly deserve this reproach in the eyes of 
 any ope who, with regard to great problems, seeks 
 a doctrine capable of submitting to the proof of im- 
 mediate verification and of satisfying the rules of the 
 experimental method. But it is in quite another 
 spirit that they should be examined. In the affir- 
 mations of a Hegel or a Schopenhauer on the real 
 nature of the musical art, I see an historical fact 
 and not a matter for discussion — an object of science 
 and not a science itself. The great metaphysicians 
 should then be read rather as one listens to a 
 quartet of Beethoven : it is not to the ordinary 
 means of knowledge that they appeal. Truth 
 to say, all Germans are not of the same mind ; 
 but there is between them a striking family re- 
 semblance. 
 
 According to a remark of M. Bergson, the thinkers 
 of a given country and of a given age, even when 
 not of the same school, are more in agreement than 
 thinkers of the same school, but of different coun- 
 tries and epochs. 
 
 In the country of Handel, of Bach, and of Bee- 
 thoven the musician has been regarded as having 
 an autonomous artistic life : he is " gifted with a 
 special receptivity for the spiritual world, and is 
 capable of producing ideas without external soHcit- 
 ation." There has been applied to him the 
 definition which Novahs gave of philosophy : "It 
 
92 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 is the art of inventing, without any data whatever, 
 an art of absolute invention." And, again, the 
 saying of Fichte : " The ego is pure activity." 
 
 The cultivation of this state produces in the 
 musician " faith in the authentic revelations of the 
 mind : it is neither a seeing, nor a hearing, nor a 
 feeling ; it is a compound of all three — it is more 
 than the three united; it is an impression of im- 
 mediate certainty, an intuition, a glimpse of the 
 truest and inmost life." The manifest insufficiency 
 of the corporeal and terrestrial form to express and 
 organize the spirit which dwells within it, " such is 
 the obscure thought which causes us to Uve, which 
 becomes the foundation of all our thoughts." This 
 it is which forces us to admit a world of InteUig- 
 ibles, and an infinite series of expressions and of 
 organizations for each mind of which the actual 
 individuality is every time the expositor or the 
 root (Novalis). Every perceptible event instan- 
 taneously enlarges itself so far as our intelhgence 
 is concerned into the image of an eternal truth 
 so soon as it is reflected in the mirror of true 
 music. 
 
 When it is not as a connoisseur of counter-point 
 and of the various styles of the fugue, when, in 
 consequence, he has to try and make out the real 
 artistic substance of it, " the hearer ought to feel an 
 impression similar to the one he would feel if assist- 
 ing at the creation of the world by God " (Nietzsche). 
 
 Every activity which has the beautiful for its object 
 is a liberation, so that music does not express the 
 real feeUngs. On the contrary, it delivers us from 
 their incoherence and oppression, and allows us to 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 93 
 
 "raise the tomb-stone of the life of the passions" 
 (Hegel). 
 
 The opera is only a sorry alliance of music with 
 a false poetry and rude sketches of the plastic art ; 
 it is an invention for the use of non-musical minds 
 which are unable to enjoy music without tiiat 
 "thin broth," the erotic poetry of a hbretto (Scho- 
 penhauer). 
 
 Real music is the symphony. Wagner himseK, 
 who is considered an intensely descriptive composer, 
 writes to Mathilde Wesendonk : " Nothing catches 
 my eyes ; the objects, the scenes to which my eyes 
 are attracted, or might be attracted, might be the 
 greatest in the world, but do not amuse me and 
 are indifferent to me. My eyes now only serve me 
 to distinguish day from night, light from darkness. 
 It is really a death of the external world to me, and 
 of me to it. I only see internal images, which 
 try to realize themselves by sounds " (letter 
 dated Paris, 21 Dec, 1861) ; and, on another 
 occasion : " My poetical conceptions have always 
 been produced at such a distance from experience 
 that I must consider the whole moral formation of 
 my mind as caused by these conceptions. The 
 Flying Dutchman, Tannhduser, Lohengrin, The 
 Nieielungen, Wodan, all existed in my head before 
 I saw them in experience. . . . There ought to be in 
 us an internal sense which becomes clear and active 
 when all the other senses, directed outward, sleep 
 or dream. It is precisely when I no longer see 
 or hear anything distinctly that this sense is the 
 most active and appears before me as the pro- 
 ducer of calm ; I can give it no other term. Is this 
 
94 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLFTION 
 
 calm the same as the plastic calm ? I do not know ; 
 all I do know is that it acts from within to without, 
 and that through it I feel myself to be at the centre 
 of the world (letters date 19 Jan., 1859, and 1 Jan., 
 1860). 
 
 Music should not be written to words, a common- 
 place and low task ; it is to music that words should, 
 if possible, be written. 
 
 A stranger, as it is, to the visible world, music 
 enables us to penetrate into the moral world. It is 
 a universe without matter, a paradise of intimacy ; 
 its forms are the forms of eternal things — that is to 
 say, of the Ideas. " Pythagoras, speaking of the har- 
 mony of the spheres, did not say that the move- 
 ments of the heavenly bodies made an audible music, 
 but that it was itself a music ; which led Socrates to 
 say, very justly, that he alone was a true musician 
 who, from perceptible music, was able to raise him to 
 supra-sensible and intelligible music " (ScheUing). 
 Musical sound is the soul of things. Musical rhythm 
 is a necessary, not a chance, succession which cannot 
 be said to be subject to time, but itself contains 
 time. The musical Beautiful is a " divine being 
 perceived in a form adapted to our human con- 
 dition." 
 
 Music is made up of universals anterior to ex- 
 perience {universalia ante rem). When it is asso- 
 ciated with an action, it reveals to us the hidden 
 meaning of it, a deep and original principle, while 
 neglecting its exterior and actual form. It reaches 
 up to the universal force, to the Will which main- 
 tains aU things, and identifies itself with it. 
 
 The world is but a realized music (Schopenhauer). 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 95 
 
 When we listen to a symphony, we seem to see all 
 the feelings reduced to their pure state and dancing 
 for their personal pleasure an extraordinary ballet 
 of joy and hallucination {ibid.). 
 
 From the fact that music is an imitation of the 
 eternal laws of the world it follows that we have no 
 poet so great as Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, 
 beside all whom Goethe himself is a blinded pagan. 
 "In a kind of night these great composers ^behold 
 the Ideas " (Ferd. Krause). 
 
 As the soul of the world is to us a mystery, a 
 composer is forced to speak a language which is be- 
 yond him ; he resembles a somnambuhst permeated 
 with the magnetic fluid, informing us of matters of 
 which, in his waking state, he has no notion. 
 Finally, as music exists in the heart of things and 
 lives on their essence, it results that it has a hold on 
 all objects whatever (Schopenhauer). 
 
 Thus has music been characterized in the country 
 of Beethoven, Bach, and Handel ! 
 
 § 2. Pkimitive Folk and Musical Mahio 
 
 Again I repeat that I do not discuss these ideas. 
 I take them as an historical fact, and I note that 
 they are in agreement with what occurs at the other 
 end of civilization, quite in the " beginning " in the 
 sense of the word as used by historians. The 
 musical metaphysics of the Germans and primitive 
 magic are one and the same thing. 
 
 Primitive folk largely cultivated magic, which 
 took with them the place of science. If, in the oral 
 rites of magic, they first gave the most important 
 character , to certain chanted formulas, it was by 
 
96 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 virtue of an unconscious reasoning which we can 
 easily construct. 
 
 Primitive folk see on all sides moral forces and 
 passions, and hostile or benevolent spirits. To them 
 the sHghtest phenomenon represents a person or an 
 emotional state. In the roll of the thunder, in the 
 rising wave or the quivering tree, in sickness, in 
 famine or abundance, even in the mineral, there 
 is a somebody. Here we have the germ of that 
 poetry which Homer, Virgil, Lamartine were in after 
 times to set free. The old mythologies, in which 
 the early beliefs of man embodied themselves, are 
 a superabundant proof of this. 
 
 There must, therefore, be a close and direct re- 
 lationship between the power of music and natural 
 phenomena. 
 
 Since each of these phenomena is nothing else 
 but a semblance behind which is concealed a senti- 
 ment (anger, hatred, sympathy, jealousy, cruelty, 
 etc.), and, on the other hand, music has precisely 
 the characteristic of translating all that is most 
 general and most profound in this sentiment, does 
 it not follow that music has the power not only to 
 express nature, but to act on it ? The two privi- 
 leges — expression and ef5&cacious influence — ^go to- 
 gether. " Imitations effected by means of sounds," 
 say the Greeks, " conduce to action " ; and Aris- 
 totle suggested this explanation : " Rhythms and 
 melodious sequences are movements quite as much 
 as are actions." 
 
 Musical magic is the anticipated, dimly seen, in- 
 stinctive application of this doctrine : there js a 
 living soul in nature, and music can directly grasp it. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 97 
 
 Like the soul of nature, music is a breath, anima. 
 From this identity results the idea of a power 
 exercisable by like on like, which is one of the funda- 
 mental laws of magic rites. 
 
 At comparatively recent epochs we find these 
 ideas clearly formulated, and we have authority for 
 believing that they are but the echoes of very 
 ancient beliefs. 
 
 In the Li-Ki, or Memorial of Bites of the Chinese,— 
 we read as follows : " Music is intimately connected 
 with the essential relations of beings. Thus, to know 
 sounds, but not airs, is peculiar to birds and brute 
 beasts ; to know airs, but not music, is peculiar to 
 the common herd ; to the wise alone it is reserved 
 to understand music. That is why sounds are 
 studied to know airs, airs in order to know music, 
 and music to know how to rule." '^ 
 
 M. Maspero, in the study of an expression re- 
 lating to the importance of " the true voice " in 
 certain funeral ceremonies of ancient Egy^t, writes 
 as follows : " The value of this expression is easily 
 understood if one brings to mind the part that 
 magic Kas played in the East and the importance of 
 the voice in its operations. The human voice is 
 the instrument par excellence of the priest and of 
 the enchanter. It is the voice that seeks afar the 
 Invisibles summoned, and it makes the necessary 
 objects into reality. Every one of the sounds 
 it emits has a peculiar power which escapes the 
 notice of the common run of mortals, but which is 
 known to and made use of by the adepts. One 
 note irritates, appeases, or summons the spirits ; 
 another acts on the bodies. By combining the two 
 
98 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 are formed those melodies which the magicians in- 
 tone in the course of their evocations. But as every 
 one has its peculiar force, great care must be taken 
 not to change their order or substitute one for the 
 other. One would thus expose oneself to the greatest 
 misfortunes." * Very curious words ! Not only have 
 we from such facts a kind of actual transposition 
 of all that has been said above, but from them we 
 might even draw a doctrine concerning musical 
 execution. 
 
 A further analogy, which enables us to bring the 
 extremes in closer contact, is this : 
 
 We have dwelt on the point that music was a 
 special and separate language with an original 
 meaning, but one inaccessible to verbal analyses. 
 After observing this in a Schumann or a Beethoven, 
 we discover it among the two sets of primitive 
 folk that we know — the non-civilized or savages 
 of the present day, and the primitive folk at the 
 dawn of history. 
 
 1st. In his study of the Debuts de VArt, Grossev 
 notes the fact that in certain tribes the most cele- 
 brated songs are sung by people who do not under- 
 stand the words. For the poet, the words of the 
 song may very well have an independent significa- 
 tion ; for others they only have a value when 
 joined to a melody. " Often, in fact, the sense 
 of a song is sacrificed, without hesitation, to its / 
 form." 
 
 Many Australians, says Eyre, cannot teU you the 
 meaning of their own songs, and the explanations 
 
 * Maspero, Etudes de Mythologie ei d' ArcMoloqu Eqyptiennes, 
 T. I, p. 106. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 99 
 
 they offer are, in general, very incomplete, for they 
 accord more value to the prosody than to the 
 literary ideas. 
 
 Another author writes : " In all their corrobori 
 songs they repeat or transpose the words so as to 
 vary or preserve the rhythm ; their songs thus be- 
 come incomprehensible " (Barlow). 
 
 It is almost the same among the Mincopees ; 
 they endeavour, before all things, says Man, to keep 
 time ; in their songs, everything, even the sense, 
 is subordinate to rhythm. They take the greatest 
 liberties not only with the words, but with the 
 syntax. It happens, not infrequently, that the 
 author of a new song has to explain the meaning of 
 the words to his auditors. 
 
 Among the songs collected by Boas from the 
 Esquimaux there are five of which the text con 
 sists solely in a rhythmical repetition of an inter- 
 jection, devoid of sense. " This, therefore, forces 
 on us the conclusion that primitive logic, before 
 everything, offers a musical signification, and that 
 the poetical sense at times remains in the back- 
 ground " (Grosse). Thus Wagner tells us, in so 
 many words, that in Siegfried he wrote certain 
 melodies before he wrote the words. 
 
 This is in agreement with two other groups of 
 facts' noted by us — 
 
 1st. Among the non-civilized of the present day 
 there exists a language, almost rudimentary, in 
 which the words do not attach themselves to con- 
 cepts, but have a very various sense, general and 
 at the same time precise, so much so that behind 
 them there seems to appear the sentiment of the 
 
100 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 unity which Hnks together a number of things. 
 Among the Hurons, the word orenda designates song, 
 prayer, the formula of incantation, and the power 
 attributed to it ; but, say MM. Hubert and Maus, 
 dweUing on this point, " there is nothing in nature, 
 and, more especially, no animated being, which has 
 not its orenda. The gods, the spirits, men, beasts 
 possess orendas. Natural phenomena are produced 
 by the orenda of the spirits of these phenomena," etc. 
 The words mana in the Melanesian languages, deng 
 in French Indo-China, etc., etc., are used in a like 
 manner. 
 
 2nd. The formulas of incantation made known to 
 us by the magic papyri are not accompanied by 
 music,* for the MSS. go back to a period when these 
 formulas were simply recited instead of sung, and 
 when, moreover, they were only preserved by oral 
 tradition. I put, when closely examined, by studjdng 
 the combinations of sounds which they comprise, 
 it becomes impossible not to attribute a musical 
 character to them in the technical sense of the 
 wordU 
 
 U Nearly all imply first the observance of a rhythm. 
 One must not only invoke such and such spirit ; it 
 must be named tbreejimes, for example.'/ 
 
 Then I find in these successions of uncouth words 
 musical processes : repetition of sounds ; imitation 
 (or approximative repetition), inversion, or retro- 
 version of a series of vowels ; development (repe- 
 
 * A French author, If I recollect rightly, M. RueUe, once 
 argued that the " boneless strings of vowels " to be found in the 
 spells of the Magic Papyri of Greco-Roman and Christian Egypt 
 were musical notes — a theory for which there is much to be 
 said. — Ed. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 101 
 
 tition, with variations of a given sonority) ; rhap- 
 sody, or Unking together of different and un- 
 developed themes. We must not, no doubt, ex- 
 aggerate the importance of these grimoires ; still, 
 I am not far from believing that there is in them 
 a residue of primitive music, a^dead song fixed by 
 .writing and a kind of " congealed music." 
 
 Cato the elder {De re rustica, 161) prescribes, to 
 cure a broken limb, the singing of the following 
 formula : " huat, hanat huat, ista pisia sista, 
 domiabo damnaustra." Even had not Cato, to in- 
 dicate this recipe, used the word cantio, showing 
 that it was originally sung, I could not avoid 
 seeing therein alliterations, combinations, and re- 
 frains having something musical in them. Those 
 who have read in the German text the opera 
 libretti of R. Wagner will not, I hope, be astonished 
 at this observation. 
 
 § 3. The Magic Chant 
 
 The belief in the efficacy of musical magic is one of 
 the most important facts in the history of all 
 civilizations, and there are perhaps none on which 
 we have such ample information. The first weapon 
 — offensive and defensive — of magic was the 
 chantj 
 
 In these days we go to the Opera or to a concert 
 to enjoy a pleasure without self-interest ; above all, 
 for amusement, for a momentary oblivion of prac- 
 tical life, its miseries or its cares. ■ But our modern 
 vocal music, with tendencies entirely sesthetic, 
 suggests that before it there was quite another one 
 with practical tendencies! 
 
102 MTTSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 I [The first singers were not artists who appealed 
 to the imagination of a chosen few, but experts 
 whom the individual or the social group called in 
 on all occasions of difficulty* recourse was had to 
 them as nowadays to the engineer, to the surgeon, 
 to the doctor, or as in the days of the Renaissance 
 one had recourse to the professional bravo. The 
 I chant was used to bring rain or sunshine, to over- 
 ly come the antipathy of the woman one loved, to 
 disarm a dreaded enemy, to bring forth abundance 
 or famine, to cure the sick or to, slay. 
 
 Jeanne d'Albret, before giving birth to the future 
 Henry IV, sang, at the request of her father, a song 
 of her native Beam, which we still have, with the 
 supposed object of preventing her from " having a 
 squalling child." 
 
 In these days we content ourselves with sajdng 
 that such a singer has much. "charm" without 
 attaching much importance to this word ; in former 
 times the " charm " was a melody capable, accord- 
 ing to a tenacious superstition, of changing the 
 visible phenomena of nature : it was the carmen 
 of the Latins, the aoi8ri of the Greeks, the Zammaru 
 formula of the Assyrian. 
 
 In the XlXth Book of the Odyssey (v. 457) 
 Homer speaks of the sons of Autolycus staying, by 
 the power of a magic song, the blood flowing from 
 the wound of Ulysses ; and we know, by a great 
 number of testimonies, that primitive healing was 
 founded on the use of incantation. 
 
 Theocritus and Virgil have left us celebrated 
 documents on the use of chants to inspire love. 
 
 The legislator had frequently to step in — as the 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 103 
 
 Church itself did in the Middle Ages — to forbid 
 certain chants and to prevent the formidable abuses j 
 which they thought might occur with such weapons./ 
 The enumeration of the facts which might be 
 quoted would fill a large volume, and belong to 
 history. I must refrain from quoting them here, 
 but will merely add that, in addition to the in- 
 formation gathered from philology, we have two 
 other sources for the study of this subject — the 
 sculptured monuments and popular legends. 
 
 Every one knows, the legend of the great musician 
 Orpheus, native of Thrace, a coimtry which the 
 ancients considered the classic land of magic. His 
 life is merely a picture pf the irresistible effects 
 of harmony. At the sound of his lyre the animated 
 rocks of the Symplegades, which threatened to 
 break up the ship Argo, are stayed and become 
 immovable ; the dragon of Colchis, the guardian 
 of the Golden Fleece, becomes harmless ; HeU 
 itself is moved and surrenders Eurydice. There 
 is extant a representation of him, lyre in hand, 
 seated on a lion couchant. Having on his right a 
 bird and a quadruped listening. A group" in the 
 Musee Guimet* shows us the Hindu Orpheus : it is 
 Krishna-Govinda tending the flocks of Nanda, a sort 
 of Apollo in the home of Admetus. While he plays 
 the flute, the animals are grouped round him in 
 comical attitudes of wonder and tenderness. The 
 Finns have Ukewise their Orpheus : Wainomoinen. 
 
 As to the number of popular legends which 
 testify to the magic power primitively ascribed to 
 
 * Musee Guimet, l^re salle, galerie d'J6na, Paris. 
 
104 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 song, it is very great. An Englishman, Engel, has 
 made a whole volume by collecting a small part of 
 this very interesting folklore. I will quote but 
 one example. 
 
 There were amongst the Hindus songs (Rags) 
 over each of which a god representing a season 
 presided : the wet, cold, mild, or hot season ; the 
 rainy season, the " rupture," or end of the rains. 
 These Rags could only be sung in the season to 
 which they corresponded, under the penalty of 
 bringing about a sudden disturbance in the order 
 of the seasons. There were also songs for the day 
 and songs for the night. 
 
 A contemporary of the Emperor Akbar, having 
 attempted to sing one of the latter in broad day- 
 light, darkness immediately fell on the radius 
 corresponding to the range of his voice. 
 
 Another Rag was called " the burner or the 
 inflamer " ; he who attempted to sing it, except 
 under certain conditions, suffered death by fire. The 
 Emperor Akbar, either from cruelty or scepticism, 
 one day commanded the celebrated musician Naiq 
 Gopaul to sing this Rag. Gopaul, after vainly seek- 
 ing an excuse, bids farewell to his wife, then, pro- 
 fiting by a moment's liberty, plunges up to his neck 
 in the river Jumna. Scarcely has he uttered two 
 notes when the water commences to boil, and the 
 sufferings of the poor singer become intolerable. He 
 implores mercy, but the Emperor will be obeyed. 
 Gopaul resumes his song, flames issue from his 
 body, and, though in deep water, he is reduced to 
 a'jhes. . . . 
 
MtTSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 105 
 
 § 4. The Identity of Pkimitive axd Modehn Ideas of Music 
 
 What a strange history is that of music ! Every- 
 where, in all ages, one sees in it something 
 mysterious and inexplicable which places it out- 
 side the other forms of human activity. At 
 the present time even, when we caU to our aid all 
 the resources of our " sciences," we are unable to 
 explain clearly what it is that moves us when we 
 listen to a beautiful air of eight bars ; and the 
 modern mind, though freed from many supersti- 
 tions, is often obliged to speak the same language 
 as that of primitive folk. 
 
 Our operas, and the whole of our rehgious music, 
 may be considered as a survival of magic. When 
 Siegfried, while forging his sword, sings and enu- 
 merates the qualities of the blade, when Jeannette^ 
 as she sews, says, " Cours, mon aiguille, dans ta laine, 
 etc.," they are performing acts reduced to mean- 
 ingless symbols without efficacy, but imitated from 
 ancient magic. Lastly, we see how the two extremes 
 of history link themselves together. 
 
 What do we discover in the very beginning of 
 musical history ? Myths, ascribing to music divine 
 origins and incantations. Now, this is how the 
 greatest musician of yesterday expresses himseK — 
 
 " The power of the composer," says Richard 
 Wagner, " is nought else than that of the magician. 
 It is reaUy in a state of enchantment that we listen 
 to one of Beethoven's symphonies." * Is this the 
 brilliant epigram of a writer, such as we often find 
 in musical criticism ? No ; rather it is the phrase 
 
 * Gesamn. Schriften unci Dlcht., IX, 80. 
 
106 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 of an artist, a philosopher, and an historian all 
 in one. 
 
 Wagner proceeds to develop his thought in the 
 German style, with rather complicated but clear 
 metaphysics, which are not without recalling the 
 platonic myth of the cave-dweller. 
 
 " Till now we were gazing, in broad daylight," 
 he adds, " on a painted and transparent image ; 
 and here is Beethoven, in the silence of night, 
 placing this image between the world of appear- 
 ances and the internal being of nature ; and it is 
 from the essence of things that he draws that light 
 which gives its transparency to the image. Thus, by 
 a kind of miracle, the image becomes a Hving one ; 
 before us stands out a second world, of which the 
 greatest masterpiece of a Raphael could not give 
 us any idea " (ibid.). 
 
 This, stated more simply, signifies that the 
 painter presents to us entirely superficial images ; 
 the musician, even when we have closed our eyes 
 " in the silence of night," puts us in direct relation 
 with the true reality, with the internal soul, with 
 the essence and the inner substance of things. And 
 here we are in full magic ! The images of the 
 painter are dead and cold ; those of the composer 
 share in the universal and hidden life which up- 
 holds the world. Instinctively man believes that 
 music expresses aU that is deepest in living beings 
 or in things ; he sees in music an imitative art. 
 
 "At an age when painting and sculpture did not 
 yet exist) poets were painters," says Langlois.* 
 
 * L. Langlois, Miff-Veda ou Livre des Hymnes (1848, T. I, 
 Intr. vii). 
 
MtrSICAL THOUGHT AND PSYCHOLOGY 107 
 
 We may add that the primitive poet was a singer ; 
 this relation of expression and imitation he trans- 
 forms into a relation of identity, and from the 
 belief in this identity he at once conjures up the 
 idea of a power all-powerful to sway natural phe- 
 nomena, and sentiments and acts of living beings. 
 
 I do not say that all this is true. But these 
 are the beUefs which were held by primitive man, 
 and which the most civilized men have taken up 
 again under other forms. 
 
 § 5. Conclusions of the FinsT Part 
 
 The conclusions to which this first part of our 
 studies brings us may be summed up as follows — 
 
 1st. Music — a_synthesk_of sounds which must 
 not be confused with purely sonorous phenomena — 
 has a meaning untranslatable into verbal language ; 
 it is formed by a thought without concepts, rhyth- 
 mically constructed, of which we cannot anywhere 
 find the equivalent. 
 
 2nd. It only translates emotions indirectly and 
 by means of images organized in accordance with 
 its proper technique. 
 
 3rd. The only thing it is able to imitate or 
 reproduce directly in passion is its dynamics ; 
 the power of expression which we attribute to it 
 is founded on the following principle : Every move- 
 ment represents to us the cause which produced it. 
 
 4th. Primitive folk and the non-civihzed races of 
 to-day, in their magical operations, and, after them, 
 the greatest philosophers and composers in Ger- 
 many, have attributed to music a supernatural 
 power which seems due to two causes : first to the 
 
108 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 absolutely special character, unique, and isolated 
 in the internal life, of musical thought ; then to 
 the lofty generality of this emotional dynamics, 
 which is not that of a certain given emotion, but 
 that of hfe itself. 
 
 5th. It is likewise true to say that music is a 
 superior act of the intelligence and springs from the 
 depths of feeUng. As a matter of fact, emotion 
 and thought are not clearly distinguishable. 
 
 We have thus ended the first part of our pro- 
 gramme. We have defined music. We have now 
 to explain it, to say whence it came, and how it 
 came to be formed. As I said at the very begin- 
 ning, it is, above all, the origins of the musical art 
 and the rules of its use that are here in question. 
 
SECOND PART 
 MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 APPARENT ANTINOMY — THE MELODIOUS ELEMENTS 
 OE THE MUSICAL ART 
 
 It frequently happens in the course of a conversa- 
 tion that two persons have at the same time the 
 same idea, expressly or tacitly attached to identical 
 terms : "I was just thinking of that " — " It is 
 exactly what I was about to say." If such ex- 
 clamations as these often occur between friends, it 
 is because these persons belong to the same social 
 group, which, by community of education, of 
 manners, of speech, and of many habits, sometimes 
 compels them to use the same manner of thinking 
 and speaking. 
 
 Never, in music, does a phenomenon of this kind 
 occur. Never is any melodious formula discovered 
 simultaneously by two musicians. 
 
 It also happens sometimes that a somewhat 
 extended group — a crowd — has the same thought 
 and translates it by identical words. Needless to 
 say in such cases it is in the social and not in the 
 
 109 
 
110 MXJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 individual life that an explanation of this must be 
 sought. 
 
 Nothing analogous to this is ever found in music. 
 
 We are constantly talking of the songs of the 
 people, and we mean by that collective works ; 
 this is merely an illusion. A thousand or a hundred 
 persons may, by combined action, build a pyramid 
 or carry to a distance an enormous piece of rock, 
 cut down a giant tree, hunt and capture a mon- 
 strous animal, or found a religion, a government, 
 or a literature. But they are incapable of creat- 
 ing an air of four bars like Au clair de la lune, or 
 Marlborough s'en va-f-en guerre. For a work of 
 this kind two persons are one too many. 
 
 The songs of the people are simply works which 
 have become anonymous ; the people, in its collec- 
 tive form, is, above aU, from the musical point of 
 view, an agent of deformation. Nothing is easier 
 than to give a practical proof of this. There exist 
 to-day songs which, after having been applauded in 
 the music-halls of Paris, have spread over France, 
 Europe, and the universe. Every one knows them, 
 but how many persons can say who wrote them ? 
 In twenty years — unless they pass away — they will 
 be " popular." In the second place, the tunes are 
 no longer the same as before ; passing through so 
 many lips and so many instruments, they have 
 become modified and altered, sometimes by the 
 suppression of notes, sometimes by additions. 
 
 The old songs are in the same case. Listen to a 
 popular air in one of our provincial villages ; ten 
 leagues away you will come across it again, but 
 with variations. 
 
MTJSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 111 
 
 As will be seen, this study of the relations be- 
 tween music and social life starts with important 
 reservations. It is, however, impossible a priori 
 that there should not be a connection between one 
 and the other ; especially if we apply ourselves to 
 the study of the elements of the musical thought, 
 its modalities, and its evolution. In any case, 
 this is a difficult problem. Let us defer the exami- 
 nation of it. For the present, let us observe and 
 classify facts ; we will later on endeavour to recon- 
 cile them. 
 
 If the mass collectively does not create, it can 
 furnish all the materials necessary for musical 
 creation. 
 
 We need hardly recall that we understand by a 
 " sociological fact " one that supposes the exist- 
 ence of a society and exercises a restraint on indi- 
 vidual activity. For example, the language and 
 the caligraphic signs I am using at the present 
 moment to express my thoughts are not the work 
 of one man, but of a group of men, and I cannot 
 help using them. There is in the collective mass 
 around me a principle of force, most often unper- 
 ceived and concealed — as, perhaps, is the water to 
 the fish swimming in it — which, in manifold forms, 
 fashions and feeds my intelHgence, and rules or 
 directs my will. 
 
 What does music owe to the social life ? 
 
 All music is the working up of the following 
 materials : (1) intervals ; (2) consonances and dis- 
 sonances ; (3) scales and modes ; (4) time ; (5) 
 rhythm ; and (6) melody. This, then, is the pro- 
 gramme we must rapidly run through. 
 
112 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 § 1. Perfect Consonances : the Octave and the Fifth 
 
 A classification which goes back to the first 
 theories before the Christian era, and still figures 
 at the present day in treatises on harmony, places 
 in the rank of perfect consonances the octave 
 and the double octave, the fifth and, by transfer 
 to the higher octave, the twelfth ; in the rank of 
 imperfect consonances, the third and the sixth ; and 
 in the rank of mixed consonances, the fourth. 
 
 '/The notion of the interval of eight, or octave, 
 may practically have been drawn from the fact 
 which is at the basis of all society : the physio- 
 logical difference between man and woman]' When 
 men and women sing the same tune there is 
 always the interval of an eighth between their 
 voices, although they appear to be in unison. Chil- 
 dren also sing an octave higher than men. This is 
 what the Greeks termed the " antiphony." / This 
 consonance has been dubbed " perfect " because it 
 produces an apparent unison/ 
 
 /The sociological fact par excellence is language. 
 Now, all theorists are agreed in acknowledging 
 that the interval which appears most frequently in 
 the inflections of ordinary speech is the interval of 
 the fifth. It is that which the voice has covered at 
 the end of an interrogative phrase (Helmholtz 
 himself noted this fact on the staff of five lines) ; 
 that is to say, of an expressive form which ought 
 to be primordial since it translates a need. The 
 Greeks have been the first artisans of our musical 
 theory, and have made the fifth the pivot of 
 music ; perhaps we may be allowed to recall that, 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 113 
 
 like all Southerners, they were very demonstrative 
 and fine speakers. The apparent meagreness of 
 their primitive lyre, formed of a few intervals of the 
 fifth assembled in the same octave, has been ex- 
 plained by saying that this system was no doubt 
 appropriate to a chant founded on declama- 
 tion. 
 
 Once declared perfect by the Greeks, these con- 
 sonances were accepted as such by the Middle 
 Ages, which, in musical as in many other matters, 
 believed that it was the continuator of Grecian 
 antiquity and had the superstition of its theorists/ 
 
 In the 'ninth century Aurelien de Reome thought 
 to put himself above aU criticism by writing : 
 " Those who do not approve of my ideas, or imagine 
 that they discover errors among them, should know 
 that all the distinctions here mentioned, as weU as 
 the musical discipline as a whole, are from Greek 
 sources." * The consequences of this fidehty to 
 tradition were serious. For more than ten centuries 
 the theory of music has been dominated, even 
 tyrannized over, and stayed and impeded by the 
 part attributed to these two intervals : the octave 
 and the fifth. Even when one wished to write 
 counter-point, one felt obliged to remain faithful 
 to the old rule. 
 
 A theorist who died at the beginning of the 
 tenth century (in 915), Reginon, quotes a passage 
 from Martianus Capella, where it is said that "in 
 the sacred grove of Apollo the trees repeat the 
 melodies of the gods ; the highest and the lowest 
 branches sing in octaves ; the middle branches are 
 
 * Quoted by Gevaert, La Milopie antique, p. 106. 
 
114 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 at the degree which divides the octave into a fifth 
 and a fourth." 
 
 The fifth certainly plays a capital part in music, 
 as is indicated by the name of the dominant given 
 to it by Rameau. It is the basis of the accord 
 between the instruments and modulation. Upon 
 it are founded the theories of the authentic and of 
 plagal modes. " To first of all learn what the fifth 
 and double " (that is to say, the octave) * are was 
 the first duty of the contrapuntists from before the 
 thirteenth century. 
 
 § 2. Mixed Consonancb : The Fourth 
 
 /It has been noticed that if an interrogative phrase 
 ended on an ascending interval of the fifth, the reply 
 usually terminated on a descending interval of the 
 fourth. 
 
 It may also be said that the interval of the fifth, 
 being given in the space of an octave, that of the 
 fourth naturally occurs as the complement of the 
 former. We must add that the excess of the fifth 
 over the fourth gives the interval of tone which is 
 the basis of the diatonic system. 
 
 One of the most characteristic facts in the his- 
 tory of musical theory is that the intervals of the 
 octave, the fifth, and the fourth should have so 
 long been used in part music to the exclusion of 
 the third, which at the present day seems so natmral 
 to us. To the question of knowing how a given 
 tune should be accompanied so as to produce 
 harmony, every one in the Middle Ages answered 
 
 * Text copied from a series of notes in the popular language at 
 the foot of the pages of a manuscript of the Bibl. Nat. (Fonds latin, 
 1539, p. 269). 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 115 
 
 by the Greek classification of consonances, em- 
 ploying solely those which -were reputed " perfect." 
 To find the true formula of the principle of harmony 
 as we understand it to-day — that is to say, the real 
 notion of the third and its role — we must hark 
 back to the Institutions of the Venetian Zarlino, , 
 published in 1558. Practically, it is in the middle i 
 of the fourteenth century that we can fix the 
 abandonment of the old routines (the parallel pro- 
 gressions of the fifths and the fourths), and that the\ - 
 third (at first considered as a doubtful consonance) ^ 
 received full justice and only tolerated "when 
 space failed "or by way of " hcence " {ahusivum 
 organum). 
 
 This change, as M. Gevaert says in his Traite 
 d'Harmonie, is Uke a great beacon shining after 
 centuries of gropiag in the dark. What produced 
 it? 
 
 § 3. The Omgiks op Thikds 
 
 According to a very fascinating hypothesis of 
 M. Hugo Riemann (Histoire de la Theorie musicale), \ 
 it is towards the Northern nations that we must ' 
 now turn our attention. 
 
 A twelfth century writer, Gerald de Barri,f de- , 
 scribing Wales, speaks of the musical quaUties of | 
 the English at a date much earher than the period 
 at which he writes, and gives us some curious in- 
 formation. He first tells us that the English do 
 not sing in unison, but in several parts, " so that 
 there are as many different voices and sounds as 
 there are singers." Then he adds these important 
 
 t Better known to English readers as Giraldus Carabrensis. 
 —Ed. 
 
Ji 
 
 116 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 statements : " The English _ who dwell in this 
 country (the regions of North Britain beyond 
 the Humber) have not reached this special practice 
 by art — read for this, science. — but by following 
 customs of very ancient date, which in time have 
 become a second nature."/' Polyphony is "instinctive 
 with them ; ,the very children, marvellous to relate, 
 practise it.'''/ 
 
 An English writer who taught at Oxford in the 
 (thirteenth century, and whose writings are earlier 
 I than 1275, informs us, on the other hand, that 
 in his time the use of the third in -England was 
 considered ancient, and that his countrymen put 
 practice before theory. He himself declares that 
 the slight difference which calculation shows to 
 exist between certain intervals may be neglected. 
 Finally, Walter Odington is the first to mention 
 the perfect chord (with doubling of the tonic in 
 the octave) : 64, 81 (for 80), 96, 128=4, 5, 6, 8 
 ^Bo, Mi, Sol, Do. 
 
 With these two pieces of information let us 
 compare the very beautiful and celebrated English 
 polyphonic composition of the thirteenth century : 
 Summer is icumen in. This delightful madrigal 
 can no longer be, as it has hitherto been, a source 
 of astonishment and an inexplicable and isolated 
 work ; it owes, in fact, its excellent harmony, not- 
 withstanding a few consecutive fifths, precisely to 
 the use of thirds and sixths. 
 
 From this group of facts it would appear that 
 the rectified notion and use of the third, without 
 which the musical system would nowadays seem 
 incomprehensible to us, must have come from the 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 117 
 
 North to complete and finish the ancient tradition 
 which had too long been sterile. There would thus 
 seem to be two sources from which modern har- 
 mony has sprung : the one Southern and Greek, 
 the other Northern. Gerald de Barri, in fact, 
 declares that it is probably from the Danes and 
 Scandinavians that the musical quahties of the 
 English are derived. The first has given rise to a 
 current which may be called that of oratorical 
 music, borrowing its essential intervals from the 
 inflections of spoken language, and, in addition to 
 this, charged with the Pythagorean speculations ; 
 the second is the free development of a natural 
 and general instinct in nations who were strangers 
 to the scientific theorj// The one has long imposed 
 on us the exclusive use of the octave, the fifth, 
 and the fourth ; to the other we owe the third. 
 /"From the union of these two currents in the 
 Institutions of Zarhno, in 1558, our musical system 
 has issued^y 
 
 § 4. Genekal Remarks on the Intekvals 
 
 From the classification of the intervals rules have 
 been drawn up fixing the somewhat narrow limits 
 in which the contrapuntist works, when engaged 
 in making several melodies go together. Before, 
 during, and after the Renaissance these rules 
 have been numerous and strict, and we must 
 give an explanation of them. They restrict the 
 musician to the exclusive use of consonances ; they 
 forbid him certain intervals, either altogether or 
 outside the first and last bar, or, again, when he 
 would use them more than thrice running ; they 
 
118 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 proscribe " alterations," and with them all com- 
 binations which might imply a dissonance ; and 
 they go so far as to fix the movement of the 
 melody, i.e., the modulations. 
 
 The principle and aim of aU these rules is the 
 pleasure to the ear. 
 
 Whose ear ? That of the composer ? Certainly 
 not, since he is not /ree, and, if he were, there 
 would be, on the same point of doctrine, as many 
 rules as there are musicians. 
 
 ' It is evidently a question here of the ordinary ear, 
 the ear of every one, the structure of which regu- 
 lates the average impressions whence are derived 
 the general rules forced upon the individual. 
 Hence the composer finds himself in a situation 
 analogous to that of the writer, who is bound down 
 by a language which he did not create but is 
 obliged to respect under the penalty of being un- 
 intelhgible. No doubt he can modify it, but only 
 to a partial extent, and never abruptly through an 
 act of purely individual fantasy. In music, as in i 
 literature, there is no organic change excepting ''\ ^ 
 where an innovation has obtained the approval and I 
 sanction of the community. 
 
 The idea of " alteration," which plays so large a 
 part in musical grammar, is very conventional, 
 since, in reality, there are no "altered" sounds, 
 but merely periodical vibrations, differing one from 
 the other by their number per second. It is im- 
 possible in this to find any raison d^etre other than 
 in the instinctive demands of the ordinary ear, 
 which, receiving the impression of an interval, at 
 times remembers or expects an interval smaller or 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 119 
 
 greater by a semi-tone. As we shall see later on, 
 everything is done in music by attraction or in- 
 hibition. 
 
 § 5. The Scale 
 
 The scale — a series of sounds comprised between 
 one note and its octave — is but a systematization 
 of the intervals above-mentioned ; that which is 
 true of consonances, from the sociological point of 
 view, is likewise so for the scale. 
 
 The musical scale, reduced to such a few notes 
 when it might well contain a very large number, is 
 an entirely subjective creation of musicians, and yet 
 a fact which may be termed " natural," because it 
 is the work of a collective instinct subjected to 
 common physiological conditions. A sound con- 
 stituted like the normal La {La^, by 435 vibrations 
 per second, has for its octave a sound which is con- 
 stituted by twice as many vibrations in the same 
 time, or 870 ; the following octaves are produced 
 by 1740 vibrations, 3480, and so on. . . . There is, 
 therefore, from a tonic to its octave hundreds, and 
 even thousands, of possible sounds, regularly utiliz- 
 able. Yet we only acknowledge seven, which, with 
 the subdivision of certain degrees, give us in all 
 twelve sounds. There are two explanations of this 
 fact. 
 
 The first is that the ordinary ear is incapable of] 
 discerning too small intervals. We hear talk of 
 very practised musicians who could easily dis- 
 tinguish and reproduce by their voice fourths and 
 sixths of a tone, and even more. We only have 
 to observe a great violinist tuning his instrument, 
 or rectifying it in the course of a piece, to note that 
 
120 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 his ear is sensitive to sounds of extreme delicacy. 
 But -these are individual cases, and it is exactly for 
 that reason they have not given birth to the 
 rational and logical system which they might have 
 produced. 
 
 The system which has triumphed is certainly very 
 defective in the eyes of a scholar, and we should 
 condemn it did not so many masterpieces bHnd 
 us to its constitutional viciousness ; its triumph is 
 due to what pure theory calls routine, and what 
 the sociologist might call the tyrannic influence of 
 collectivity ; it is due to the state of the ordinary i 
 ear which is not that of the virtuoso but of people 
 with limited powers, incapable of receiving very I 
 minute impressions and imposing their way of 
 feehng upon the artists who, all said and done, 
 work for them. 
 
 The ancients, it is true, introduced into their 
 scales intervals much smaller than ours ; but from 
 an assertion contained in a treatise, we must not j 
 always assume the existence of an actual usage. ' 
 Thus the most musical of the learned Greeks, Aris- 
 totle, declared that the quarter tone placed between 
 a Mi and a Fa (the enharmonic rise) could not be 
 determined and escaped the musical sense ; and he 
 acknowledged that two rises, differing in numerical 
 relation, were practically equal to the ear. We 
 know the trouble M. Bourgault-Ducoudray has had 
 m obtaining, in the East, the correct intonation of 
 intervals smaller than our semi-tone. M. Gevaert 
 has said rightly that this should give no cause for 
 astonishment, the ordinary ear only accepting what 
 has been termed " the universal diatonic." 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LITE 121 
 
 The second explanation is that the organization 
 of the scale has no other principle and no other 
 aim than the following : — to form, with a sound 
 arbitrarily selected (tonic) and some of the sounds 
 included in its octave, such relations as may pro- 
 duce those consonances which we have already 
 mentioned, and which the ordinary musical intelU- 
 gence considers as the easiest to grasp because they 
 are the most agreeable. This principle once applied 
 to the space comprised between two limits Hke 435 
 and 870 vibrations, it was naturally extended to 
 each division of the whole field of sounds available 
 for the art, and thus grew up our musical system, ' 
 which in great measure is only justifiable by reasons / 
 of a social order. 
 
 We shall fortify this point of view, which reduces 
 the scale to the consonances, if we add that, in 
 reahty, there only exist in music intervals consonant 
 or non-consonant, and that the scale is a theoretical | 
 fiction. 
 
 The scale has no more existence than has the 
 " root " in the words of verbal language. It no- 
 where appears in the most ancient creations of 
 popular genius. It is a system deduced from the 
 analysis of a work ; and it is not a fact of observa- 
 tion which can be isolated in the examination of a 
 given melody. 
 
 Historically speaking, the scale is primarily what 
 we call to-day a product of the laboratory or of the 
 study, the creation of a Pythagoras or of a Ptolemy ;i 
 according to these scholars it remains a bookish and 
 pedagogic thing, and a handy means of exposition 
 for purposes of tuition. Mozart, in the scene with 
 
122 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLtTTION 
 
 the Commander in Don Juan, Beethoven, at the 
 commencement of his first Piano Concerto, wrote, 
 no doubt, for the instruments melodious sequences 
 which may be called " scales " ; but such works 
 belong to a period when the theories of the schools 
 made their influence on the genius of the masters 
 to be felt. 
 
 Primitively one sings, and nothing more ; now, ^ 
 there are no scales in the chant in unison or in part ' ' 
 singing. At the present day the pupil who is 
 " practising his scales," on the ivory notes or on 
 strings, is devoting himself to an exercise useful 
 for giving agility to his fingers, but he is without 
 the pale of real music. 
 
 § 6. The Majoii Mode 
 
 The same remarks might apply to the modes ; 
 that is to say, the various ways' in which there can 
 be established in a scale the succession of intervals 
 of tones and semi-tones. 
 
 We must once for all take into account that \ 
 the order in which musical theory presents the \/ 
 facts is precisely the converse of the historical and 
 real order. At the present day, when we study music 
 we begin by what is as it were the first compulsory 
 chapter of the grammar ; we learn first what a scale 
 and a mode are, and afterwards we pass on to the 
 melody. But the artists, known or unknown, who 
 created music were ignorant of this scholastic 
 process. They made melody at the outset, arriving i 
 at once at what is to us the crowning point of I " 
 a sufficiently long study. In singing they had not I 
 the slightest idea as to what a mode was, any ' 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 123 
 
 more than Homer, his contemporaries and pre- 
 I decessors, when making poetry knew of the twenty- 
 four letters of the alphabet or the mechanism of 
 the conjugation of the verb. 
 
 Later on appeared the theorists, the men of the 
 laboratory and the study ; they analysed the 
 popular melodies, inquired into the basis of their 
 construction, the rule of their " manner of being," 
 and, to sum up their work of observation, they 
 presented all the intervals used in these melodies 
 in the form of a system which the Greeks termed 
 a harmony and which we call a mode, an entirely 
 subjective work, analogous to the formula given by 
 the chemist after studying a gas. 
 
 In this manner the theorists have at times 
 arrived at conclusions without the slightest relation 
 to the reality. It is thus that, after having 
 divided the Hindu scale into twenty-two srutis, 
 some among them have counted more than a 
 thousand modes in Hindu music ! 
 
 This remark must never be lost sight of, and, 
 strictly speaking, it should dispense us from de- 
 veloping it any further. However, in order not to 
 look as if we wished to evade the difficulty, we 
 will consider the modes as real things. At the 
 same time, if they are an illusion on the part of 
 the moderns, we ought to explain that illusion 
 itself. 
 
 We have at the present day but two modes, 
 designated by abstract words : the major and the 
 minor. 
 
 The major mode, realized on the note Do taken 
 as tonic, with two semi-tones, one between the third 
 
124 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 and the fourth degree, and the other between the 
 seventh and eighth, has a preponderating import- 
 ance in modern music. Formed of three perfect 
 harmonies {Fa, La, Do — Do, Mi, Sol — and Sol, Si. 
 Re) and of two complementary ones {Re, Fa% La — 
 and Mi, Soltt, Sii^), it has been considered as the basis 
 of every musical system. The historian Ambrose 
 places it in the category of things known by in- 
 stinct, " and which nature imparts to all living 
 beings " ; Rameau calls it " the first' outburst of 
 nature." Certain musicians claim that there is but 
 one mode, the major, since the laws of modula- 
 tion deduced from it are the same for the minor 
 mode. 
 
 'Tn reality, the actual modal scale. Do— Do, came 
 late into music, and has only existed since the six- 
 teenth century. It was, no doubt, known before 
 that epoch, but under another form. Instead of 
 being divided " harmonically," as at the present 
 day (a fifth. Do— Sol, then a fourth, Sol— Do), it was 
 divided arithmetically (a fourth. Do— Fa, then a 
 fifth. Fa— Do), as was the plagal mode of the 
 Lydian Fa— Fa — 
 
 Authentic Lydian mode — 
 (Fmale)FA-Sol-La-Si-DO-Re-Mi-Fa. 
 Plagal, or Hypo-Lydian mode — 
 (Finale) Do-Re-Mi-FA-Sol-La-Si-Do. 
 
 The first person to give a proper position in 
 musical teaching to the scale — 
 
 DO-Re-Mi-Fa-SOL-La-Si-Do— 
 was a learned humanist, a professor at Bale and a 
 friend of Erasmus, whose latinized name, taken 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 125 
 
 from that of his native town, was Glareanus, the 
 author of a revolutionary work which appeared in 
 1547 {Dodekachordon, or The Twelve Modes). 
 
 As its title indicates, Glarean's innovation con- 
 sisted in increasing to twelve the number of modes, 
 which were primarily only eight ; among the four 
 which he added (two authentic, La and Do, with 
 the two plagals) is found our major mode of Do, 
 which has eventually absorbed part of the others. 
 
 I shall not enter here into the detail of the reasons 
 on which Glarean relies to justify his reform.* 
 It is sufficient to state that, in order to rectify the . 
 ideas of his predecessors, he draws his principal 
 argument from use ; he opposes the use to the 
 theory and desires simply that the latter, always 
 behind the times, should put itself in accord with 
 the former. 
 
 He states that this diatonic t mode of Do to Do 
 (with the division on Sol, and not on Fa) is very 
 widespread and greatly practised, though it has 
 not received any official rank among the others ; 
 he declares that he has found it in most of the 
 countries of Europe in great favour because it is 
 particularly favourable for dancing. " In the 
 ancient liturgical chants it is very rare to find a 
 cantilena in which it is used, but for the last four 
 centuries the singers of the Church have themselves 
 transposed many songs into this mode, having 
 been so much attracted, I imagine, by its sweetness 
 
 * I published them in the Bemie musicale, 1906, p. 15 et seq. 
 
 t The word diatonic signifies that the strings giving all the 
 notes of the scale have their maximum of tension and cannot be 
 chromatically raised a semi-tone. It is what we now call a scale 
 " without accidentals." 
 
126 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLITTION 
 
 and charm." Here was, therefore, a situation to 
 be regularized rather than a new fact to be added 
 to a theory. Thenceforth, instead of upsetting 
 another mode (Hke the Lydian, for instance, by 
 giving it a 8i\>), so as to bring it into the Ionian 
 form {Do— Do), an independent existence for the 
 Ionian mode was recognized. 
 
 I would willingly sum up the theory of Glarean 
 by comparing the mode of Do— Do to a person for 
 a long time known in the world under a dis- 
 guise, which he threw off in 1547 to appear there- 
 after with uncovered face and to Hve in his own 
 home instead of with others (transposition). 
 
 As a matter of fact, this mode, which has been 
 called " masculine mode," or " perfect mode," and 
 has been proclaimed by Rameau the " master of 
 harmony," is of popular origin. 
 
 § 7. The Minoe Mode 
 
 It is the same with the minor mode, characterized 
 by the position of the semi-tone between the second 
 and third degree. Here, still more clearly, we have 
 to oppose the popular use to the thought of the 
 theorists and to show where the true principle of 
 mugical life exists. 
 
 I'^ince the seventeenth century the minor mode 
 has been somewhat roughly treated or held in dis- 
 favour by a certain number of theorists. 
 
 It was considered as "not being provided by 
 i^ture "; it was, they said, an artificial product. For, 
 to many thinkers (those of the eighteenth century 
 in particular), not to have sprung "from nature " 
 was to be branded as of irremediable inferiority. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 127 
 
 The doubtful character and the " alteration " 
 which seem to sully the origin of this mode, at the 
 same time determines its expressive character ; it 
 is said of it that it translates the feeling, but, de- 
 prived of its normal frankness and strength, and 
 somewhat astray, lessened, and veiled in cloud. 
 The major mode, according to the theorists, gives 
 an impression of light and serene power ; it is a 
 sovereign in full view, in whose person everything 
 breathes health and whose countenance seems 
 lighted up by an Eginetan smile ; beside him, as if 
 bathed in the penumbra of a prudent retreat, the 
 minor scale appears delicate, pensive, not free from 
 ill-health and with the flebile nescio quid. 
 
 "... I do not say," writes ZarHno, " that a com- 
 poser may not place one after the other two arith- ^ 
 metical divisions of the fifth (that is to say, two 
 minor thirds) ; but he must not overdo this process 
 unless he would give a very melancholy character 
 to his composition." It is Zarhno who first uttered 
 the aphorism, so oft-repeated after him : "Si lontana 
 un poco delta perfettione deWharmonia " (" the minor 
 scale slightly diverges from the perfection of har- 
 mony "). 
 
 In his Traite des regies pour la Composition de la 
 Musique (3rd ed., 1705, p. 9) Masson declares 
 " that the major mode, in general, is suitable for 
 songs of joy, and the minor for serious and sad 
 subjects." 
 
 This is the opinion of most French writers of the 
 eighteenth century. " The major scale," says 
 Rameau, " a direct shoot from nature, has a 
 strength, a briUiancy, a virility, if I may use the 
 
128 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 expression, which prevail over the minor and make 
 it the acknowledged master of the harmony. The 
 minor, on the contrary, depending less on nature 
 alone, receives from the art, of which it is partly 
 formed, a weakness which characterizes its origin 
 and its subordination." 
 
 The same note is sounded by the German school. 
 Hauptmann, who in a somewhat odd book has 
 traced the metaphysics of the two modes and 
 employs the terminology of Hegel, calls the minor 
 key a falsehood of the major {ein gelaugneter Dur- 
 Accord), and finds that it calls forth sadness like 
 " the drooping branches of the weeping willow " ! 
 According to Helmholtz, who has special reasons for 
 thus seeing things (for the series of harmonics, 
 the basis of his doctrine, only gives the major 
 chord), it is far worse ! He does not hesitate to 
 say that the major mode serves to rea;lize the 
 beauty of music, and that the miaor is not only an 
 alteration of true music, but a means of expression 
 exceptional from the repulsion it excites. 
 
 " The major mode," says he, " is suitable for all 
 clear-cut sentiments, and also for sweetness, and 
 even for sadness, if impregnated with a tender and 
 enthusiastic impatience ; but it does not at all suit 
 sombre, uneasy, inexplicable sentiments, nor the 
 expression of strangeness, of horror, of mystery or 
 of mysticism, of savage harshness, nor of anything 
 which contrasts with artistic beauty. It is precisely 
 for all these that we need the minor key." In the 
 imagination of Schopenhauer, a Scherzo composed 
 in the minor mode brings up the idea " of a dancer 
 in tight boots which hurt him." Marx and M. Hugo 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 129 
 
 Riemann speak of the " bitterness " (Herbigkeit) of 
 the mmor mode. 
 
 Against ideas Uke these we may set up the 
 following facts — 
 
 lltT We can call to mind by hundreds, nay by 
 thousands, melodies which express happiness and 
 are written in the Greek, Dorian, or Hypo-Dorian 
 (tones of Mi and La), that is, in the minor mode. 
 Such in plain-chant are the Te Deum of Easter 
 Eve, the Prose of Easter Day, that of Whitsun 
 and — what appears sufficiently significant — all the 
 introits commencing with the words Gaudeamus or 
 Gaudete (Rejoice !). 
 
 In the secular music of the Middle Ages, in the 
 pastorals, the rondos, the musical games, it is always 
 the minor which predominates. 
 
 In the sixteenth century the dances, the gaillards, 
 the pavanes, the bransles, and the tourdions are all, 
 Avith rare exceptions, in the minor mode. 
 
 Among the Italians of the latter half of the 
 sixteenth or the very early years of the seventeenth 
 century, who created the recitative and founded the 
 opera; — Cavalieri, Caccini, Jacopo Peri, and Monte- 
 verde — the minor predominates over the major ; 
 it is also employed for the sentimental gallantry of 
 the seventeenth century by their successors — 
 LuUi, Cesti, Cavalli, Carissimi, and StradeUa — at an 
 epoch when the fusion of the ancient modes in 
 two types was already an accomplished fact. 
 
 I open the collection of pieces, by Rameau, 
 for the harpsichord (1706): — allemandes, corantos, 
 gigues, sarabands, gavottes, minuets — every one in 
 the minor. In another collection of the same 
 
130 music: its laws and evolution 
 
 composer (1724) pieces like the Bappel des Oiseaux, 
 the Poule, and the celebrated Tambourin are in the 
 minor mode. Bach and Handel have composed, like 
 Rameau, whole Suites of dances in the same mode. 
 
 Secondly, the minor should have right of pre- 
 cedence over the major, for it is found everywhere in 
 popular music. 
 
 It is inherent in oriental music. The firm of 
 Breitkopf, of Leipzig, are at this moment publish- 
 ing, in parts, a collection of pieces all which, as 
 the title indicates, are in the minor. In the popular 
 songs of Greece, of Thrace, of Macedonia, of Albania, 
 of Crete, etc. (published by Pachticos, Athens, 
 1905), the minor constantly appears, as it does in 
 the melodies of Lower Brittany, collected by M, 
 Bourgault-Ducoudray (1885); and in the songs of 
 the French Alps, noted by M. Tiersot, etc., etc. It 
 leads one to ask oneseK how Helmholtz could say 
 that songs in the minor only existed in the pro" 
 portion of " one in a hundred " ! 
 
 There is, therefore, an utter disagreement, with 
 regard to the minor, between what has been asserted 
 by the theorists and' the facts of the history of 
 music, especially if popular works are taken into 
 account. \ This says plainly enough that the minor 
 mode is not a system set up by the authority of a 
 scholar, but that it has its origin in the instinctive 
 and the social hfe.[j This conclusion, founded on 
 simple logic, becomes an observed truth when — 
 confining oneself to the only field in which the 
 problem can be set, that of the so-called learned 
 music — we remember the way in which the minor 
 mode was constituted. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 131 
 
 I 8. The Origin of ottp„ Two Present Modes 
 
 At the present day we only recognize two modes, 
 and give them abstract names no longer recalling 
 the idea of a living reality : they are the mode plus 
 (major) and the mode minus (minor). But the- 
 process of abstraction and out-and-out simphfication 
 which has brought us to this poverty-stricken state 
 and to this dry-as-dust mathematician's language 
 should not make us forget either the richness or 
 the significant nomenclature of the past. These 
 two modes are the points in which end, by con- 
 centration, the eight modes which the Middle Ages 
 practised and which they derived from the Greeks. 
 ^/Now, among the Greeks the modes had ethnical 
 designations which clearly recalled their origin : 
 the Dorian from Mi to Mi, and its plagal, the Hypo- 
 Dorian from La to La ; the Phrygian from Re to 
 Re, and its plagal, the Hypo-Phrygian from Sol to 
 Sol ; the Lydian from Do to Do, and its plagal, the 
 Hypo-Lydian from Fa to Fa ; the Mixo-Lydian from 
 Si to Si, and its plagal, the Hypomixo-Lydian from 
 Mi to Mi* 
 
 As we see by these appellatives, the modes had 
 been constituted by two social groups : the Greeks 
 of the Peloponnesus and the peoples of Asia Minor. 
 If we examine the ancient theory at the various 
 epochs of its history, we should find other names 
 as characteristic, such as " Ionian " mode, " Eolian " 
 mode, etc. 
 
 * No doubt, the mechanism of these modes is not the same as 
 in the Middle Ages, but the word " plagal " may be used here in a 
 general sense. 
 
132 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 To each of these modes there was attributed a 
 particular " ethos " ; that is to say, a special emo- 
 1 tional state ; and this musical ethos, as it is desig- 
 nated in the Greek writers, principally in Plato and 
 Aristotle, agrees exactly for each mode with 
 that of the nation whose name the mode bears. 
 The modes with Asiatic names were considered as 
 lascivious, suitable for banquets and dances. The 
 nations inhabiting the west coast of Asia Minor, 
 in the eyes of the whole of antiquity, passed for 
 the types of effeminacy and brilliant seduction. 
 'The Dorian mode was regarded as virile, energetic, 
 and proper for the perfect citizen. We know in what 
 enthusiastic terms the ancient morahsts exalted 
 the warlike and civil virtues of the Dorians. 
 
 ' We have, therefore, two peremptory reasons for 
 attributing to the modes a sociological origin : 
 their names and their traditional ethos. Let us 
 follow up their history. 
 
 \ln. the Middle Ages, the Church collects and 
 adapts to its own use, by making certain confusions 
 which I need not dwell on here, the modal scales 
 i of the Greeks ; but it loses the feeling of their 
 ethnical character and simply designates by num- 
 bers their order : protus, deuterus, tritus, tetrardus ; 
 little by little the sense of their organic differences 
 is also lost, and a phenomenon arises of which the 
 history of. the verbal language offers us an ex- 
 ample. 
 
 We know that the 'inhabitants of our own coun- 
 try have in the end lost, in the use of names, the 
 exact notion of the different forms of nominative, 
 genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative, and that, 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 133 
 
 in order to simplify matters, they pretty early 
 reduced all the cases of Latin declensions to two : 
 the objective case and the governing case. 
 
 A Mke evolution has taken place, though some- 
 what more tardily, in the musical modes, and this 
 is due, as in Latin grammar, to the inevitable 
 deformations of use, to ignorance, and "to the spirit 
 of simplification which follows the law of the least 
 effort — in a word, to reasons of a social order. All / 
 the ancient modes which possessed a third from 
 the tonic composed of a tone plus a semi-tone 
 (Dorian, Hjrpo-Dorian, Phrygian, Hj^o-Phrygian, 
 Mixo-Lydian) have been identified with and Collected 
 into one single tjrpe which — from purely theoretical 
 considerations substituted for the ethnical memo- 
 ries — has been baptized minor mode ; aU those 
 which possessed a tonic third formed of two whole 
 tones have constituted the major mode. 
 
 It is not void of interest to add that, if this trans- 
 formation was complete at the time of Carissimi 
 (seventeenth century), it is impossible to affix to it\j 
 any exact date. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE RHYTHMICAL ELEMENTS OF THE MUSICAL 
 LANGUAGE AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 It is only by rhythm that the intervals, the scale, 
 and the modes assume a reaUy musical character. 
 Before entering on this new subject, it is important 
 to distinguish two things, most erroneously con- 
 fused by a recent theorist (Karl Biicher), author of 
 a very curious book, the substance of which we 
 shall have to reproduce here, with two funda- 
 mental reservations. Time and rhythm, properly 
 so called, could not be the object of one and the 
 same explanation. 
 
 The bar is the division of a musical work into 
 parts which aU have the same duration; rhythm is 
 constituted by a division of quite another kind, 
 superposed on the preceding and giving to the 
 parts of the composition durations which are not 
 necessarily equal. 
 
 The bar is formed of a succession, always regular, 
 and indefinitely repeated, of accented and unaccented 
 beats ; rhythm obeys a totally different law. For 
 it, there is neither accented nor unaccented beats ; 
 it is constituted by the divisions and plan of the 
 composition, by sections of phrases of greater or less 
 
 134 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 135 
 
 length, by phrases and periods, and by groupings 
 of gradually increasing duration. 
 
 The divisions of the rhythm may sometimes 
 coincide, on certain points, with the bar, but 
 this coincidence never occurs in a continuous 
 and compulsory fashion. Thus a section of a 
 phrase may commence on the first beat of a bar, 
 but may end in the middle of the second bar, so 
 much so that the next section of the phrase may 
 commence before the third bar (this is termed an 
 anacrouais). 
 
 The time, once given at the commencement of a 
 composition, remains immovable throughout ; it is 
 a mechanical formula. The rhythm is an cesthetic 
 creation. The study of rhythm in music merges 
 into that of the composition. 
 
 § 1. WoKK AND Musical Time 
 
 The most diverse origins have been assigned to 
 the bar, which we have just defined as a succession 
 of accented and unaccented beats. Plato sees in it 
 a reminiscence of the Absolute, the act of an artist 
 obeying, like God, when creating the world, the law 
 of numbers. Spencer considers it as one of the 
 "First Principles" which underlie the constitution 
 of things, and beyond which one cannot go back ; 
 others have seen in it an imitation of the move- 
 ments of a pendulum, of the beat of the pulse, of 
 the normal stride, etc. . . . 
 
 Karl Biicher, professor of political economy at 
 the University of Leipzig, has recently studied the 
 question of social work, and found himself, con- 
 trary to the original design of his work, forced to 
 
136 MTTSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 draw from the observation of social facts a very 
 curious theory of the bar. The only criticisms one 
 can make on this are that he has confused time 
 and rhythm ; and then, that in discovering the 
 origins of the first of these he thought he had at 
 the same time discovered the origins of music 
 itself instead of supplying what is called in Eng- 
 lish a " contribution " to its study." * 
 
 Having made these reservations and removed aU 
 confusion in cases even where the word rhythm 
 should be taken in its ordinary sense, which does 
 not conform to that of musical technique, we have 
 here the summary of an excellent theory founded 
 on carefully observed facts. 
 
 (a) Aristotle had already formulated a principle 
 which is that rhythm (for this, read time) is natural 
 to man ; to this principle must be added another, 
 to the effect that the savage has a much greater 
 tendency than the civihzed man to movements 
 repeated with regularity, for two reasons. The first 
 is that he is naked, or nearly so, and freed from 
 everything which, in the former case, obstructs, and 
 even paralyses, at times, his activity. The second 
 reason is that the savage is not cultivated. Now, 
 it- has been noticed that the physiological effects of 
 rhythm are in inverse ratio to the intellectual culture, 
 because the effects of music on a person who is not 
 intellectual meet with no resistance ; and hence 
 physiologists, pursuing in the laboratory researches 
 on the musical art, prefer to experiment on 
 ilhterate people. 
 
 * We may add that, previous to Bucher, the theory we are 
 about to summarize, had already been sketched by Wal- 
 laschek {Primitive Music. London, 1893). 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 137 
 
 (b) It is a primary fact, that in a general way the 
 savage has a particular inclination for time. We 
 must, therefore, not be surprised that towards the 
 end of the eighteenth century the traveller Meiners 
 wrote as follows regarding African negroes — 
 
 " Marching, dancing, games, singing, work, every- 
 thing with them is done in time. The most stupid 
 negroes keep time far better than our soldiers, and 
 far better than our musicians after a long course 
 of careful training." 
 
 (c) But the exigencies of life — first the individual, 
 and then the social life — favour and bring about 
 more even than the climate an instinctive pro- 
 pensity to it. Let us first lay aside one prejudice. 
 It has been said that the savage particularly Hkes 
 laziness, and since the time of Tacitus it has often 
 been repeated that " savagery and idleness are 
 synonymous." This fact has even been adduced to 
 explain brigandage, slavery, the sale of brides, and 
 the custom of laying hard work and excessive 
 burdens on women. This is a superficial and even 
 a contradictory view ; if there are among primitive 
 folk some who live Jby plunder, this presupposes 
 that there are others who like riches, and conse- 
 quently somewhat put themselves out to acquire 
 them. It is the same with slavery. It is said 
 that it has acted a useful part in the education 
 of humanity ; but the slave who learns certain work 
 must have had a master who initiated him into 
 this work ; if the master wishes to put the slave 
 in a certain state of mind, he needs must himself 
 have been in that state of mind. This is a sort of 
 vicious circle. 
 
138 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND BVOLTTTION 
 
 In civilized society there may be — there are, in 
 fact — idlers. In non-civilized communities every 
 one, man and woman, is compelled to work more 
 or less ; but the work is performed under special 
 conditions. It is pecuUar from two points of 
 view : ' first, the absence of tools ; secondly, that of 
 technique. 
 
 In order to build a hut or a canoe, to make 
 hunting and fishing implements, to secure and pre- 
 pare food, to fashion rude pottery and some sem- 
 blance of clothing — ^without mentioning objects of 
 adornment and elegance which make up his 
 aesthetic ideals, for the savage is elegant in his 
 way — primitive man is forced to compensate the 
 want of suitable instruments by movements of the 
 body, hands, arms, or legs. 
 
 Ignorant of technique, he makes up for it by 
 patience and endurance. In certain tribes the work 
 done by the women is so long and fatiguing that 
 this is probably the explanation of polygamy. 
 " In the district of Tanganika," says Stanley, " it 
 takes more than three months to hollow out a tree 
 in order to make a canoe." In Guinea some 
 natives wear round the neck cyhnders of white 
 stone, the polishing and the fashioning of which 
 (they are perforated with small holes) require, for 
 want of metal tools, the work of two generations. 
 Weaving also takes a very long time ; its progress 
 has been compared with the growth of a plant. 
 
 All labour performed under such unfavourable 
 conditions is made up of perpetual recommence- 
 ments, endless mendings, and routine ; it demands, 
 in short, the repetition of identical movements. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 139 
 
 {d) Impelled by instinct, by habit, by the desire 
 to avoid waste of time, by the care to escape 
 useless efforts, and also by the wish to lighten as 
 much as possible such an unthankful task, the 
 workman, after a little training, executes uniform 
 movements in uniform spaces of time. The idea 
 of the object in view, which in the first instance 
 guided his labour, and likewise the idea of the 
 adaptation of certain measures to this object, fade 
 from his mind by degrees. These ideas become 
 useless, and httle by Uttle the man succeeds in 
 replacing the energy of conscious wiU by an energy 
 hke that of an automaton. 
 
 (e) From that moment, the periodicity of move- 
 ments is brought into the work. This periodicity 
 has been noted over and over again. Already the 
 elder Pliny, in his Natural History (Chaps. 18-54), 
 had observed that wheat-sowing was an operation 
 carried on in regular time ; and (to take an e'xample 
 for brevity's sake from the other extreme of history) 
 in a work which appeared in connection with the 
 Exposition universelle of 1889, entitled Les Colonies 
 Franpaises, we read that the women of Madagascar, 
 when preparing the soil for sowing rice, "resemble 
 dancers performing a ballet," so striking is the 
 rhythm of their movements. 
 
 Such are the first steps of our theory. 
 
 (/) What is now the unit which will serve to 
 measure this incessant performance of work which 
 has thus passed into the state of mechanical function. 
 
 It is determined by the very movement of the 
 worker, by the nature of the muscular effort which 
 he repeats time after time ; and as this muscular 
 
140 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 effort is characterized by a tension followed by a 
 repose, a group of values is created which, has its 
 equivalent in what versifiers term a foot, composed 
 of a thesis and of an arsis, and by musicians a 
 bar, composed of an accented and an unaccented 
 beat. 
 
 The number and organization of these values 
 differ according to the kind of work performed : 
 the iambic, composed of one short and one long, 
 the trochee, composed of a long and a short, are the 
 rhythm of human feet treading the ground. The 
 spondee is the rhythm of hands regularly clapped 
 in time. The dactyl and the anapaest are beats 
 (less ancient) of hammer-work, the smith always 
 preceding or following the principal blow with two 
 slight taps on the anvil. Blacksmiths have a 
 significant term for this ; they call it "making the 
 hammer sing." The various forms of the ionic 
 time (6 beats) may be observed in the streets of . 
 our cities, where the instruments used to fix and 
 level the paving-stones are always handled in 
 regular time. 
 
 (g) There are other important facts which mark 
 a further step in this theory. 
 
 This capital phenomenon of the creation of a 
 bar occurs not only in individual and isolated 
 labour, where the workman can make, in short, idle 
 pauses at his pleasure without any serious incon- 
 venience arising ; it becomes a necessity when 
 the work is done in common, and particularly when 
 it is a question of works where all the movements 
 depend on one another. By beating time, the 
 various activities contribute to the same end ; 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 141 
 
 without it they would hinder each other instead of 
 helping. 
 
 Here are some men who are seated and rowing 
 together in a pirogue. They are compelled, under 
 penalty of grave and various accidents, to submit 
 their movements to regular time. It is the same 
 with the men shown on an Egyptian monument 
 (now, I think, in the British Museum) who are 
 moving over the ground an enormous block. In 
 the same case are those who are sawing through a 
 fallen tree, and those striking together on an anvil 
 a mass of red-hot metal. 
 
 Other reasons compel the introduction of the 
 beat into all labour performed in common and 
 socialized. It has been rightly said that every 
 individual has a tendency, either in working or in 
 simply displaying his activity in some game or 
 exercise, to adopt some special rhythm peculiar to 
 himself. Thus, some persons become fatigued in 
 walking fast, and others are tired by waUdng at a 
 slow pace. Man, from this point of view, is like 
 an animal. Every horseman, for instance, knows 
 the pace that best suits his steed. 
 
 Beating time, in groups of workers, has as its aim 
 and also as its principle the necessity of unifying 
 individual paces. 
 
 The workers, when associated together, display 
 an unequal energy excited by the zeal or rivalry 
 which is established between them. In the Sixth 
 Book of the Odyssey, Homer, speaking of the 
 Pheacian women, who, together with Nausicaa, are 
 washing their linen in the washhouses, says : " They 
 beat their linen in little stone basins, and try to 
 
142 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLtTTION 
 
 outdo each other." All the more reason to regulate 
 and discipline these various activities. 
 
 A third point to be noted is that the activity of 
 a group when regulated and disciplined leads to 
 better results. A German observer has compiled 
 some rather curious statistics on this. Comparing 
 the result of the work of workmen who sing with 
 that of those who do » not, it was shown that the 
 former produced more than the latter. (Inquiry 
 made by the Social Museum, Paris, Les travailleurs 
 du Bois a Dantzig, 1905, p. 62.) 
 
 Finally, there are certain labours, somewhat 
 exceptional it is true, in which uniform time has 
 been employed very usefully, and almost as a 
 matter of necessity. Among the very numerous 
 documents which have come to my notice, there is 
 one which appeared to me most odd, and yet one 
 of the most serious. In a work entitled L'Art 
 musical au Senegal dans VAfrique Gentrale, the 
 author, M. Verneuil, quotes a divers' song (do not 
 smile ! ) when occupied in getting a vessel off a 
 sandbank — a song which is consequently siuig in 
 the water — 
 
 " Imagine five hundred negroes swimming round 
 a vessel lying on the sands and singing this air ; 
 at the eighth bar they all plunge together, mentally 
 following the air while under water; at the tweKth 
 bar they aU push the vessel at once, and at the 
 sixteenth come to the surface. Acting thus in 
 concert, none of their efforts is lost." 
 
 {h) This time once created, by what means is it 
 realized to the ear ? Here begins a new stage of 
 the theory. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 143 
 
 When the very movement of the worker produces 
 a regular sound by reason of the material used — 
 for example, the work of the smith hammering iron 
 on the anvil, or of the thresher striking the ground 
 with his flail — this regular sound helps to beat time. 
 In' the other cases it is suppUed by the most obvious 
 means : the human voice or that of an instrument. 
 
 On this point, documents and testimonies are 
 almost innumerable. The Malays row to the sound 
 of the tom-tom. In the Soudan and in China, 
 tasks are performed to the sound of the drum. 
 Here is a more classical proof : in the Louvre is 
 an archaic group from Thebes, in Beotia, repre- 
 senting four women, side by side in front of a 
 kneading-trough, and working the paste with their 
 hands ; on the left is another woman, seated, play- 
 ing on the double flute. It is supposed that she is 
 there to regulate the movements of the others, or 
 possibly, to entertain them.* 
 
 It is also in regular time, marked by a flute, 
 that the Etruscans, according to a passage in 
 Athenseus quoted by M. Paul Girard, kneaded 
 bread, boxed, and even whipped their slaves. A 
 vase discovered in Greece and often reproduced 
 represents harvesters working to the sound of 
 music. Pausanias informs us that Epaminondas 
 built the town of Messenia to the sound of the 
 Beotian and Argive flutes. f 
 
 These are not legends. I recollect having in my 
 hands an official document, a " Report," in which 
 
 * Cf. Pettier, Revue arcUologique, 3me S^rie, T. XXXIV, 1899. 
 M. Llndet (ibid., p. 419) supposes that the flute-player "conducts 
 and amuses " the women at work. 
 
 t Ibid., IV, XXVII, 7. 
 
144 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 it was said that when the French Government was 
 building a railway in Dahomey it had to make the 
 negroes work to the sound of the flute. 
 
 § 2. Rhythm and Social Life 
 
 In music, as we have said, rhythm, properly so 
 called in the technical sense of the word, is merged 
 into the plan of the composition. It is constituted 
 by the following elements, which form, as it were, 
 undulations increasing in size : the foot, identical 
 with the bar or the element composing the bar 
 (of 3, 4, 6, or 5 beats) ; the section of a phrase ; the 
 phrase ; the period (which, conventionally, may be 
 defined as a phrase composed of more than two 
 sections) ; the strophe and systems of strophes. 
 
 Though the question is obscure on some points, 
 it may be asserted that the characteristics of 
 musical rhythm, like those of the bar, first pre- 
 sented themselves in the shape of real and sociahzed 
 movements foreign to the art, and passing after- 
 wards into song and finally into pure music, by 
 virtue of higher and higher abstractions. 
 
 We have just explained the bar. The musical 
 phrase, as we have seen, is constructed in the 
 same way as a verbal phrase. Let us now deal 
 with the higher elements of rhythm : the systems 
 of strophes. I venture to say that, in order to give 
 a sociological explanation of it, we have an em- 
 barrassing choice of alternatives. A method which 
 appears to me scientific would be to admit a priori 
 several explanations, and not confine ourselves to 
 only one of them. 
 
 Every one must .have noticed that in certain 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 145 
 
 children's games there is a series of collective acts 
 executed by the entire group, and a series of indi- 
 vidual acts in which, in turn, every player comes 
 to the fore. As in all cases where there is an intense 
 and prolonged activity (work, dancing, playing), 
 these two acts tend to alternate. The rondo, when 
 sung, is an example. The essential part of the song is 
 the chorus in repetition, sung by the whole party ; 
 between each chorus is sandwiched a varying 
 episode, a solo, which each sings in turn unless 
 there happens to be a sort of coryphaeus appointed 
 for all parts having an individual character. 
 
 Now, a melodious idea, repeated at intervals 
 with episodes or " divertissements " placed before 
 each repetition, constitutes, as already said, the 
 scheme of a rondo, a general form of composition 
 found in all kinds of works, and from which musi- 
 cians, by successive transformations, have elaborated 
 first the sonatina, and then the sonata with all their 
 subsequent developments. 
 
 Another form of children's or popular games is 
 the division into two camps, one of which repeats 
 each evolution of the other by a sort of emulation 
 or by an equitable division. 
 
 This division also reappears in certain circum- 
 stances of social life where women and children 
 appear together with the men, but in distinct 
 groups : a separation which probably had its origin 
 in a religious idea. One has only, even at the present 
 day, to enter a Catholic church in the country, or a 
 Jewish synagogue, in order to feel that this belongs 
 to reasons of delicacy of remote origin, women being 
 excluded among primitive folk from most worships. 
 
146 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 In the poetry sung during a religious ceremony this 
 division gives rise to the antiphonal or anthem, the 
 division into two choirs, and, in lyrical poetry, to the 
 antistrophic construction, where each system is ac- 
 companied by a repetition pure and simple : AA', BB', 
 CO', etc. JSschylus has gone so far as to include 
 sixteen strophes and antistrophes in the same series. 
 
 This extremely simple mode of establishing the 
 plan of a composition was adopted by Bach in his 
 French and English Suites, as also in those sonatas 
 for violin or violoncello which contain the Suites, 
 and by Handel in sixteen collections of pieces 
 belonging to the same category. It appears in 
 the Scherzo and in all modern dance music. The 
 antiphonal chant — with two choirs — of the Greeks 
 repeated the same melody in a higher octave ; it is 
 not without its use to point out that this custom is 
 almost universal and general in our music (see, for 
 example, the commencement of the Adagio in Bee- 
 thoven's Pathetic Sonata). 
 
 Another fundamental construction in music is 
 represented by the following symbol : A,A/B, that 
 is to say, a system (of phrases or periods), A ; the 
 identical repetition of this system, A' ; a third and 
 different part, B. 
 
 This rhythm is found almost everjrwhere, especi- 
 ally in the initial allegro of sonatas. It is the triad 
 — strophe, antistrophe, epode — of which the poet 
 Stesichorus, in the sixth year before the Christian 
 era, was supposed to be the inventor. Now, it may 
 be affirmed, almost with certainty, that it is of 
 religious origin. 
 
 A Latin grammarian of the Decline of the Roman 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 147 
 
 Empire, Attilius Fortunatianus, has handed down 
 to us some very precise information on the liturgy 
 of ancient Greece, which he no doubt extracted from 
 earlier works. "Formerly," he says, "the songs 
 composed in honour of the gods were in three parts. 
 There was first, turning to the right, a procession 
 round the altar {strophe) ; then the same, turning to 
 the left (antistrophe) ; finally, the song came to an 
 end before the altar in presence of the god (epode)." 
 
 From the liturgy this scheme passed into lyric 
 poetry, then into tragedy, which was at first con- 
 nected with worship. It appears in the choruses 
 of the Prometheus of ^schylus, in those of Electra, 
 CEdipus at Golonus, the Trachinice, the Philoctetes of 
 Sophocles, the Hippolytus of Euripides, etc. . . . 
 
 If from Antiquity we pass to the Middle Ages, 
 an explanation of the same kind seems possible. Our 
 triad may be considered as an adaptation to poetry 
 of the rhythmical system of the Latin sequences. 
 The verses of these sequences, divided into two 
 sections, were sung by an officiatiag priest, then 
 followed by an Alleluia, at first taken up by the 
 whole people, and later by a chorus representing 
 the people ; this Alleluia, which was the germ of 
 a refrain, soon became a real chorus : thus we had 
 the typeAA'B. 
 
 We must, therefore, not be surprised at this form 
 having been in such general use. It is again found, 
 in a more or less perfect state, in the poets of the 
 fourteen thy fifteenth, and even sixteenth centuries. 
 The theorists of the Middle Ages designated it by 
 the name of "tripartite coue rhythm" (that is to 
 say, with a tail, B). 
 
148 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Thus, as we find it in Latin, German, Spanish, 
 and Itahan collections, we may say that it is of 
 popular origin. In Italy one of the forms of popular 
 song is represented by the Tuscan rispetti, which 
 have the scheme AB, A'B'plus an addition (reprisa), 
 which is variable and gives the following aggrega- 
 tions : AB, A'B', CC; or: AB, A'B', CC, DD; 
 
 or again : AB, A'B', AB, CC. This last type forms 
 what has been termed the " octave of courtesy." All 
 these forms can be traced back to the triad A,A',B. 
 
 I do not speak of the German singers, the Minne- 
 sanger, whose songs were composed of two equal 
 strophes (Stolle and GegenstoUe), followed by an 
 independent part (Abgesang). 
 
 The rhythmical type AA'B once discovered, it 
 was subjected, hke all others, to various combina- 
 tions. Instead of remaining at the final, B has some- 
 times been placed between the two first systems, 
 and the epode then becomes a mesode. B has also 
 been placed at the beginning, becoming then a 
 pro-ode, which in our vocal music, accompanied by 
 instruments, is called in turn : Symphony, Prelude, 
 Toccata, Introduction, and Overture. 
 
 To sum up, the following propositions seem 
 established — 
 
 1st. The intervals of the octave, fifth, fourth, and 
 third may be considered as sociological data ; be- 
 fore constituting the basis of musical theory they 
 were suggested by the difference which distinguishes 
 the voices of men from those of women and children, 
 by the inflections of the verbal language and by an 
 instinctive creation of the popular genius. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 149 
 
 2nd. The scale, a simple orderly arrangement of 
 these intervals, has only a theoretic existence ; 
 the number of notes it contains is, moreover, 
 determined by the tolerance of the ordinary ear, 
 'not that of the individual ; on the same law de- 
 pends the classification of consonances and disson- 
 ances, and also the rules of counter-point. 
 
 3rd. The major and the minor modes (of which 
 we might say, as of the scales, that they have only 
 an existence in theory) are the two terminals of a 
 long evolution, similar to that which has, little by 
 little, simplified Latin declensions ; they concentrate, 
 in a double formula, ancient modes which all of 
 them bore the names of peoples. These ancient 
 modes (Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, etc.) were only 
 in themselves a conventional means, created by 
 theory, of analysing the popular melodies of Con- 
 tinental and Asiatic Greece. 
 
 4th. Time is not a fact special to music ; it may 
 be considered (though this is not the only legitimate 
 view) as a law of work pursued in common forced 
 upon man by the necessities of practical hfe. 
 
 5th. As regards rhythm, aU musical composition 
 is systematic, that is to say, is constructed on a 
 regular plan, in which ideas are distributed into 
 groups ; this plan seems to be the reproduction, 
 freely interpreted, of real movements, gradually 
 losing their special form, the type of which has been 
 furnished by various forms of social activity : such 
 as games, dancing, and liturgy. 
 
 We have now to study, from the sociological 
 point of view, musical expression. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MUSIC AND LOVE 
 
 Music, as we have said, is incapable (as, indeed, are 
 all the arts of space subject to the law of symmetry, 
 and all the arts of duration subject to the law of 
 rhythm) of imitating an emotional state. The com- 
 poser thinks, nevertheless, that he possesses the 
 power of translating altruistic sentiments, and he 
 conveys the illusion of having this power, thanks 
 to " images," a kind of reahzed metaphors, of 
 which the partial exactitude is indirectly obtained 
 from associations of ideas. These associations, for 
 the most part, are forced on the hearer by the in- 
 genuity and dexterity of the musician ; but it is 
 evident that the most skiKul art can only produce 
 intelligible results by giving them as base a fund of 
 habits common to the imagination of the social 
 group. 
 
 In reality, music, which knows no concepts, can 
 only directly approach a real model by reproducing 
 the dynamics of passional life ; this it is which 
 renders its faculty of expression so general and, 
 consequently, so powerful. By neglecting that 
 assemblage of practical tendencies, of ideas, and of 
 representations which form our conscious state, and, 
 so to speak, the superstructure of our moral person, 
 
 ISO 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 151 
 
 it penetrates to the deep and natural elements of 
 interior life and reaches the hidden spring of all 
 the passions. 
 
 This opinion on music we have seen erected into 
 scholastic systems by the great German metaphysi- 
 cians and put into practice (long before the birth of 
 philosophy !) by the primitive magicians, who are 
 everything in the origin of musical history. We shall 
 see it associated by Darwin with the idea of the 
 altruistic and social sentiment 'par excellence : — ^Love. 
 
 It is, at least, thus that I understand the theory 
 sketched out by the celebrated naturahst in The 
 Descent of Man.* Darwin has no more resemblance 
 to a Hegel or a Schopenhauer than to a magician, 
 and yet he upholds a theory which is in harmony 
 with the doctrine of the metaphysicians as well as 
 with the use of enchantments among the primi- 
 tives. The love of which he studies the manifesta- 
 tions is something more than that spoken of in 
 the libretto of an opera ; it is at the same time a 
 universal as well as a social force. It resembles the 
 Eros of Hesiod's Theogony, which, bearing in 
 itself the germ of futtire societies, yet exists before 
 humanity, for its only contemporaries are two other 
 primordial elements : Space and Time. 
 
 Without going so far back, Darwin places the 
 social role of love a long time before man, and 
 among the living beings of whom man is the 
 descendant. With the perfectly impartial mind, 
 the unaffected good faith, and the prudence in 
 assertion which make his work an admirable school 
 of scientific probity, the Enghsh naturahst, who, at 
 that period in his life, was very sensitive to artistic 
 * Second Edition, 1888, p. 571, sqq. 
 
152 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 things, desires to solve the enigma : — ^Why has 
 music so great an emotional power ? Why does it 
 so deeply move us ? Whence comes the virtue of 
 this language to the charm of which we submit 
 without being able to account for it ? 
 
 To answer these questions Darwin relies on the 
 three following facts — 
 
 1st. Music has a somewhat limited power of ex- 
 pression (the word is here used in its commonplace 
 and current sense). It cannot translate fear, hatred, 
 terror, or fury ; on the other hand, it excels in 
 expressing love and the joy of triumph. 
 
 2nd. During the pairing season, animals give 
 utterance to sounds ; they even break into a rudi- 
 mentary song. 
 
 3rd. Between animals and man there exists he- 
 reditary transmission. 
 
 These three facts are of a nature to enhghten 
 the aesthetic. If it be admitted that during the 
 time of pairing, when animals are carried away by 
 love and jealousy, by rivalry and triumph, the semi- 
 human ancestors of man used musical sounds and 
 rhythm, the deep and disturbing character of 
 musical expression becomes, up to a certain point, 
 comprehensible. In accordance with the principle 
 of hereditary associations, music would reawake in 
 •us, in a vague and undetermined form, the strong 
 emotions of a very remote age. 
 
 Now, everything renders probable the hypothesis 
 according to which the manifestations of the voice 
 in our animal precursors were not a simple ex- 
 penditure of energy, but a kind of language con- 
 nected with altruistic sentiments, and a means of 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 153 
 
 allurement. We are authorized to believe that the 
 use of this means produced, and still does produce, 
 an agreeable effect. If, indeed, it be urged that 
 the females are not capable of appreciating it, of 
 being excited and allured by it, it must be 
 admitted that the persevering efforts of the male 
 and the complex organs he possesses to make him- 
 self heard are absolutely useless ; and this is im- 
 possible. 
 
 Darwin dwells much on the case of birds. The 
 males, when endeavouring to attract the females, 
 display all the resources enabling them to shine. 
 They not only display the riches of their plumage, 
 like the bird of paradise, which puts on what has 
 been called its " bridal dress," but the instinct of 
 reproduction makes artists of them, and they sing. 
 
 Nightingales engage in a veritable vocal contest 
 to secure their mates. The capercailzie acts a curious 
 pantomime interspersed with song. Perched on a 
 low branch, he erects his long neck feathers, twists 
 about, droops his wings, puffs himself out, stamps 
 with his feet, turns up his eyes in a comical fashion, 
 " then he emits clicks and clacks, slowly and separ- 
 ately ; then he continues quicker and quicker with 
 one loud clack, followed by a series of sounds both 
 piercing and musical ; ... he ends on a prolonged 
 note, and closes his eyes as if intoxicated with 
 pleasure." * 
 
 The animal which has triumphed over its rivals 
 
 becomes the founder of a finer progeny, since by 
 
 his victory he has eliminated individuals less well 
 
 endowed than himself ; and, as this progeny is 
 
 * Karl Groos, Les Jeux des Animaux, ch. iv. 
 
154 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 subject to similar struggles and a like selection, it 
 transforms itself by degrees. In time new species 
 arise. Wbat things may there not be in the song 
 of a bird ! The whole future may be singing in his 
 voice ; the delay in a species to touch "the divine 
 shore of life " might be due to a nightingale break- 
 ing down in vocalization ! 
 
 Man should be the continuator of the animal, in 
 music as well as in everything else. The most 
 charming melodies of our composers should be 
 nought else than the prolonged blossoming, the 
 conscious idealization, the survival culminating in 
 a thing of art, of an initial fact connected with one 
 of the strongest feelings of social hfe. And thus 
 would be explained both the mysterious character 
 and the disturbing effects of music. It is mysteri- 
 ous because it is now dislodged from its primitive 
 function and appUes to objects freely chosen by 
 fantasy, a language which, in the beginning, was 
 exclusively that of love ; it is deeply disturbing 
 because it touches in us the vital instinct itself, 
 the instinct of reproduction and of progress, and 
 awakens, vaguely and unknown to ourselves, associa- 
 tions of ideas which a very prolonged heredity, many 
 centuries old, have caused to pass into the world 
 of unconsciousness. 
 
 What a pleasure it is to me to gather from 
 Darwin's ideas that love and progress are one 
 and the same thing. Two beings who seek one 
 another do not solely desire reproduction and the 
 perpetuation of hfe ; they desire its promotion 
 towards the better and. the more beautiful. Now, 
 progress, if it really exist, if it be a law, must be 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 155 
 
 attached to the very plane of creation, to a first 
 principle regulating the evolution of beings. Thus 
 musical expression would be brought to play a 
 grandiose and magnificent part. 
 
 § 1. A Fe"jv Obsekvations on Darwin's Theory 
 
 Facts are not wanting to commend to our atten- 
 tion this curious theory. 
 
 Certainly, if Darwin had claimed to give us a 
 general and complete theory of music, we should 
 have more than one objection to make to it. He 
 would deserve the reproach of having simplified to 
 excess an extraordinarily complex problem. We 
 should tell him that the song of birds is not, properly 
 speaking, musical ; the proof of this is that it is 
 very difficult to take down in notation ; different 
 birds singing at the same time do not impress us 
 disagreeably, while simultaneous human voices not 
 regulated by previous arrangement jar on us in the 
 highest degree ; we should add also, moreover, 
 that to recognize melody in the vocal manifesta- 
 tions of certain animals one must already be a 
 musician, and even a refined musician. 
 
 We should also inquire, if we admit the hypothesis 
 which attributes to song this precise part, how it 
 is that hereditary transmission has changed its 
 line in spite of circumstances, since nowadays vocal 
 aptitudes manifest themselves especially in women, 
 who thus substitute themselves for men in the art 
 of pleasing. 
 
 But Darwin was too clear-sighted and too wise 
 to forget the true nature of the matter with which 
 he dealt or to desire to annex music to natural 
 
156 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 history, carelessly and in a paragraph of a special 
 book. It is a simple contribution that he offers 
 us. What he wishes to explain is the greatly dis- 
 turbing effect of the language of sounds ; and, on 
 this account, his thoughts should be welcomed in 
 a sociological study of the musical art, since the 
 feelings of which, according to him, melody is the 
 expression, presuppose the existence of a society. 
 
 The social point of view is not the artistic one, 
 but it compels us to reckon with certain facts, even 
 if some.error be mingled with it. 
 
 We cannot refuse to birds the title of " singers," 
 since it has been awarded them by all the ancient 
 poets. They have even been regarded as masters. 
 Athenseus says that the poet Alcman studied under 
 them. Lucretius asserted that man imitated them 
 before he knew how to speak. One of the popular 
 songs in Languedoc commences thus — 
 
 Roussignolet du bois, 
 Roussiguolet salvage, 
 Apprends-moi ton langage ! 
 
 M. Zaborowski, the author of a httle book on lan- 
 guage, has had the curiosity to collect the names 
 of a certain number of birds in the most diverse 
 languages and dialects, both savage and civilized ; 
 and this curious nomenclature shows that aU these 
 names contain imitative harmony and are veritable 
 onomatopoeias, implying the observation and imita- 
 tion of animals by man. 
 
 The natives of Kamtschatka have a melody 
 (Aangitsch) the origin and the name of which are 
 both derived from a hird^ {anas glacialis), which 
 appears in the country at fixed times in great flocks. 
 
MTJSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 
 
 157 
 
 A flute, brought from Tonga Island (Island of 
 Amsterdam, in the Pacific Ocean) by Captain Pour- 
 neaux, gives a succession of sounds which may be 
 considered as having been suggested by the song 
 of a bird — 
 
 '^ 
 
 tt'' u tf'^ t'^ ^ 
 
 3 
 
 Two sets of flutes now in the British Museum 
 produce, when blown into with force, the following 
 successions, which suggest the same notion — 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 r ■ r ^ r M^r ^ ''r 
 
 To complete these short details I will add that 
 the organs of former times had a stop which was 
 called the Bird Stop (Vogelgesang, Vogelschrei) ; 
 that formerly the art of imitating the song of birds 
 formed part of the training of the Jongleurs'f ; and, 
 lastly, that composers often took a delight in this 
 kind of imitation. 
 
 * The melody in Siegfried by which Wagner depicts the song of 
 a bird has a similar cadence. 
 
 t Liure dbs Metiers, 
 (Paris), p. 287. 
 
 Etiennc Boileau,' publislied by Dapping 
 
158 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 Clement Jannequin, the celebrated French (or 
 Belgian) musician of the sixteenth century, wrote a 
 well-known descriptive symphony, entitled Le 
 Caquet des oiseaux ; Haydn, in the finale of his 
 Quartet XX, imitates the clucking of the hen, in 
 which he is followed by Mozart and Rossini ; 
 Beethoven, in the Andante of his Pastoral Sjrm- 
 phony, has not disdained to reproduce the cuckoo's 
 note. Many others — and the list is long — have been 
 bolder still. In his Sonata in Re for the Harpsichord, 
 Bach has not feared — in the middle of the fugue — 
 to associate the cry of the cuckoo with the cackling 
 of the hen. Pleyel has written a composition of the 
 very highest order, taking as his motive the note of 
 the partridge (which had already been done, accord- 
 ing to Athenseus, by Alcman in his Caccabides).* 
 
 We must then register a first sociological fact, 
 i.e. imitation, as dating from the very birth of 
 music. Are we able to add that this imitation 
 had for cause and as a basis the irresistible altruistic 
 sentiment of Love ? Yes, we shall answer, but with 
 a slight modification of Darwin's theory, or rather 
 by drawing from it everything imphed in it, 
 although it may not have been specially formulated 
 by the great naturalist. 
 
 It raises at the very outset difficulties and objec- 
 tions which we must not disguise. Let us state 
 these in detail — 
 
 1st. If song is an instrument of victory, and thereby 
 subserves the progress of the species, there ought to 
 
 * In the collection Miscellanea Lipsiensia (Lips., 1718, III, 
 p. 683), there is a dissertation by Geamoenus in which it is stated 
 that the birds gav* us the first lessons in song. (Natura homini 
 per avium concentum prcecinente). 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 159 
 
 be a coincidence or parallelism between the progress 
 of song and the hierarchy of living beings. Why is 
 not the ape a greater musician than the nightingale ? 
 Among the mammals the noisy manifestations of 
 the voice (they can hardly be termed anything else) 
 are simple phenomena of inhalation and exhalation ; 
 it is not sufficient that a certain gibbon should be 
 able to utter an energetic note (Darwin) for it to 
 be styled a musician. Brehms, in a work on 
 animal life (Tierlehen), complacently analyses the 
 register of a certain ape's voice which, accord- 
 ing to him, can give the complete chromatic scale, 
 regularly and with correctness and faciUty ; we even 
 recognize " retards " (sic) in it ! It is a very 
 suspicious or a very flimsy observation, but sup- 
 posing we admit it at the risk of incurring ridicule, 
 other difficulties remain to be solved. 
 
 2nd. If it be the language of Love transmitted 
 by heredity and by evolution which has created 
 music, primitive races ought to bear witness to the 
 continuity of the progression by the character of 
 their art. We ought to find among them a senti- 
 mental music, all the more expressive and tender 
 because it is the nearer to nature and more under 
 the immediate dependency of heredity. Now, this 
 is not the case. 
 
 According to the testimony of the Prince of Wied, 
 quoted by Grosse, this is what the song of the 
 Botocudos consists of : " The ringing of the men 
 resembles an inarticulate roar on two or three notes, 
 sometimes high, sometimes deep ; they take a long 
 breath, place their left arm on their head, some- 
 times a finger in each ear, especially if they are 
 
160 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLITTION 
 
 in public, and open wide mouths deformed by 
 the hottock." I do not think any one will be tempted 
 to see in this a specimen of the art of pleasing or 
 alluring ! 
 
 As asserted by an excellent judge,* the savage 
 only recognizes in love the sexual act. " The Tinne 
 Indians of North America," writes Lubbock.f " have 
 not a word to express ' dear ' or ' beloved ' ; and the 
 language of the Algonquins (Red Skins) in the 
 neighbourhood of Lake Michigan have no word 
 signifying to love .... Though the songs of savages 
 ordinarily treat of the chase, war, and woman, it is 
 very rarely that they can be called love songs. . . . 
 Neither among the Osages (Indians of the central 
 regions of the United States) nor the Cherokees, 
 can we find a single musical or poetical expression 
 based on a tender passion between the two sexes. 
 . . . Though repeatedly asked for one, they have 
 never produced a love song." Not a single love 
 song has been discovered among the Australians, 
 the Mincopees, or the Botocudos. Rink, who has 
 studied the Esquimaux more deeply than any one 
 else, says that they are hardly acquainted with the 
 sentiment of love.f 
 
 3rd. Take another point of view. If it is from 
 sexual instinct that music takes its origin, why is 
 one of its primary functions, in nearly all races, of 
 a religious order ? Whence come those war songs 
 which are the negation of love ? 
 
 How is it that the Australians (and many other 
 
 * Grosse, ibid., p. 913. 
 
 t Lubbock, Origin of Civilization (Marriage). 
 
 J Ibid., p. 68. C. Grosse, loc. cit., p. 185. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 161 
 
 men) nearly all sing when they are by them- 
 selves ? * 
 
 Why, since the sexual instinct is universal, is it 
 that certain nations (like the Germans) are greater 
 musicians than other nations, who yet are of the 
 same kin, like the English ? The Germans may 
 be considered as the kings of music, since they have 
 produced a Bach, a Handel, a Beethoven, a Weber, 
 a Schumann. Is there any correlation between this 
 undisputed superiority and (by the hypothesis) 
 another innate superiority, among our neighbours, 
 in the art of pleasing and seduction ? Is there, 
 also, an exact correlation between the natural 
 gifts of seduction, which have always been at- 
 tributed to the French, and their musical genius ? 
 
 It is, therefore, difficult to accept unreservedly 
 the theory of Darwin. The great naturalist 
 wishes to estabhsh a continuous chain connecting 
 the music of civilized man with the manifestations 
 of the sexual instinct among the lower animals, 
 but there is, as we have just seen, many missing 
 links of this chain when we examine what happens 
 among the non-civilized. A shght modification, 
 merely consisting in pushing back the limits he 
 sets up, will suffice to modify the aspect of this 
 doctrine and to make it acceptable. 
 
 In reality, Darwin's theory does not greatly differ 
 from that of the German metaphysicians, who 
 attribute to music the privilege of expressing the 
 most fundamental part of our inmost being. What 
 else, in fact, is the root of our being but the love 
 of life, the desire to prolong and perpetuate it, by 
 * Grosse, loc. cit., p. 226. 
 
162 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 rendering it better and more brilliant ? This desire 
 is the manifestation of a force which has other 
 outlets open to it, but finds its most instinctive use 
 in sexual love. It might then be said — and we are 
 repeating the opinion set forth at the commence- 
 ment of this work — that song and all the rudi- 
 mentary attempts which preceded it express some- 
 thing very general, a sentiment identical with the 
 vital force itself, in which the altruistic inclinations 
 are no doubt contained, but are not everything. 
 
 In the account of his travels in Guinea, M. Claudius 
 Madrelle speaks of the frenzy and sensuaHty with 
 which the negroes cultivate music and dancing. 
 " From the moment the sun sets the whole of 
 Africa gives itself up to pleasure, and resounds with 
 the beating of tom-toms." It is something akin to 
 the distracting and deafening concert, with its weird 
 rhythm, which on summer nights, after the over- 
 whelming heat, all kinds of beasts keep up in the 
 fields. This grandiose and rude concert has a reason 
 and a meaning ; and it is by listening to it that we 
 have some chance of understanding the soul of nature . 
 With the first shades of night there seems to descend 
 upon the beings here below an irresistible need to 
 give more intensity to life, to perpetuate it in new 
 and more beautiful forms. This is part of love, and 
 therefore of something more general. Involun- 
 tarily we think we can seize in its flight the voice 
 which the evolution of things assumes, the imperi- 
 ous cry of living beings who yearn and clamour for 
 progress. 
 
 Our music is like that of the African negroes ; 
 it is certainly better regulated, but it translates 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 163 
 
 into sonorous formulas the same inherent sensuality. 
 It systematizes, purifies, and refines those appeals 
 of one sex to the other which, on June nights, 
 envelope the country in a network of seduction and 
 voluptuousness. Love fills in it as great a place as 
 in romantic literature, but it is only the translation 
 of a deeper and more general force, which is the 
 vital instinct itself. 
 
 Thus it is that all our great composers have been 
 ardent votaries of love ; and, to a great extent, 
 the emotion of their hearers is composed of the 
 last echoes of their passion. 
 
 We have a very fine repertoire of music — plain- 
 song — which has nothing to do with all this ; but 
 we do not know to what the melodies, by the aid of 
 which it is constituted, were primarily adapted, 
 whether by simple transfer or by imitation, and, if 
 we did, we should probably be surprised. Without (/,■] 
 love, there would be no art ; and love is the chief /J 
 manifestation of a universal force in which are! I 
 included the whole of the social feelings. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 MUSIC AND LANGUAGE 
 
 Language, which has sprung from the necessity of 
 relations between like beings, is at the same time a 
 sociological fact following upon the sentiment of 
 which we have just been speaking. Its variations 
 are now being studied from this point of view, at 
 the College de France by Professor MeiUet. We 
 know already that the fundamental intervals on 
 which the musical system rests may be noted in the 
 inflections of articulate speech. Proceeding further 
 on this hne of observation, we may ask ourselves 
 whether all the expressive characteristics of the 
 verbal language are not to be found in music, where 
 they are isolated and systematized, while developed 
 and promoted to a higher degree of force. 
 
 Certainly, we do not deceive ourselves as to the 
 value of these "expressive" characteristics. We 
 are aware that they do not, in themselves, suffice 
 to constitute music. We shaU not imitate the 
 physiologists, doctors, directors of lunatic asylums, 
 and laboratory or hospital students, who, exagger- 
 ating the- scope of certain excellent observations, 
 only see as the origin of song some reflex muscular 
 actions, so that, in order to explain an art, they 
 commence by putting on one side the artistic sense. 
 
 164 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 165 
 
 The difference of the intervals which constitute 
 the irregularity of the line of melody is but the 
 externals of music ; to imagine that by it one gains 
 a comprehension of the most simple popular song 
 is much as if one claimed to know a person from 
 the cut of his clothes. The theory we are about to 
 summarize has been disdainfully rejected, in Ger- 
 many, by musicians who " hope they have heard 
 the last of it." It seems to us, however, very 
 worthy of interest, when considered as a simple 
 contribution ; its object is to explain certain 
 modalities of musical thought, and nothing more. 
 
 Analysis shows us two parts in ordinary lan- 
 guage. The one expresses the thought, or conca- 
 tenation of concepts, and is constituted by words 
 and their syntax. The other, which is a sort of 
 accompaniment, expresses the emotional state 
 joined to the thought. 
 
 The former is acquired, conventional, and partially 
 intelligible ; the latter is instinctive, natural, and 
 universally inteUigible. The proof that they must 
 not be confused is that it is possible for them to be 
 in complete disagreement. There is a way of saying 
 " yes " which, by the tones and inflections of the 
 voice, may mean "no"; conversely a "no" may 
 mean a " yes." It is on this duality that the art 
 of the comedian is based. There is a pretty little 
 monologue in which a young girl, making her 
 d^but in society, is instructed by her mother to 
 never answer but in these two words : " Oh ! 
 Monsieur ! " But she makes up for it by giving 
 to this formula aU the shades of modesty, modest 
 love, surprise, regret, fear, reproach, anger, sup- 
 
166 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 plication, etc. . . .In a 'word, she is exceedingly- 
 eloquent, and conveys all she feels without the 
 help of words. 
 
 It is probable, as M. SuUy Prudhomme says in his 
 poem La Parole, that primitive man began by using, 
 in his Way, this natural, instinctive, and univer- 
 sally intelligible language — 
 
 La peine et les plaisirs s'exhalaient dans les criSj 
 La terreur begayait des prieres farouches ; 
 Le soupir echarigeait les ames sur les touches ; 
 Dans le rire eclatait Petonnement joyeux, 
 Et le discours trahi s'achevait dans les yeux. 
 
 These cries, these stammerings, these explosions, 
 and even these inhibitions result from the interior 
 force of the feehng which, in each particular case, 
 produces a special adjustment of the vocal organs, 
 and expresses itself outwardly by sounds which 
 differentiate a thousand shades of meaning. We can 
 imagine how much can be drawn from the gifts thus 
 furnished by the physiological nature of man, with 
 social hfe as a stimulant. Ancient orators hke 
 Cicero and Quintilian assigned them an important 
 place in the theory of eloquence, and certain modern 
 writers have gone further still. 
 
 The opinion which considers music to have col- 
 lected, accentuated, and idealized all the emotional 
 accompaniment of articulated and logical speech is 
 a theory of French origin, first formulated by 
 writers of the eighteenth century. 
 
 " We must," writes Diderot in the Neveu de 
 Rameau, " consider declamation as one line, and song 
 as another line which zigzags across the first. ... It 
 is the animal cry which must dictate to us the line 
 most suitable." J. J. Rousseau many times main- 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 167 
 
 tained this idea, and drew from it the bold con- 
 clusion that the music of a nation has the same 
 characteristics as its language. I will only cite, 
 along with the first book of -Emile, the whole of 
 the 48th letter from Saint-Preux to JuHe in the 
 Nouvelle Helo'ise. The same theory has been ad- 
 vanced, with all the pomp of eloquence, by Lacepede 
 in his Poetique de la Musique (1785) ; by Condillac 
 in his Essai sur Vorigine des Connaissances humaines ; 
 by Villoteau in the Becherches sur I'analogie de la 
 musique avec les arts qui ont four ohjet Vimitation du 
 langage (1785). Nor have the musicians been averse 
 from it : " Music," says Gretry, " does riot copy 
 objects, but the word which describes them." 
 
 This saying agrees with the declaration of 
 M. Camille Saint-Saens in Harmonie et Melodie 
 (p. 259) : " When listening to fine verses well recited, 
 it has often happened to me to detect in them an 
 air which I could write down." The whole of the 
 early French opera was founded on declamation. 
 Let us not forget that plain-song has been charac- 
 terized as the " blossoming of the tonic accent." 
 Now, instrumental music being only a transposition 
 and a development of vocal music, it would seem 
 that we have here an explanation of the whole art. 
 This was the idea of Herbert Spencer, who by 
 republishing the same theory has made us forget his 
 predecessors. 
 
 Here is a double series of phenomena which are, 
 so to speak, parallel in the articulate and the 
 musical language ; it cannot be said that they 
 imitate or reproduce emotion, but they accompany 
 it, they are one of its first effects, and, on that 
 
168 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 account, pass as " imitative." They form an in- 
 separable association of ideas. 
 
 1st. Intensity of sounds. In music, as in lan- 
 guage, this is proportioned to the strength of the 
 feelings. 
 
 2nd. The 'pitch of the sounds. In both it is deter- 
 mined by the same causes. Shght emotions leave 
 the voice in the lower register ; strong emotions 
 throw it into the higher. 
 
 3rd. The absence, or the multiplicity and magnitude 
 of the intervals (a consequence of the preceding 
 fact). 
 
 4th. The ascending or descending direction of the 
 melodious design (as above). 
 
 5th. The staccato, or the legato of sounds (examples 
 furnished by the expression of joy or of sorrow in 
 all operas, passim). 
 
 6th. Timbre. There is in the most trivial conversa- 
 tion changes of timbre, called forth by the feelings 
 associated with the different subjects treated and 
 corresponding to modulations in music. 
 
 7th. The rapidity or slowness of the movement. 
 There are conversations which, in proportion to 
 the intensity of the feelings called into play, 
 pass through all the movements of a symphony : 
 adagio, andante, allegretto, allegro, vivace, and even 
 . . . furioso ! 
 
 The concordance of these facts in the two lan- 
 guages is easy to estabhsh, and we shall not dwell on 
 them. But there are two other parallel series, con- 
 stituted by another use of the resources just enu- 
 merated. Spencer has not perceived them, and yet 
 they would have completed his theory. 
 
MirSICAND SOCIAL LIFE 169 
 
 § 1. Descriptive Music and Natural Lakguage 
 
 All the descriptive elements of musical language 
 have their equivalent in the instinctive part of 
 articulate language. 
 
 It has been said that music was applied to the 
 translation of the inward life, that it had no grasp 
 on material objects, and that, as it was deprived of 
 any resources for depiction, it was obhged to reduce 
 everything to vocahzation — that is to say, to 
 psychological expression — by transforming what 
 was objective into the subjective. 
 
 We are, however, compelled to recognize, without 
 attaching too much importance to these facts of a 
 secondary order, that the musician can, if he 
 chooses, speak a very picturesque language and 
 reproduce certain characteristics of external things, 
 such as their movements, their rhythm, their colour, 
 and even their qualities in space. It is impossible 
 to hear the works of BerUoz, Bizet, Saint-Saens, 
 Wagner, and of the Russian and so many other 
 composers, and yet deny this. 
 
 Now, there are in articulate language all the 
 elements of what is termed descriptive music. 
 When they describe a fair, a hunting scene, a storm, 
 a battle, a voya_ge marked with various incidents, 
 the lower classes do not confine themselves to de- 
 tailing the facts and to marking their concatena- 
 tion ; they adapt their language to the things 
 they speak of, and give an approximate image of 
 them. It is this which gives hfe to their descrip- 
 tions, and it would require a great effort of wiU 
 on the part of any narrator not to regulate aU his 
 
170 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 " vocal gestures " according to the nature of the 
 objects of which he wishes to suggest the idea. 
 
 Here, again, there are intermediate forms to be 
 noted before we come to music : these are the 
 art of the mimic, of the reader, and of the 
 comedian. 
 
 Gounod said, when comparing French with 
 Itahan : " Our language is less rich in colour. Be it 
 so, but it is more varied and perfect in tints ; it has 
 less red on its palette, I grant ; but it has violets, 
 hlacs, pearl greys, and pale golds, which the Italian 
 language wiU never know." This judgment doubt- 
 less may be disputed, but it is founded on a prin- 
 ciple which is indisputable. 
 
 In his Art de la Lecture, M. Legouve desires us 
 to clothe words with aU the colours of the 
 prism and to paint them with the voice ; thus with 
 regard to Lafontaine's lines on " the poor wood- 
 man, laden with branches," who, "with slow steps, 
 regains his smoke-dried hut": "Render me," he 
 says, " these rugged contours of the branches with 
 a rugged voice ; employ grey and smoky tones for 
 this smoke-dried hut. Yet it wants a Decamps to 
 do this, for it was Lafontaine who made Decamps." 
 
 In a letter quoted by Quicherat (and dated 
 Venice, 25 Jan., 1838), Nourrit gives praise to 
 an Italian singer, and, analysing the qualities of 
 his natural voice, adds : " Unfortunately he has 
 but two colours at his disposal : black and white." 
 The celebrated Rubini has been greatly praised for 
 the Rembrandtesque tints he employed so happily. 
 An exact remembrance has been preserved of De- 
 vrient in Freischiitz ; when she sang, De quel doux 
 
MtrSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 171 
 
 exHat hrillent les etoiles . . . , she phrased in a clear 
 and hmpid voice, spreading, as it were, Hght over 
 the picture ; and when, exploring from her window 
 the depths of the horizon, she sang, Des nuages 
 epais et lourds flottent la-bas sur la foret, she darkened 
 the tone at the idea of the storm gathering over the 
 head of her betrothed. 
 
 Let us also bear in mind that there are three 
 registers in the human voice : the chest (deep 
 sounds) ; the palate (medium sounds) ; the head 
 (shriU sounds). The position of the sounds in 
 space being determined by those of the parts of 
 the body, the deep sounds are termed low sounds, 
 because the chest occupies the lower position, and 
 the shriU sounds are termed high simply because the 
 head has the higher position. From the superposi- 
 tion of these registers, enabhng us to speak of the 
 height of the sounds, it follows that the expres- 
 sions run up or run .down with the voice are used 
 to designate an adaptation of singing to external 
 movements and the directions of movements. 
 
 Without exhausting the analysis of these facts 
 and of their consequences, we may say that, 
 whether in the verbal language or the language of 
 sounds, the objective expression, although Kmited 
 to the reproduction of the most general character- 
 istics of the objects, constitutes both a work of 
 instinct and one of art, and may comprise — 
 
 1st. The reproduction of certain movements with 
 their direction (upwards and downwards) ; their 
 form (movements of an arrow, of a serpent, etc.) ; 
 their rhythm, speed, and total duration. 
 
 2nd. The indication of the size, great or small, of 
 
172 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 the objects in repose (by the varied volume of the 
 voice). 
 
 3rd. The imitation of light and darkness with their 
 intermediate shades, and an undetermined number 
 of tints (thanks to the analogy between colour and 
 timbre). 
 
 4th. The indication of certain relations (some of 
 which are confined to music, that art of simultane- 
 ous expressions), such as the superposition, parallel- 
 ism, distance, nearness, etc., of two objects situated 
 in space (thanks to the facts stated as regards the 
 registers of the voice, of which the extreme limits 
 are extended by the orchestra, and thanks to the 
 faculty of writing in several parts). 
 
 We do not find in language only the germ of all 
 these resources of musical expression ; this approxi- 
 mation enables us to solve a question which has 
 often been raised and which greatly puzzles 
 amateurs : What is the degree of exactness to 
 which expression in music may attain and what is 
 its limit ? 
 
 We answer to this that, in principle, musical 
 language has neither more nor less exactness 
 than instructive language. Now, this latter is very 
 general and, consequently, somewhat vague. A cry 
 is certainly the translation of a very strong feel- 
 ing, but it does not always indicate the true cause 
 of it ; it may express fear, anger, despair, surprise, 
 hatred, etc. ... A moan may betray the condition 
 of a wretch overcome by agony, or that of an 
 ecstatic saint, or, again, that of an epicurean steeped 
 in pleasure. Most of the physiological move- 
 ments proceeding from the passions (change of 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 173 
 
 colour, interference with the circulation, rise or fall 
 in temperature, twitching of the hps, etc.) are in 
 the same category, and may be produced by the 
 most opposite emotional states. 
 
 It has been remarked that the Saint Teresa of 
 Bernin, in the Basilica of St. Peter, appears filled 
 with a wholly voluptuous and sensual beatitude in 
 the presence of the angel appearing to her. Theo- 
 phile Gautier justly observes that in the Femme au 
 Serpent of Clesinger the expression of grief re- 
 sembles that of enjoyment attaining its paroxysm. 
 Were we to go minutely into the matter, we should 
 no doubt find that, beyond a certain degree of 
 intensity, all passions merge in the same dynamics. 
 
 § 2. Languaoe and Rhythm 
 
 Among the many phenomena which Spencer 
 might have pointed out in his analysis of language 
 — in addition to the physiological effects of emo- 
 tion — there are two of real importance. 
 
 1st. The first of these is the manifest tendency to 
 keep to a certain time. In our Romance languages 
 there are tonic and atonic syllables. If we study 
 the sequence of the words which together form a 
 sentence, we find, no doubt, that there is not 
 equidistance of the tonic accents, but that to the 
 principal accent there is habitually joined a second- 
 ary accent which introduces into the oratorical 
 formula a commencement or rough draft of binary 
 time. Thus in the word departement the tonic 
 accent is on the final; but the antepenultimate 
 (par) is semi-tonic, so as to convey the sequence . / . / 
 
 In the language of primitive folk it is noticed 
 
174 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 that the principle of repetition — the basis of rhythm 
 — has served to form a great number of words. 
 This fact deserved the notice of the English 
 philosopher (Spencer). 
 
 In his book on The Origin of Civilization, Lubbock 
 has devoted to this a special research, accompanied 
 by exact statistics. He takes the words beginning 
 with the letter A in the dialect of an African tribe, 
 and shows that, hke children, savages greatly love 
 to repeat the same syllables. He then shows how 
 different are the modern languages of civilized 
 peoples. The first thousand words of the Enghsh 
 Dictionary of Richardson only contain three ex- 
 amples of repetition ; but this is what is found, 
 as regards the letter A alone, in one of the savage 
 dialects — 
 
 Ahi-ahi : evening. Anga-anga : pleasure. 
 
 Ake-ake : eternal. Aru-aru : to marry. 
 
 Aki-aki : bird. Ati-ati : to hunt. 
 
 Aniwa-niwa : rainbow. Awa-awa : vaUey. 
 
 Lubbock has drawn up some comparative tables 
 which are interesting. After having closely exam- 
 ined the vocabularies of the negroes of the Brumer 
 and Lousiada Islands, and that of the natives of New 
 Zealand, he arrives at the following conclusions : 
 In European languages there are two words in a 
 thousand where the principle of repetition is 
 applied ; in the " primitive " languages there are 
 from 38 to 170 per thousand, or, an average 
 of 104. 
 
 When it is admitted that song is but a develop- 
 ment of the natural and instinctive language, it 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 175 
 
 may very reasonably be supposed that this instinct 
 passed over into music and there produced the bar. 
 
 2nd. Verbal language is not only logical juxta- 
 position of words and continuity; it has its 
 caesuras, secondary, and primary stops, and divi- 
 sions ; now, we again meet these same things in the 
 organization of song, and later in instrumental 
 melody. This important fact should have found 
 a place in Spencer's theory. We have already 
 pointed out this above and shall not again refer 
 to it. 
 
 To recapitulate, it would be puerile to say, as 
 Spencer has done, that music is only a simple 
 development of certain parts of natural language. 
 With ideas such as these we should have to give up 
 all idea of understanding Palestrina and Beethoven. 
 But it is very true that in music many expressive 
 elements are found which already exist in the 
 natural language. Did the one precede the other ? 
 It is probable ; and in any case, from all the facts 
 mentioned above, a " contribution " only to musical 
 sestheticism can be drawn, and not the principle of a 
 definition or of a complete bird's eye view. 
 
 Rapidly we have passed in review all the parts of 
 the musical material : fundamental intervals, scales, 
 modes, time, rhythm, and expression. Leaving 
 this technical and general point of view, we will 
 now examine music from the historical point of 
 view, and endeavour to show that at each period 
 of its evolution it has been a function in social life. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE EVOLUTION OF MUSIC IN REGARD 
 TO SOCIAL CONDITIONS 
 
 We shall group our observations in accordance with 
 the following plan, which is not however absolutely 
 rigid: (1) Primitive Folk; (2) the Greeks ; (3) Plain- 
 song of the Middle Ages; (4) the Renaissance; 
 (5) the Bach-Handel Period and the eighteenth cen- 
 tury ; (6) Contemporary Music. 
 
 § 1. PfiiMmvB Folk 
 
 By the word " primitive " I mean the earhest 
 races of men which historical documents enable 
 us to conceive in the past, as well as the non- 
 civilized of the present day, who, though our con- 
 temporaries, seem to be still in the first stage of 
 social progress. Among both classes, as we have 
 seen, song appears as a very important part of the 
 oral rites of magic. Is this to be accounted a socio- 
 logical fact ? We shall be very brief on this first 
 point, for direct docuihentary evidence is either 
 lacking or very difficult to verify. 
 
 If we take, in relatively modern times, the 
 magician who, by the aid of incantations, claims 
 to stanch the blood of a wound, to cause rain 
 to fall on dried-up ground, to disarm an enemy, 
 
 176 
 
MXTSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 177 
 
 to render a field barren, to evoke the shade of a 
 dead man, to inspire love in an indifferent or 
 hostile woman, etc., we doubtless shall have httle 
 trouble in proving that all that he is and does im- 
 plies the existence of a community. 
 
 The magician is only such by virtue of a quahfica- 
 tion given to him by society collectively and of the 
 attitude it assumes towards him. He can only take 
 his place by opposing it ; he is a stranger, an in- 
 dividual made singular by certain physiological 
 blemishes ; or else he is more cunning, or more 
 learned than the rest, a chief of a clan, or a priest- 
 king, one whom his peculiar authority allows to 
 communicate with the supernatural powers. If the 
 language he uses has any special virtue, it is for the 
 reason that, as regards rhythm, intensity, the in- 
 tervals run through, the nature and combination of 
 sounds, it is distinct from the current language. 
 In addition, the formulas he chants leave him no 
 freedom of interpretation, as is the case with the 
 musical artist of modern times ; rather is he a 
 captive to his own song ; it is forced upon him 
 with an imperative character in its smallest detail ; 
 if the incantations are efficacious, they act of 
 themselves, without needing, like our songs and 
 our operatic airs, a personahty to make them of 
 use. This is because their virtue is founded on 
 tradition, and on the tacit acceptation by a group 
 of initiates or believers.* 
 
 As to the magician whom we place at the very 
 beginning of things, and who creates the tradition 
 
 * V. Hubert et Mauss, Esquiase d'une thiorie ginirale de la 
 Magie. (Ann^e sociologique, 1904. Alcan.) 
 
178 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 (here lies the true problem) instead of being sub- 
 ject to it, a peremptory reason enables us to con- 
 sider him as a function of a social life. 
 
 All the primitive incantations presuppose a belief 
 that everywhere in nature there are spirits ; it is 
 they who cause famine or abundance, sickness or 
 health. Now, these spirits are endowed with aU the 
 feelings, — malevolence, sympathy, maUce, greed, 
 etc., — to be found among men. The belief in 
 spirits is, therefore, nothing but the transport into 
 the invisible world of that which has been observed 
 in an existing community. Without society incanta- 
 tion would have no basis and no existence. This 
 observation applies equally to the non-civihzed 
 among our contemporaries. 
 
 Let us not linger over this prehistoric period, but 
 betake us to more sohd ground. 
 
 It is customary to commence the history of 
 music with the Greeks, the founders of the theory 
 of the gamut and the modes, but this is evidently 
 incomplete and short-sighted. Too long have the 
 Greeks, inteUigent and artistic as they were, pre- 
 vented us from seeing humanity as a whole. Before 
 their time there existed the whole of the East. If 
 we confine ourselves to those parts of the Old World 
 with which they had direct relations, such as Egypt 
 and Asia Minor, we discover documents which 
 suggest the idea of remarkable musical affinities 
 between the inhabitants of the vaUey of the Nile 
 and those on the banks of the Tigris and the 
 Euphrates, and which aU attest the social part 
 played by music. 
 
 Among the Egyptians, the Assyrians, and the 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 179 
 
 Chaldeans, the inscribed monuments testify to an 
 art constantly connected with the magical behefs 
 of the people and interwoven with their religious, 
 military, and civil life. 
 
 The texts of the Bible, as far as the number and 
 exact nature of the instruments are concerned, give 
 rise to doubtful questions on which the archaeo- 
 logical researches of the nineteenth century, more 
 fortunate in other points, have thrown no hght ; 
 but we are able to gather from them some interest- 
 ing general ideas. 
 
 The flourishes of trumpets, mentioned as the 
 earliest of all instruments, gave rise (as in our 
 regiments of to-day) to a veritable conventional lan- 
 guage, described in the Book of Numbers (Chap. x.). 
 The trumpet accompanies the Hebrews in all the 
 acts of their collective life : it summons the multi- 
 tude to religious ceremonies ; it announces festivals, 
 the declaration and the end of a war, the accession 
 of a king to the throne ; it proclaims the Jubilee 
 Year, and gives warning of the anger of God. 
 
 There was a liturgical music, the object of a 
 somewhat complicated organization (1 Chronicles 
 XXV. 1), -united with dancing and with instruments, 
 which were tabooed later on by Christianity ; but, 
 besides this, we can gather the existence of another 
 music more subtle, brilliant, and which seems to 
 have been voluptuous, reserved for the wealthy 
 classes : "a concert of musicians in a banquet of 
 wine is as a carbuncle set in gold " (Ecclesiasti- 
 cus xxiu.). Job (xxi.) characterizes the ungodly 
 rich as they "who take the timbrel and the harp, 
 and rejoice at the sound of the organ." In Isaiah 
 
180 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 (v. 12) divers instruments (the exact nature of 
 which escapes us) are cited in conjunction with 
 the most delicious wines as a symbol of effeminacy. 
 This duality of the religious and the worldly art 
 passed to the, Greeks, by whom it was enriched with 
 a new idea : — the part music ought to take in the 
 matter of education. ' 
 
 § 2. Music among the Greeks 
 
 Among the Greeks, who were the successors of 
 the Orientals, from whom they differ but shghtly, 
 and creative artists, who added their part of per- 
 sonal invention to what they imitated from abroad, 
 music becomes the object of increasingly clear 
 classifications, aU having for foundation the ethos 
 of the different social groups in which art took 
 birth and received its characteristic stamp. The 
 ethnical denominations of the modes do not only 
 point out different successions of intervals ; they 
 betray a political conception of musical art, and 
 transport into the field of "harmonies"* the 
 fundamental idea of what is national and what is 
 not. Music is divided into different provinces, of 
 which the boundaries coincide with those of the 
 different States or races. The two priocipal types 
 are furnished by Continental and Asiatic Greece. 
 The first is the Dorian music, which Plato, in a 
 celebrated passage, considers as reflecting the 
 manly virtues of Sparta ; the second is the Phry- 
 gian or Lydian music, which was licentious, reserved 
 for feasts, and endowed with enervating power. 
 
 It would be easy to prove, by the examination 
 * The modes were thus termed. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 181 
 
 of later works written in the different modes, that 
 this distinction is, artistically speaking, untenable ; 
 yet it imposed itself on the whole of antiquity, 
 not from purely musical, but from pohtical 
 reasons. This seems to me the only possible ex- 
 planation of the astonishment it always provokes 
 amongst the moderns. 
 
 The employment of music in religious ceremonies 
 and in the education of youth is an entirely natural 
 sequence to the use of song in magic ; we must, 
 therefore, not be amazed that, in one of his comedies 
 {The Clouds, v. 967), Aristophanes distinguishes the 
 scholars of different generations by the choruses 
 they have learned at school. If, on the other hand, 
 a national and virile music and a music of pure 
 pleasure exist, it is the first-named which will 
 serve in all the circumstances where it is sought 
 to fashion the energy of the true citizen. 
 
 It follows from all this, that music can equally 
 serve to mark the unity of a people in the acts of 
 public life ; and, if this people be a democracy 
 founded on equahty, the form adopted as the most 
 appropriate will be the choral chant. From this 
 cause, we have the considerable part assigned to 
 music in religious assembhes, in the primitive 
 tragedy of an ^schylus — a social work not yet 
 divided from a Hturgy — and in the solemn Games. 
 
 This choral chant derived its beauty, not from 
 any artifices of composition, as the present-day 
 public' demands, but from characteristics which it 
 is impossible to appreciate properly if taken apart 
 from their social circumstances ; the more simple 
 it was, the more it placed in a kind of serene hght 
 
182 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLtTTION 
 
 the national idea associated with a religious one. 
 If it took the form of unison, it is by no means 
 on account of the aesthetic effect — a very fine one, 
 moreover, when the executants are numerous — - 
 which unison can produce ; neither is it through 
 want of knowledge of harmony. 
 
 I am quite willing to beheve, as so many docu- 
 ments allow us to conjecture (for example, the 
 position of the hands of the harpists, on the 
 inscribed monuments), that th^ Greeks, like the 
 Egyptians, were acquainted with composition in 
 several simultaneous parts ; but this art was pro- 
 bably not advanced enough to be associated in 
 their mind with the idea of a perfect unity in the 
 feehngs and the ideas expressed by the execu- 
 tion ; in addition, it would have singularly com- 
 plicated the task of the poet-musician, who before 
 the public representation had himself to teach their 
 parts to non-professional singers. We wiU add that 
 the writing of counter-point presupposes, for the 
 notation of real values and rests, a somewhat 
 advanced graphic system which at the beginning 
 was wanting. 
 
 In the study of Greek music from the sociological 
 point of view, there must naturally be taken into 
 account the myths which attributed a divine origin 
 to each instrument ; neither should we forget — 
 though we are only acquainted with them by name 
 — the popular songs. The Greeks sang while har- 
 vesting, while grinding the barley, when crushing 
 the corn with the hand-cylinder, when pressing the 
 bunches of grapes, when spinning and weaving — 
 all work founded on collective action and on the 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LITE 183 
 
 spirit of co-operation. They had among them the 
 airs of the shoemaker, the dyer, the water-carrier, 
 the shepherd, etc. . . . Through a slow evolution and 
 changes in manners and customs, the original names 
 of these kinds of couplets, associated with various 
 collective operations, became unintelligible to the 
 Alexandrians. 
 
 If we leave on one side the current of popular 
 melodies (independent of art, properly so called), 
 the two tjrpes of music, already mentioned in the 
 Bible, reappear at the very beginning of the modern 
 period : the one religious, the other profane and 
 worldly, an object of suspicion to aU who uphold 
 the religion of the fatherland or of the altar. For a 
 long time we see a predominance of the first ; then 
 progress, slow invasion and arrival of the second, 
 which little by little takes the leadership, and, by 
 an evolution alike of the conditions of social life 
 and the progress of the human mind, changes both 
 the direction of the art and its technique. Thus can 
 be summed up the history of music from the Middle 
 Ages to our own times. 
 
 § 3. Plain-song 
 
 For nearly ten centuries what was, later on, to be 
 called " plain-song " was the only music deserving 
 the name of art and of science. The musical lan- 
 guage we now employ comes down from the Middle 
 Ages by an evolution almost identical with that of 
 the verbal language. How was this type of art 
 formed which fills so large a place in history ? 
 What links has it with ordinary life ? A well-known 
 manuscript of Saint-Gall represents in an artless 
 
184 MT7SIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 sketch, a dove — the Holy Ghost — ^inserting its beak 
 into the ear of Pope St. Gregory while he is dic- 
 tating the " Neumes " to a scribe. We have only 
 to be acquainted with the various borrowings of aU 
 kinds from pagan antiquity effected by Christianity 
 to comprehend that the true explanation, in music 
 as in other things, must have a less mystical 
 character. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the Church is the perfect or 
 nearly perfect tjrpe — we must not lose sight of the 
 theological differences — of a society, realizing what 
 poUtical organizations pursue in vain or only attain 
 intermittently : viz. moral imity. The Church owes 
 this to the diffusion of the dogma which, by 
 implying obedience, removes the difficulty of the 
 problem, i.e. Mberty ; but it also owes it to the chant, 
 which is inseparable freim pubUc worship. It is 
 easy to see that aU the characteristics of plain-song 
 are of a sociological order. 
 
 The man who performs by himself an act of 
 worship does not sing ; he prays in silence. But 
 as soon as a gathering is formed song appears. It 
 is, therefore, legitimate to say, reversing the order 
 of the words : wherever we find chanting, there 
 exists a homogeneous community. " A very power- 
 ful bond of unity," says St. Ambrose, " is the chorus 
 formed by the assembly of the people."* In fact, 
 the chant is pre-eminently a collective work, and 
 on the other hand causes it to be a social bond, an 
 instrument of popularization, of deep penetration, 
 and of discipline. 
 
 * In Psalm., i : Magnum plane unitatis vinculv/m, in unum 
 chorum totms numerum plebis coire. 
 
MtrSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 185 
 
 Never has this function been more marked and 
 more powerful than in the Middle Ages. At that 
 period the word cantus did not only signify the 
 melodies of the ritual, but song in general, as if the 
 Church had not been a society, but the society. It 
 was in this sense that Martin Gerbert still used this 
 word cantus in 1774. Ignoring individual embellish- 
 ments, the chant only exfsts by the community which 
 ' collaborates * by means of it with the officiating 
 priest; it is the "common voice "f of the religious 
 society which chants, una voce, una corde.X " The 
 chorus is a multitude united in one ceremony." § 
 It is no longer the case, as among the Romans, of 
 special sacra for each family ; through the chant 
 the whole of lay society, interwoven with the re- 
 ligious, becomes a collective body which concen- 
 trates its feelings, its thoughts, and its words, into 
 one act in common. The profane world is caught 
 in the meshes of liturgical melodies, and thereby 
 the natural or conventional characteristics which 
 differentiate it are reduced to equahty. Rich 
 and poor, princes and subjects, clerics and lay- 
 men, young and old, men, women, and children 
 are brought together, reconciled, and identified by 
 music. 1 1 Such is the virtue of unification possessed 
 by the chorale.*^ 
 
 lake the liturgy itself, the chant is traditional. The 
 Church chants " after the example of its predeces- 
 
 * SuccinU, respondet, I'Tro^dtXXet. 
 t 4>avrj Koiv/] (Clement d' Alex. ). 
 X Saint. Augustine {de Verbis apost. , Serra. 10). 
 § Multitudo in Saci-is collectus. {Ibid., i.. i. 3.) 
 II Saint Jean Chrysostom, in Psalm., cxlv. 
 
 IT Ubicungue chorus est, ibi diversw voces in unum canticum con- 
 geruntur. (Saint Jerome, in Psalm. , cxlix. ) 
 
186 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 sors,"* with the desire to revive the ancient spirit. 
 Moreover, we are only acquainted with music 
 founded on tradition, just as every one who speaks 
 derives his language from some other person. The 
 name of St. Gregory is by no means that of a com- 
 poser, but simply an individual label given to the 
 tradition when, at the end of the sixth century, it 
 became fixed. St. Gregory confines himself to 
 compihng, co-ordinating, and " centonizing." His 
 musical work — supposing we have the right to use 
 this term — is an act of administration which codifies 
 elements descended from the Latins, the Greeks, 
 and the Jews.f 
 
 Besides being traditional, the chant is also the 
 object of faith (in the sense in which the observant 
 historian may give to this word). It is too near 
 to the sacred text not to borrow from it a 
 ritual character. J It is not used by reason of 
 its beauty, as some pieces for the organ are now, 
 but because it forms part of the things prescribed. 
 In the churches there are as yet neither " audience " 
 nor artists. The chant is one of the signs of the 
 faith, for its prototype was beUeved to be " the 
 choir of the angels celebrating the glory of God in 
 Heaven." 
 
 * Secundum exemplum prwdecessorum nostrorum. (Concile de 
 Valence, iii, ap. 855.) 
 
 t The Greek language was used in the Christian community 
 until the third century, a. d. 
 
 % Unconsciously, modern archseologists have this train of 
 thought when they endeavour to reproduce with so much pre- 
 cision from the manuscripts the exact version of the Gregorian 
 chants. We must note, in passing, that no one dreams to do this 
 work for the text of the Psalms, though it is known that the last 
 Latin recension of them does not reproduce exactly the original 
 Hebrew text. 
 
MTTSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 187 
 
 In the Christian world it develops and propagates 
 itseK in accordance with the great sociological law 
 of imitation, which is a kind of tradition radiating 
 in space. St. Gregory, when regulating it, had only 
 the Roman Church in view. By degrees the Roman 
 chant became universal, but more or less influenced 
 by the countries into which political circumstances 
 and the expansive force of the religious idea caused 
 it to penetrate. Hence its different forms (Ambro- 
 sian, Gregorian, Mozarabian, and GalUcan chants), 
 which have been compared to dialects having one 
 single idiom for origin and assimilable to the 
 Romance languages.* 
 
 From these first facts a few others might be logic- 
 ally deduced. Let us try to imagine the faithful 
 who used to fill the churches in the early ages of 
 Christendom, at a time when ignorance was so great ; 
 let us picture to ourselves, from the paintings of the 
 primitive artists, the features of the contemporaries 
 of Aurelien de Reome (ninth century), for whom 
 there existed no printed books, and who all might 
 have said, with the mother of Villon — 
 
 . . . Rien ne sais ; oncques lettres ue lus : 
 Au moutier vais, dont suis paroissiennej 
 Paradis peints ou sont harpes et luths 
 Et un Enfer ou damiie's sont boullus. 
 
 For believersf such as these the chant was an 
 obvious system of mnemonics. For this purpose it 
 
 * A very fascinating hypothesis of Dom Mocquereau. (Paliogr. 
 mils. T. I.) 
 
 t On the ignorance of the ninth century, vide the letter of 
 Aur^lian to the Arch-chanter Bernard (Martene, Monumen., T. I., 
 p, 121 sgq. ). 
 
188 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND BVOLtrTION 
 
 is reduced "to the "greatest simplicity possible ; it is 
 what was called later planus cantus, plain-song. 
 Retaining its socio-religious function, it disregards 
 systematically all preoccupation of art. Thus are 
 explained the scruples of St. Augustine, who 
 reproached himself with feeling too much plea- 
 sure in music. From those who practise it it 
 demands at first no natural gift ; in virtue of the 
 principle, " corde, non voce cantandum," it is within 
 the reach of all, even of those of whom we should 
 nowadays say that they ha'^e no voice.* Though 
 capable, in certain cases, of translating the ele- 
 mentary sentiments, sadness and joy, it excludes 
 expression, the impassioned cantilena, f and all the 
 shades that this implies. It excludes the powerful 
 intensity of sounds, f rapid movements, pathetic 
 inequality of rhythm : in a word, everything now 
 considered as musical and as constituting the art 
 of the professional. 
 
 Sung in unison, average in everything, giving 
 to its notes an equal length, it greatly resembles 
 the verbal language of which it takes the appearance, 
 the pauses, the inflections, and the cadences. In the 
 origin it is hardly different from that " speech," 
 vicinior pronuntianti quam canenti. In the most 
 ancient liturgy, which is that of Milan, there are 
 recitatives which end on an interval of a fourth 
 or of a fifth, of which one could instinctively dis- 
 
 * The Ka.Kb<j>avos may sing in the Church (Saint Augustine, 
 Confess , ch. xxxiii. Cf. Nicet, De Bono psal. , ch. m. 
 
 t Constit. apostol., 1, V, ch. ix. Cf. Clement d' Alex., 
 Strom. 
 
 $ Rule of St. Benedict, ch. xx, lii. 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 189 
 
 cover the musical design by simply reading the 
 words.* 
 
 The general principle of the organization of plain- 
 song is, in the most important of the sociological 
 facts (language), a paramount phenomenon, viz. the 
 toiiic^^4,ccent. The chant is its development and 
 full flower, from which it draws its system of 
 notation.f 
 
 With the melodies that it thus liberates it forms 
 a repertoire which, in spite of the size of lit\irgical 
 books, is very limited. This is confined to a few 
 characteristic tones, so few at first that oral 
 tradition could preserve them ; but later, when the 
 liturgy developed, it was thought to fix them by 
 very general graphic signs. Even at this recent 
 period itself, when new services demanded new airs, 
 old melodies already in use were employed, an 
 adaptation contrary to our ideas of art, but in 
 conformity with the habits of the collective activity, 
 which proceeds by repetition and imitation. 
 
 In practical execution, the principal forms 
 adopted are traditional or of universal popular 
 origin. These are the antiphonic chant (division 
 into two choirs) and the responsorial (one choir 
 responding to a soloist). 
 
 The modes used are borrowed from the Greeks, 
 
 * For example, the ordinary lessons of Matins (Jube Domine 
 henedicere, Tu autem Domine nostri miserm-e), the Lessons from 
 Scripture on Sundays and Feast-days, the Passion of the Martyrs, 
 the Epistle, the Gospel, etc. 
 
 t The acute accent, according to decisive proofs found at Mont- 
 Cassin by Cousseraaker, at first drawn from below upwards by the 
 transcribers, and then from above downwards with a heavy stroke, 
 gave rise to the virgule of the neumes, and later to the modern 
 crotchet. 
 
190 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 as indicated by their names : protus, deuterus, 
 tritus, tetrarchus ; and the Greeks themselves re- 
 ceived from the Orientals of Asia Minor some of 
 these modes, which were shortly afterwards to 
 reappear, with their ethnical designations, in Occi- 
 dental music. 
 
 The clausulce of the Gregorian melodies and the 
 principal features of their structure are not deter- 
 mined by artistic reasons, but by the nature of the 
 liturgical text (Catalogue of Reginon). 
 
 Finally, plain-song is impersonal and anonymous. 
 It has remained so, even when in the course of ages 
 individual talent has enriched it. The melodies 
 never, as in the present day, bear a composer's name. 
 They are considered as the work of the community, 
 and consequently as its property. (We should note 
 that this is the case neither for sermons, nor for 
 the text of the hymns, nor for the liturgy properly 
 so called.) 
 
 Neither are the names of the most talented singers 
 — there must, naturally, have been some ordinary 
 and some excellent ones — brought into prominence, 
 or even simply recorded by historiographers, not- 
 withstanding the special schools in which they were 
 subjected to a hierarchical discipline. Here again, 
 it is the voice of the community which is on their 
 lips ; every individual musical element is absorbed 
 and disappears. The assembly alone seems to have 
 an existence. 
 
 Even didactic works, whether signed or not, do 
 not escape this law. In the period before counter- 
 point—which marks a revolution and a new era — 
 they are impersonal. Generally, the monk who 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 191 
 
 writes a treatise on music in no way seeks to set 
 forth and uphold original views ; having to supply 
 the library of his monastery with a book it does 
 not possess, he is somewhat in the position of one 
 of our pedagogues who has to teach the metric 
 system or some other " matter " ; he is, above all, 
 anxious to set forth with precision a sort of anony- 
 mous knowledge and to conform to tradition. Par 
 from avoiding what has been said before, he is 
 bound to seek it out. Hence these treatises, 
 differing as they do from modern " plagiarisms," 
 though at every moment they bring them to 
 mind ; hence this untiring dihgence, fastidious 
 to our minds, in reproducing uniformly legends 
 which hark back to Pythagoras, to the Bible, and 
 are embodied in the " doctrine." 
 
 Such are the characteristics of the reUgious chant 
 of the Middle Ages. It has issued from a certain 
 very pure type of social hfe and of its historical 
 antecedents ; and at the same time it is charged 
 with maintaining the unity of it. Between this 
 music and the collective life there is constant action 
 and reaction. 
 
 § i. COUNTEE-POINT AND ITS FUNDAMENTAL EULES 
 
 Restricted to unison and tied down to traditional 
 forms, plain-song was incapable of making pro- 
 gress ; when new services were introduced into the 
 liturgy, it could only repeat itself or adapt to new 
 Latin words unappropriated melodies. Prom about 
 the eleventh century there appears and develops 
 by its side a type of chant which is the really 
 original and fruitful creation of the Middle Ages : 
 
192 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 i.e. counter-point. It made its appearance awk- 
 wardly and painfully, but to it belongs the future. 
 It was destined to invade the old reHgious 
 music, and to lead up to Palestrina, Bach, and 
 Beethoven. . . . 
 
 The division of the primitive cantilena into several 
 simultaneous parts, differentiated by the compass of 
 the voice, was obvious to any musician desirous of 
 novelty by the natural classification of the voices, 
 such as voices of children and women (soprano, alto), 
 and those of men (tenor, bass)l| ||t was equally sug- 
 gested by the whoUy natural desire to adapt music 
 to the differentiations of the collective life and to 
 present an image, in the choral chant, of the social 
 groupstl It is not without interest to remark that 
 polyphony especially developed itself in countries 
 where, a^ in Flanders, there existed a spirit of 
 municipal freedom and corporate existence, and 
 in those which, like Venice, carried to extremes 
 the luxury and the pomp of aristocratic assemblies. 
 
 A community, according to the definition of 
 Tarde, is constituted by persons who imitate one 
 another and yet are individually distinct. In this 
 new music, in which the problem consisted in recon- 
 ciling multiplicity with unity, imitation became the 
 general law of composition. 
 
 (The first important style in which musicians 
 practised is Canon'f in which the same melody 
 repeats itself in one part after another, like an un- 
 dulation, the field of which grows larger and larger. 
 For a long time the progress of Canon was confused 
 with that of the musical art itself. ^'Then music gains 
 more independence ; it organizes its motets and its 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 193 
 
 madrigals in accordance with the triple principle 
 which is at the base of aU social hfe : imitation, 
 opposition, and adaptation// 
 
 Pure instrumental composition is unknown to it 
 for a very long time ; it remains under the direct 
 influence of the verbal language, and only commences 
 to break away from it later, in an age of transition 
 which maybe assigned to the time of the Renaissance. 
 We have only to peruse the titles of the works pub- 
 lished in the second half of the sixteenth century — 
 Collections of Dances, Gardens of Music, Treasures, 
 Orchards of Melodies, etc. — to see that they are 
 " written as much for the voice as for aU musical 
 instruments," and that they serve " per cantare e 
 sonare d'ogni Sorte." The idea of writing a piece 
 for a special instrument is as yet not existent, or 
 hardly so. 
 
 One is startled at the multitude of social facts 
 and at the complexity of the events of poUtical 
 history which we should have here to analyse if 
 we desired to explain in complete fashion how 
 polyphony, after having developed in the sixteenth 
 and seventeenth centuries, succeeded in constitut- 
 ing various kinds of compositions, which appear to 
 us at the present time as free from all links with 
 the surrounding realities, and iti a kind of splendid 
 isolation. To avoid losing ourselves in a subject 
 which is in touch with everything, and of which it 
 is impossible to say everything concerning it, let us 
 take one of the works which developed into the 
 grand orchestral symphony, and let us try to re- 
 constitute its genesis. 
 
194 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 § 5. Analysis, from the Sociological Point of View, of 
 J. S. Bach's Sonata in La Minok 
 
 I open a collection of the works of J. S. Bach. 
 The first piece is a Sonata in La minor, for the piano. 
 It is composed of four movements : ' an adagio, of 
 free form (non-periodic) ; an allegro, a fugue for 
 three voice^^an adagio, of the same form and the 
 same extent as the first ; an allegro moderato (alle- 
 mande), followed by an allegro (coranto), an 
 andantino (saraband), and an allegro (gigue)"i An 
 examination of this very complex work prompts 
 the following observations — 
 
 1st. frhe abstract form " Sonata in La minor " 
 is, first, the terminal point of an evolution which 
 started from the concrete form, that is to say, from 
 music associated with language, to arrive at the 
 abstract form (music without words)/ The first 
 symphonic pieces, pubhshed in 1597 by Giov. 
 Gabrieli, were for the " voice or for iastruments." 
 Down to 1651, the terms Sonata and Canzone are 
 indifferently used ; it is subsequently to Neri, the 
 organist of Saint Mark's, at Venice in the middle 
 of the seventeenth century, that the word Canzone 
 was definitely replaced by the word Sonata. 
 
 Dances, which come to play so large a part in the 
 genesis of the classical Symphony, and which figure 
 to the number of four in Bach's work, were also 
 primitively written on airs for the voice with 
 words. The Italian composer, Gastoldi, pubhshed at 
 Venice in 1591 some Balleti a cinque (five voices) 
 con li suoi versi (with their verses) per cantare, 
 suonare et hallare ; the English composer, Thomas 
 Morley, had written Ballets for Six Voices (London, 
 
MTTSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 195 
 
 1595) ; the German Valentin Haussman a col- 
 lection of thirty-seven Pavanes (Nuremberg, 1604), 
 the first ten of which are accompanied by erotic 
 words, etc. 
 
 //Therefore, from the chanted language to the pure 
 instrumental music there must have been steps 
 which we cannot discover. Some of these are 
 supplied 'by the Itahan composers ; we know that 
 Bach had, on certain points, been their pupil. We 
 shall later see further proofs of this/' 
 
 2nd/ This Sonata in La minor appears at once, 
 from the simple headings alone, as the juxta- 
 position of two works of different kinds, each 
 comprising an adagio and an allegrol The first is 
 rightly the Church Sonata, Sonata da Chiesa, which 
 generally commenced with a grave and majestic 
 movement, " after which was taken some gay and 
 animated fugue " ; the second is the Sonata da 
 Camera (chamber), " formed of a succession of 
 little pieces, suitable for dances " (Brossard, Diet, 
 de Musique, 1703). By analogy, and to give sym- 
 metry and a regular rhythm to the composition, 
 this second part here begins, Uke the first, with an 
 adagio. 
 
 Bach, therefore, has united a profane subject 
 with a religious one ; that he was able to do this 
 shows that this conjunction had been made 
 before his time by the evolution of manners. In 
 Italy the churches were concert haUs as weU as 
 museums. At St. Mark's, Venice, during the seven- 
 teenth century there was a real orchestra, composed 
 of violins, Viols da gamba, theorbos, cornets, haut- 
 bois, and trombones. At Salzburg, as late as 1783, 
 
196 MTTSIC : ITS LAWS AISTD EVOLUTION 
 
 between the Epistle and the Gospel a Sonata was 
 played (Mozart composed seventeen for this pur- 
 pose). We have already left plain-song far behind 
 us. The Church has undergone evolution as weU as 
 the community. 
 
 3rd. Following these general observations, let us 
 examine the style itseK of our Sonata. At first 
 sight it seems more adapted to the viohn than to 
 the piano. This is in no way the result of individual 
 whim or habit ; notwithstanding the example of 
 his father, notwithstanding his competence in tech- 
 nique and the functions he held at Weimar for nine 
 years in the chapel of the Grand Duke, Bach was 
 by no means a violin virtuoso : he here submitted 
 to the influence of an external and very general 
 state of mind, to explain which we shall again have 
 to bring in the practices of the Church. 
 
 The instrumental works composed in the six- 
 teenth century in North Italy by the organists and 
 virtuosi of Venice, by the members of the Aca- 
 demies, or by the Roman School, all offer the 
 following peculiarity : the violin predominates (no 
 doubt because of being the instrument most fitted to 
 imitate the human voice and to sing). In adopting 
 it, the Church had done what was hardly possible 
 to an academy, a school, or to lordly artists : it had 
 popularized it. yjBach yielded to this kind of fashion 
 by lettijng the style of the violin slide into the' 
 piano .^ / 
 
 4th. The adagio, written in this spirit, is, in 
 reality, a prelude. This does not imply to our mind 
 either the exordium of the orator, or the intrata, or 
 the overture, or the recitative preceding the " air," 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 197 
 
 or the liturgical introit, or any of the forms which 
 announce or prepare something important or 
 rhythmical, but simply an organ prelude, destined 
 to tune the voices of the faithful who are about to 
 execute a chorale. This organ prelude at first be- 
 came a simple prelude not followed by singing, and 
 then, by a final transformation, an adagio. It is a 
 transformation resembling that which, later on, in 
 the symphony, is to replace the minuet by the 
 scherzo. This reminiscence of the functions of the 
 organ will become habitual (in the form of an 
 introductory adagio) in the symphonies of Haydn, 
 less frequent in Mozart's, and rarer and rarer still 
 in their successors — and the sociological reasons of 
 this are easy to understand. Like the public mind, ^ 
 the musical mind gradually liberates itself from the 
 Church. 
 
 5th. The fugue which follows is, in fact, a chorale 
 without words. It is customary to distinguish the 
 instrumental fugue, in which Bach excelled, from 
 the vocal fugue, of which Handel was past-master ; 
 in reality there is but one kind of fugue : i.e. the 
 vocal, written for a group of categories of singers, 
 since it is formed of " voices " which execute simul- 
 taneously different melodies moving within a normal 
 register. Bach followed the models which were 
 handed down to him by the Netherlanders, the 
 Flemish, the Germans of the seventeenth century, 
 and the Italians ; he is not the creator of the fugue ; 
 he obtained it from the masters of the North and 
 of the South. 
 
 6th. The second part of the work, the " Cham- 
 ber " Sonata, welded to the first, begins with an 
 
198 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 adagio, to which is added a Suite formed from 
 dances : i.e. the allemande, coranto, saraband, and 
 gigue. The co-ordination of these dances into a whole 
 possessing tonic and thematic unity, is the result of 
 a further evolution in certain facts of the profane 
 Ufe, of which these are the successive phases — 
 
 First of all a dance, with a song used as accom- 
 paniment. 
 
 This song has an instrument added to it. 
 
 The song disappears, and the instrument is used 
 alone. 
 
 The idea occurs to give the song dissociated from 
 the words and become instrumental elsewhere than 
 assembUes for dancing. 
 
 Travelling musicians carry the dance tunes from 
 town to town and country to country ; and inter- 
 national relations favour and extend these ex- 
 changes. 
 
 In presenting dance tunes, they were arranged in 
 such an order that a pleasing contrast arises be- 
 tween slow and quick rhythms, from the succession 
 of ternary and binary measures. 
 
 It was during the Thirty 'S'ears' War (1618-1648), 
 when the common use of arms had brought about a 
 similarity of manners and customs among Italians, 
 Spaniards, French, Swedes, Danes, Poles, that 
 choregraphic cosmopolitanism was instituted ; and, 
 in all probability, it was a musician of the school of 
 the Dutchman Sweelinck {obiit 1621) who created 
 the Suite for the piano. Bach was born in 1685. 
 
 Finally came the idea of uniting these dances 
 intO) (an artistic whole, called a Suite, which passes 
 into the Sonata, reaches there its last degree of un- 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 199 
 
 fitness, and soon dies out, though not without 
 bequeathing to symphonical music rhythms and 
 outlines of time, which are still noticeable at the 
 present day. 
 
 Religion, profane life, chant, organ music, violin 
 music, dances brought from Italy (the coranto), 
 from Spain (the saraband), from Germany, and 
 types of composition borrowed from the North 
 and South and themselves constituted under the 
 influence of multiple social facts — such are the 
 elements which a rough analysis, limited to the 
 notice of the most apparent facts, discovers in one 
 Sonata of Bach. 
 
 It will be seen that the composer is far from in- 
 venting everything himself, and also how incorrect 
 is the judgment, repeated a hundred times, that Bach 
 is "a pure German," echt deutsch, as our neighbours 
 say. One of the most manifest errors committed 
 by both nations (an error instinctively fortified by 
 the compUcity of Chauvinist criticism in each 
 country and by that of a criticism ill-informed out- 
 side each country) is to imagine that it is their 
 mission to create a really national work and to pro- 
 tect jealously against all alloy the pure substance 
 of their genius. As a matter of fact, there exist 
 between nations the same necessary Unks as between 
 the individuals of the same country : each receives, 
 modifies, and transmits a civilization in progress 
 which he did not create, and can only mark, on its 
 passage, with a new imprint. 
 
 It goes without saying that, if we had examined 
 an oratorio, a cantata, or an opera, the search for 
 a sociological conclusion would have been still n.oie 
 
200 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 easy ! For it to have been complete we should 
 have had to enter into the matter of style. I shall 
 not perform here this meticulous task ; I shall confine 
 myself to a single observation, to show that it would 
 b^ossible and legitimate to connect with the state 
 of'^the collective life, at a given moment of history, 
 certain characteristics of musical phraseology, 
 
 § 6. Music undek the Ancient Regime and duiung 
 THE Fbenoh Revolution 
 
 Here are two facts which appear to me significant — 
 1st. Our French music, under the ancient regime, 
 is full of " ornament." Every moment the line of 
 melody is inflected by grace notes : the slur, the 
 mordant, the gruppetto, the triU, and what has been 
 termed in French " broderie," and in German 
 manieren (cruel word !) — all these are lavishly em- 
 ployed. 
 
 This practice, carried out even in pieces for the 
 organ, no doubt comes from the clavecin, which 
 has been the basis of our musical education, and 
 in which the notes, being rather short, need to be 
 sustained or amplified by accessories ; but may we 
 not also find its explanation in the condition of social 
 manners? These "graces" are the curl-papers, 
 the ribbons, and the patches of an essentially 
 worldly music, of which Saint- Aubin has given us 
 an exact idea in his celebrated engraving, " The 
 Concert," where the wit and the coquetry of the 
 salons find their equivalent. One of the Couperins 
 wrote that, when playing, the performer on the 
 clavecin should look at the audience with a smile 
 on his lips ; this advice would have come home to 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 201 
 
 US even had it not been formulated. Very far 
 removed from the period when the art was popular, 
 the musician is then a functionary of an aristocratic 
 elite ; he only lives by it and for it ; the desire to 
 please by sweet effects is the great law of his art, 
 which appears to us aU curtseys and festoons. 
 
 2nd. Let us now run through the very consider- 
 able repertoire* of the music appearing after 1793. 
 The style is quite different. No more "graces " and 
 " manners." During the revolutionary period, the 
 musical art is characterized by the abandonment 
 of instrumental prettinesses, by an artless and de- 
 clamatory enthusiasm which manifests itself by 
 the freedom of the rhythms, the simplicity of the 
 line of melody, the use of vocal masses, the ignor- 
 ance or disdain of harmonic subtleties. How is it 
 possible to deny the concordance of these facts with 
 the change in manners ? 
 
 If we wish to convince ourselves that the evolu- 
 tion of music is determined by the evolution of 
 society, nothing is, finally, more instructive than 
 the spectacle of our contemporary art. 
 
 § 7. The Pkesent State of Music 
 We might commence by stating, after grouping 
 secondary facts round the epochs, that music also 
 has had its three ages. It has known a theological 
 age, with plain-song ; a metaphysical age, with 
 the great symphonists Bach, Haydn, Mozart, 
 Beethoven ; and the present with composers so pre- 
 occupied with realism, we might term the positive 
 age. One of the laws of civihzation is that the lay 
 
 * Published by M. Constant Pierre (publications de la Ville de 
 Paris). 
 
202 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 spirit, governed at first by the religious spirit, 
 gradually detaches itself from it, differentiates itself, 
 and organizes itself apart from it. This law is the 
 same for the arts of rhythm. /Music separated itself 
 from the Church after having been its thing ; it 
 liberated itself, in appearance to enjoy worldly 
 freedom, but in reahty to secure the expression of 
 its natural feelings outside dogmas^ 
 
 What a Beethoven represents, historically, in his 
 symphonic works is the definitive emancipation of 
 an art which began to free itself from its early 
 tutelage at the epoch of the Reformation and the 
 Renaissance, and henceforth only recognizes human- 
 ity, nature, and natural religion. 
 
 What our contemporary composers represent is 
 that absolute liberty, no longer exercised only in 
 ahstracto, as in the classic symphonies, but restored 
 to its concrete, naturalistic, and sociological applica- 
 tions with an independence which is entirely free 
 from restraint. 
 
 It is a state which has its grandeur and its perils, 
 and numerous facts give evidence of its connection 
 with the evolution of politics. To-day, the division 
 of music into distinct kinds, hierarchized according 
 to their nobility, a division which resembled, in 
 former times, that of society with its graduated 
 stages, becomes more and more effaced. This 
 confusion of genera, a result of the confusion of 
 classes and of the throwing-over of all convention- 
 ality, is, above all, visible in the theatre ; grand 
 opera and opera-comique continually encroach on one 
 another, and have become almost indistinguishable. 
 This transformation is equally visible in the Sym- 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 203 
 
 phony. In what category can we place a work 
 like the Prelude a Vafres-midi d'un Faune of 
 M. Debussy ? AU the old forms are broken up or 
 are no longer useful. 
 
 What characterizes our organization at the pre- 
 sent day is a state of deep and complete renovation, 
 in which the democratic and individualistic pressure 
 overthrows or causes to totter the old convention- 
 alities of all kinds. The same fact is happening in 
 music. It may be summed up in the one word : 
 anarchy. 
 
 In politics " anarchy " signifies the absence of a 
 ruler ; in the matter of art it means the absence of 
 all law of any kind forced on a composer. 
 
 There no longer exists a preponderant school, 
 with a quasi-official chief to group around him the 
 majority of talent ; the systems of sestheticism are 
 as numerous and as diverse as are the political 
 parties. Among our musicians there are revolu- 
 lutionaries, independents, conservatives, liberals, 
 classic irreconcilables, reconciled neo - classicists, 
 socialists, who vow to write only by the people 
 and for the people, and for whom the hill of Mont- 
 martre supersedes the Olympus of old. 
 
 No longer is there a general and common direc- 
 tion. Absolute liberty in the choice of subjects 
 — formerly taken from mythology — and in the 
 manner of their treatment. The rhymed operatic 
 libretto is followed by the prose book ; the be- 
 helmeted and gaudily dressed hero is replaced by the 
 workman in fustian, as depicted in the novels of 
 Zola ; the regular melody by a sort of inorganic 
 recitative ; the preponderance of melody over 
 
204 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 accompaniment by a mixed and undivided regime 
 which levels everything ; to the judicious use of 
 the orchestra and to the voices of the artists, 
 succeeds an unbridled flow of instrumental force 
 in which one seems to hear growling the formidable 
 voices of the crowd. 
 
 Even the grammar of music, with its long tyranny 
 of rules, has no longer any absolute authority. 
 Between the language of Rameau and of Gluck 
 and that of certain musicians of to-day there is as 
 great a distance as between the style of Boileau 
 and that of Stephane Mallarme or any other "de- 
 cadent." The pure consonances which formerly 
 gave to music a mundane decency of good taste 
 are now almost the exception : everything dis- 
 sonant, unusual, aggressive is regarded as expressive 
 far excellence. Regularity of rhythm is carefully 
 avoided. It is thought that work to be beautiful 
 does not need to be clear. 
 
 What favours this state of dissolution — and, at 
 the same time, of fruitful regeneration — is that those 
 learned in acoustics, who might impose certain bases 
 on musical syntax, are not in accord. They also 
 have been rent asunder by the critical spirit. The 
 leadership of Helmholtz was a fugitive one ; and 
 musical physiology has been, in one sense, the 
 liberation of music, because, while it says nothing 
 which has an evidential character like the problems 
 of geometry, it has lost the right of giving direc- 
 tions to the artists. 
 
 Lastly, there is a final standpoint which sociology 
 might choose in order to explain music. Every 
 
MTJSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 205 
 
 composition needs, in order to exist, certain in- 
 struments for its execution, and, conversely, the 
 number of instruments available for use exercise 
 an undoubted influence on the nature of the com- 
 position. Now, the manufacture of a musical in- 
 strument is a very delicate and complicated work 
 which presumes a certain degree of science of indus- 
 try and of international relations. I shall not enu- 
 merate the inventions due to the instrument-makers 
 in the course of the nineteenth century, which have 
 enabled musicians to obtain effects unsuspected 
 two hundred years ago. Concerning the Sonata 
 referred to above, I will only recall some of the 
 parts which enter into the construction of a violin, 
 taking the case (the least favourable in appearance 
 to the sociological theory) where the violin is not 
 manufactured by machinery, but by the hand of 
 one workman alone. 
 
 The violin-maker levies contributions from a great 
 number of countries and trades. He requires Swiss 
 or Bohemian maple for the stock, the thin sides, the 
 finger-board, the head, and the bridge of the violin ; 
 Swiss fir for the sounding-board, the bar, and the 
 angle-joints ; ebony for the fret, the tail-piece, the 
 knob, and various parts of the bow ; ebony for the 
 pegs ; iron-wood, ivory, and mother-of-pearl for the 
 stick ; Cologne glue for joining the various parts ; silk, 
 silver, brass, or bronze wire to go round the string 
 of the Sol. The first string must bear a tension of 
 seven and a half kilogrammes ; the La of 8 kilos. ; 
 the Be of 7^ kilos. ; the Sol, 7 J kilos. ; and these 
 measurements require the attention of several 
 specialists. 
 
206 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 With the varnishes, the large and small brushes, 
 the wheel to spin the strings, the sulphur vapour 
 to bleach them, the violin-maker requires a set of 
 tools almost as numerous as a joiner — about thirty, 
 in fact, each of which is .the finished product of col- 
 lective labour. And it will be readily guessed that 
 the choice of these materials and the rules for their 
 use are the result of a long period of practice, of 
 experiments and of comparisons, in which each one 
 imitates and corrects his neighbour, profiting by 
 his errors as well as his discoveries. 
 
 § 8. Conclusions of the Second Part 
 
 To sum up : the forms of composition, as well as 
 the expressive parts of music and the elements of 
 its grammar, are tributaries of social life ; they owe 
 to it their habitus and their intelligibility. From 
 language, music borrows its inflections, its cadences, 
 caesuras, movement, timbres, imitative harmony, its 
 affinity for the " images," which take the place of 
 things it would be impossible to reproduce ; from 
 liturgies, games, and dancing it borrows its chief 
 rhythmical constructions. Lastly, from one end of 
 its history to the other, it has an evolution parallel 
 to that of society by reflecting all the changes of 
 pubhc life, the progress of the lay mind, of science, 
 and of industrial labour. 
 
 Have we in this an explanation of the whole 
 phenomenon to be studied ? 
 
 I dare not aflirm it. There are theorists who may 
 perhaps be satisfied by the analyses we have made. 
 I cannot repeat how puerile, pitiful, and anti-scien- 
 tific would be a method which consists in explaining 
 
MUSIC AND SOCIAL LIFE 207 
 
 an art by ignoring the paramount artistic fact which 
 is essential to it and constitutes it. It is already a 
 great deal, no doubt, to be able to give an account 
 of all the modalities of compositions in unison 
 and in parts ; but there remains to be explained the 
 special act of synthesis which animates all these 
 forms — in a word, the thought. To ignore this last 
 fact is to place ourselves without the pale of music, 
 and to condemn ourselves to dissertations on side- 
 issues, which the musician has the right to consider 
 as trifling matters when it is proposed to give them 
 any greater value than that of a modest and limited 
 contribution. 
 
 It is not sufficient to urge that musical thought, 
 under the pretext that one of its characteristics is 
 the absence of concepts, is like the terminal point 
 of a series of ever and ever more sublime ab- 
 stractions. The mathematician and the algebraist 
 likewise think without concepts ; all that we can 
 affirm — leaving on one side the problem of its 
 origins, which escapes us — is that during that period 
 in which the history of civilization can be directly 
 studied by the aid of positive documents, we see the 
 mind of the composer becoming formed in the 
 same way as that of the writer who uses the verbal 
 language. He assimilates information ; he forms part 
 of a school, even if uncoimected with Conservatoires ; 
 he reads or hears much music ; he stores in his 
 memory a number of formulas which are uncon- 
 sciously in his mind, and cause him, unknown to 
 himself, to imitate or counter-imitate. He is always 
 the follower of some other composer, even if he 
 adopt habits of style opposite to the views of the 
 
208 MUSIC :' ITS laws and evolution 
 
 latter. All modern symphonists, French or foreign, 
 owe a part of what they are to Beethoven. Now, 
 Beethoven proceeds from Mozart ; Mozart from 
 Haydn ; all from Bach and Handel, who are the 
 culminating point of the Renaissance. This last is 
 the development of the music of the Middle Ages, 
 which, in its turn, is governed by plain-song ; and 
 plain-song is the meeting-point of several melodic 
 arts, still imperfectly known : to wit, Latin, Greek, 
 and Jewish art. 
 
 Everything is related and linked together. But 
 this series has a beginning, and taking history back- 
 wards simply pushes the problem further back. 
 
 Our sole resource is to admit that this delicate 
 act, by which a syntax of sounds develops into 
 a very expressive language, is not the privilege of 
 any special artist refined by centuries of civilization, 
 but has its affinity in humanity itself, of all ages 
 and of all latitudes. Everywhere mankind is senti- 
 mental, imaginative, and superstitious ; it is there- 
 fore a musician, at bottom, by virtue of an obscure 
 instinct which by degrees becomes precise and 
 realized. An assembly of people is never insensible 
 to fine music ; no doubt there are persons who, 
 when listening to a symphony, are cold, do not 
 understand, and are unmoved. But they may be 
 classed as " abnormal." We must remember that 
 there are many hunchbacks, many halt, many 
 persons born bhnd, etc. But it is not from them 
 we take our definition of mankind. 
 
THIED PAET 
 
 MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 
 
 GENERALITIES 
 
 Befoee he undergoes emotion, thinks, and forms 
 part of an active social group, man is constituted 
 from the working of certain organs ; and the study 
 of his physical nature generally serves as the 
 basis or as the introduction to the study] of his 
 intellectual nature. 
 
 In discussing physiology only at this part of the 
 book we are following an unusual order, and one 
 which may seem paradoxical. We have been forced 
 to do so by our anxiety to begin the inquiry by the 
 observation of a specific fact, capable of serving as 
 basis to a certainty, and by the design of not 
 entering till later upon the field of hypotheses. This 
 specific fact is musical thought, without which 
 there can be no music ; the field of hypotheses is 
 what the vulgar call " science." 
 
 After having studied the modahties of musical 
 thought, we wiU now study its conditions. The first 
 is the structure of the ear ; but here begins a fresh 
 realm, that of the very comphcated and obscure 
 phenomena on the border-line between the sub- 
 jective and the objective life, regarding which the 
 most ingenious observers, notwithstanding their en- 
 
 F 209 
 
210 MXJSIO : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTJTiaN 
 
 deavours to remain faithftd to the scientific spirit, 
 can very often only make hypotheses which escape 
 all experimental check. They are not, it is true, 
 reduced in every case to a confession of ignorance. 
 Thinking over what is known, and also what is 
 not yet known, it may be said that physiological 
 acoustics form a world of marvels. 
 
 First, it is certain that sound impressions produce 
 in us involuntary reactions which are purely me- 
 chanical. Careful experiments, the results of which 
 have been noted with mathematical precision, 
 enable us to accept this as an established fact. 
 Music causes reactions on the respiratory system, 
 on the circulation, the nerves, and the periphery. 
 No doubt, if in examining these phenomena the 
 effect produced by the audition of a major or minor 
 scale, of a single consonant or dissonant chord, of a 
 single high or low note, had alone been considered, 
 no conclusions could have been drawn without an 
 incorrect use of the word " music " ; but experi- 
 ments have been carried out with real composi- 
 tions — a funeral march of Chopin, an elegy by 
 Massenet, a melody of Wagner, Gounod, etc. — and 
 the results obtained have the same weight as any 
 other well-observed fact. 
 
 But here begins a veritable usurpation on the 
 part of physiology. It has been attempted to use 
 the reactions observed to explain musical emotion 
 by applying to music the ideas of James. Accord- 
 ing to this last, we must not say : this man turns 
 pale, trembles, breathes heavily, has a haggard 
 look, etc., because he is frightened ; we must say : 
 he has a feeling of fear because, under the influence 
 
MXrSICAIi THOTTGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 211 
 
 of an image, he has turned pale, trembled, etc. We 
 must not say : that young girl blushed through a 
 feeling of timidity ; but : she felt timid because 
 she blushed. In a word, the psychical phenomenon 
 is only the reverberation within the consciousness 
 of the physiological phenomenon. It is the latter 
 which should determine everything. 
 
 This manner of understanding the order of things 
 is very paradoxical — which by no means signifies 
 that it is false — but it seems very difficult to apply 
 it to music. 
 
 It is certain that if we first admit that music, 
 not operating on concepts, is a matter of pure 
 sensation (which is very nearly what Helmholtz 
 says), the explanation of the musical phenomenon 
 is relatively easy. But this principle is a postulate. 
 When we experiment on other things than the 
 rattling of shovels as heard by dogs, sick people, or 
 idiots, the psychical phenomenon and the physio- 
 logical phenomenon form such a complex, and 
 so suddenly, that it is impossible to say which is 
 earlier than the other : the purely scientific method, 
 anxious for affirmations easy of control, does not 
 permit of such dogmatism. 
 
 Objections of a less general nature may be made 
 to the uncompromising thesis of the physiologists. 
 Thus many persons are affected in their respira- 
 tory, circulatory, and nervous system on hearing a 
 beautiful poem recited by a reader unable to use 
 the art of the comedian and the seductions of the 
 voice on the ear. In such a case, is it not the 
 sense of the words, and not their acoustic organiza- 
 tion alone, which produces the effect ? 
 
212 MX7SIC : ITS LAWS AND BVOLITTION 
 
 There is a shuddering of the periphery which is 
 supposed to be a sign of the impression of the 
 " subhme." I note that it is felt not infrequently 
 at the theatre or concert, all in connection with 
 matters insignificant enough in themselves, which, 
 however, the mind of the hearer, by virtue of its 
 own activity, interprets after its own manner by 
 putting into the formulas employed a sense different 
 from that intended by the author. 
 
 Finally, there are observations manifestly incor- 
 rect or of exceptional order, which certain physiolo- 
 gists have thought proper to take as the bases of 
 a doctrine by reason of illegitimate generalizations. 
 For instance, in a Bulletin de FAcademie de Medecine 
 (1895), we read that the minor mode has a "char- 
 acter of weakness, of indecision, and of sadness," 
 and possesses " a special aptitude for the expres- 
 sion of the depressed states of humanity." These 
 assertions of M. Ferrand enable us to mark how 
 deceptive is the " scientific " label. It is possible 
 that in certain cases and with certain subjects the 
 minor mode may have produced these restrictive 
 effects of sadness and depression ; but what gives 
 us the right to generalize ? We have shown in 
 former pages that there are thousands of popu- 
 lar songs which express joy and yet are in the 
 minor. Personally, I am inclined to assert that 
 this minor mode expresses virile energy, with 
 a serious character and a tendency to action which 
 is exactly the opposite of sadness and the " de- 
 pressed state"; moreover, this was" the opinion of 
 all antiquity, which saw in the Dorian mode — one 
 of the types of our minor mode — a refiection of the 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 213 
 
 genius of Sparta ! What then is the worth, from a 
 " scientific " point of view, of a doctrine which 
 stumbles against such objections as these ? 
 
 Too often do physiologists argue on abnormal 
 cases, ignore contradictory facts, and yet draw 
 inductions which comprise everything. In the name 
 of scientific thought, they should be taught more 
 prudence. 
 
 Here is another material error among many 
 (I mean by this a certain number of legends which 
 have been accepted as real truths and as a base 
 of doctrine). In most of the works devoted to a 
 physiological theory of the musical art we find 
 mentioned this fact — by way of argument — that in 
 all times there has existed a therapeutics based on 
 singing or on instrumental melody. It seems to 
 me difficult to interpret the facts of history more 
 against their plain sense. It is perfectly true — we 
 know it by many testimonies — that music has been 
 used for the attempted cure of certain diseases ; but 
 if we go back to the origin of this usage we come 
 upon the belief that a sick person is one in 
 whom dwells an evil spirit, and that music may cure 
 the patient because it acts" wpon spirits. Such a 
 superstition as this has for basis a fact, the moral 
 power of song, which is the exact opposite to the 
 physiological thesis : if it can be put to profit by 
 any system, in the matter of music, it is by the 
 intellectuaUstic, and still better by the metaphysical 
 — even the transcendental — system. 
 
 Let us, then, admit that music produces reactions 
 of the organism, but let us acknowledge that in 
 certain cases it will be impossible for us to assert. 
 
214 Mtrsic : its laws and evoltjtion 
 
 when formulating a law, whether these reactions are 
 earlier than, concomitant with, or subsequent to the 
 purely psychical effects of expression. If we hear 
 an experiment quoted, we shall first assure ourselves 
 that it had for object a real musical phenomenon ; 
 we shall insist that aU the conditions of the pheno- 
 menon shall be realized ; and we shall inquire on 
 what the generalization is based. 
 
 Lastly, in taking up this new part of our pro- 
 gramme, we must be prepared to receive another 
 contribution, and not a tjo'annical cut-and-dried 
 doctrine. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE FtTNCTION OF THE EAR 
 
 Let us indicate the stages of the journey accom- 
 plished by sounds before arriving at the special 
 sense which makes of them a sjoithesis and 
 transforms them into music : (1) An elastic body, 
 outside ourselves, is set in vibration ; (2) this 
 perturbation communicates itself to the air and 
 propels itself in it ; it arrives at that receiv- 
 ing and transmitting organ, the ear ; (3) it 
 penetrates into a part of the ear, i.e. the laby- 
 rinth, where it affects the extremities of the 
 network of a special nerve ; (4) the sound 
 is transmitted to a centre localized in the 
 brain ; (5) thence, it is conveyed to the conscious- 
 ness. 
 
 The two first stages of this journey have been 
 completely explored ; we can see and describe in 
 writing aU the movements which take' place 
 there. It is in No. 3 that the difficulties 
 begin. 
 
 The general construction of the ear is known to 
 us, but all its anatomical elements do not appear 
 to have been exhausted by analysis. Especially it is 
 not known what is the part played by each portion 
 in the triple function of receiving, transporting, 
 
 215 
 
216 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 and comnmnicating the waves of sound to the 
 sensitive parts. 
 
 I never read, in the most recent works, a descrip- 
 tion of the ear without thinking of geographical 
 treatises, where certain distant countries in the 
 neighbourhood of the poles bear the names of the 
 fortunate explorers who first discovered them. 
 Discoveries have been made, and no doubt more 
 will foUow, in the auricular tissues, discoveries to 
 which the names of scholars wiU remain ap- 
 pended ; but we are stiU very far from being able 
 to define in a complete and satisfactory manner 
 the mechanism of hearing. 
 
 We are confronted by two theories : the one of 
 partial, the other of total, variable, and flexible 
 accommodation. 
 
 1st. The first has been adopted by Helmholtz.* 
 When new elements in the field of the infinitesimal 
 are just discovered, it is difficult to resist the 
 temptation of assigning to them a decisive part in 
 the solution of the problem in hand. According to 
 Helmholtz, the ear has a special organ for the re- 
 ception of each sound, one of these elastic pillars, 
 termed pillars of Corti, forming an arch over the 
 basilar membrane and stretching over the tops of 
 the others. An idea of their size will be gathered 
 from the fact that over three thousand of them have 
 been counted. They might be assimilated, when 
 they receive the impact of the sound waves, to the 
 keys of a piano yielding under the pressure of the 
 player. It has even been said that each of these 
 pillars, when vibrating under the influence of a 
 * Die Lehre von der Tonemfindungen, edition 1877, p. 227. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 217 
 
 given sound, can divide itself and give partial im- 
 pressions in accordance with the laws of multiple 
 resonance.* 
 
 Though this theory (stripped of the improbable 
 hypothesis just mentioned) is not yet a definitely 
 accepted doctrine and is somewhat repugnant to 
 me, I am bound to say that it has found a serious 
 champion in the Abbe Rousselot, who has continued 
 and perfected in many points the work of Helmholtz. 
 Here is a very brief account of the researches which 
 the Abbe Rousselot has effected in his Laboratory 
 of Experimental Phonetics at the College de France. 
 
 The sound of each of the vowels ou, a, e, i, o, u, 
 is not simple, but formed of a group of compound 
 sounds of a fixed intensity, among which one or 
 two are characteristic. To ascertain positively this 
 most important phenomenon, the Abbe Rousselot 
 has constructed a very ingenious resonator, greatly 
 superior to that of Helmholtz, for, instead of only 
 serving for one simple given sound, it allows the 
 whole series contained in a given compound to be 
 observed. It is in form a cylinder with a movable 
 bottom ; and, while a vowel is being emitted in 
 front of one of its extremities, the bottom of the 
 instrument is drawn forward by a steady movement 
 towards the source of the emission. The length of 
 the column of air is thus modified, and this causes 
 the resonator to vibrate successively, by sympathy 
 with all the simple sounds it meets on the road, 
 and these are made recognizable to the ear by 
 isolating them one after the other. It suffices, at 
 
 • Mach, Beitrdqe zwr Analyse der Empfindungen, Jena, 1866, 
 p. 113. 
 
218 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 any given moment, to note the dimension given to 
 the cylinder in order to obtain the wave length 
 and, consequently, the number of vibrations, thus 
 allowing the sound perceived to be identified. 
 
 This experiment, the basis of all the explanations 
 which follow, once duly estabhshed, the following 
 facts are observed. Certain defective ears, instead 
 of perceiving the compound sound, as is usual, 
 have quite a different impression ; u is uttered, 
 and they hear o for e, i, etc. The explanation 
 would seem to be that in the series of receptive 
 organs these ears have gaps or islands of deafness 
 which, in certain cases, do not allow them to grasp 
 the characteristic components of the vowel emitted. 
 They have, at the same time, some remains of the 
 auditory apparatus which, acting separately, cause 
 them to hear with predominant intensity one 
 harmonic which ought to be, as it were, merged 
 in a synthesis ; and, according to whether this 
 harmonic is more or less distant from its normal' 
 characteristic, the tone of the vowel heard becomes 
 modified. The result may be different, but of a 
 like nature, if the ear perceives two harmonics 
 bordering upon the characteristic one. 
 
 From all this, consequences may be drawn which 
 it is easy to foresee. If, by the aid of the improved 
 resonator (called the Universal Resonator), we 
 commence to determine objectively, the compo- 
 sition of all the vowels, and if, on the other hand, 
 we observe in a single case the way in which a 
 defective ear perceives a vowel, it is easy to deduce 
 how the same ear will behave towards aU the other 
 vowels. In the second place, we are brought to 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 219 
 
 believe that everything happens, in the mechanism 
 of hearing, as if there were a special organ for the per- 
 ception of each simple sound. 
 
 This is a fascinating idea, but has it any character 
 of certainty ? First, how can we admit that fibres 
 one-twentieth of a miUimetre long can sympathize 
 with sounds of considerable wave-length ? 
 
 Granting that there are 200 fibres for the per- 
 ception of noises, this would leave 2800 for the 
 musical sounds ; and as these musical sounds do 
 not comprise more than 7 octaves, it makes 400 
 fibres for each, or a httle more than 33 sounds in 
 an interval of a full tone. In other terms, between 
 Dott and Rei^ we ought to be able to perceive, in 
 the easiest way, 33 different sounds (since we 
 have, according to the hypothesis, a special organ 
 for each) ! 
 
 The objection has also been made that birds, 
 which have such dehcate hearing and a relatively 
 well-developed musical sense, do not possess these 
 pillars. This objection appeared decisive. Thus 
 one had to fall back on the fibres called those of 
 Hensen, to the number of 60,000, each one tuned 
 to a given sound. 
 
 2nd. The second principal hypothesis (there are 
 some secondary ones) is that of total accommoda- 
 tion. The ear would thus be a very flexible instru- 
 ment, whose elements would have no specialized 
 function ; but which would become modified, in 
 response to solicitations from without, by adapting 
 itself in its entirety to the various sounds perceived. 
 
 This opinion raises fewer difficulties than the 
 other ; it is the one we should willingly accept, but 
 
220 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND BVOLXTTION 
 
 on one condition, to wit : that it be granted that 
 the ear does not, solely and necessarily, accom- 
 modate itself according to the sensations arriving 
 from without by a kind of pure mechanism, but 
 according to the images already locaHzed by habit 
 in the cellular centres of the cerebral cortex and 
 according to an idea which imposes its form on 
 the sensation : in a word, by the musical sense 
 itself. 
 
 Let us take an example. Here is a formula of 
 Wagner (Rheingold) — 
 
 ^^ 
 
 which, played on the piano, makes me perceive the 
 group Sol— Mi as an interval of the sixth belonging 
 to the third inversion of the perfect chord Do^ Mi, 
 Sol. Here is another formula from the same 
 score — the wail of the Rhine maidens who have 
 lost their gold — 
 
 + + 
 
 Here I perceive the same group (emitted by the 
 same keys of the piano) as belonging to the chord 
 of diminished seventh, having as fundamental the 
 dominant of Do. This distinction is not a subtlety 
 of analysis : every listener will grasp this change, 
 which produces the very beautiful effect of a 
 mournful and strange wail, which is steeped in 
 poetry. 
 
 Between Sol— Mi i^ and Sol—Fa\? there is a fairly 
 
MUSICAL THOTTGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 221 
 
 notable difference. Sol-Mi = l^-f-; Sol-Fa^ = \%»-, 
 or say, an interval between the two, expressed by the 
 relation -^ff. Why, with an instrument with fixed 
 notes like the piano, have I the very clear im- 
 pression of this non-identity? Why is Sol— Mi tj 
 perceived as a consonance, and Sol— Fa t^ as a dis- 
 sonance, although on my keyboard the vibrations 
 producing these two groups are exactly the same ? 
 Is it not, in one formula as in the other, in conse- 
 quence of that which precedes and follows the two 
 intervals ? Their antecedents and their subsequents 
 are not the same ; which accounts for my hearing 
 them differently. 
 
 The acoustic impression therefore resolves itself 
 here into the perception of a relation. Now, a 
 relation is never given by a sensation ; no fibre, 
 however delicately organized we may imagine it, 
 can do that ; the intervention of an act of the 
 intelligence is necessary. The ear, therefore, would 
 appear to accommodate itself according to other 
 laws than those of physiology. 
 
 Any enharmonic modulation should offer a 
 similar example. There exists in this case an in- 
 stantaneous transformation of a sound-phenomenon 
 into a musical phenomenon, which constitutes 
 precisely the originaUty of the physiological facts. 
 The ear does not make the hearing as a mould 
 gives its form to the fluid matter poured into it ; 
 to its passive receptivity there is added a rapid 
 act which appreciates, undoes, reforms, and makes 
 perfect the work of the auditory sense. 
 
 There is no more disagreeable dissonance, taken 
 by itself, than that of Mi H (f ) against Mi # (^^%^-), 
 
222 Mtrsic : its laws and evoltttion- 
 
 yet Schumann produces with it a charming effect 
 in his song Mondnacht ! The dissonance of major 
 second and minor second comes in no less than ten 
 times in an exquisite pianoforte piece by the same 
 Schumann : Einsame Blumen {" Lonely Flowers "). 
 Anywhere else they would be intolerable ; in this 
 case, again, it is the progression of the parts, the 
 antecedents, and the subsequences of the counter- 
 point — in a word, the sense — which imposes on the 
 ear a very pleasant impression. 
 
 We can quote a phenomenon of the same nature 
 in very curious cases, where it would seem that 
 the musical intelligence has a direct influence on 
 the quaUty of the sound. There is the well-known 
 experiment made with laths of wood, suitably 
 shaped and of various densities : each one falhng 
 separately on the floor simply gives an impression 
 of noise. If allowed to fall in a certain order, they 
 give a very clear impression of the gamut. We 
 have to admit either that the mind instantaneously 
 modifies the sensation (the wave-sound remaining 
 the same), or else that the ear does not react, like the 
 apparatus of which the spring has been released, 
 but possesses a kind of " judgment." 
 
 It seems impossible to explain the very complex 
 phenomena of audition, if we depart from the 
 principle that the ear is a mechanism acting 
 according to purely physical laws of immovable 
 fixity ; it is quite another thing if we admit a kind 
 of compenetration of the musical psychological life 
 and of the auditory organ, and if we consider this 
 organ as actually at the stage of a possibly un- 
 finished evolution. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 223 
 
 § 1. Capacity of the Ear for Eduoatiox 
 
 When one thinks that all primitive instruments 
 were made for a smaU number of notes, and if we 
 recollect the resemblances furnished by the general 
 study of evolution, it is permissible to conjecture 
 that the ear, considered as reacting to certain 
 outside solicitations, began by very hmited func- 
 tional manifestations. It is possible that it was only 
 sensible at first to sounds subject to periodicity, 
 to the fundamental intervals : i.e. the fifth and the 
 fourth. This hypothesis seems borne "out by the 
 descriptions which have reached us of the primitive 
 lyres and by the history of the scale, at first Umited 
 to four notes : Do, Fa, Sol, Do. The introduction 
 of the La and the Mi has been attributed to Ter- 
 pander, that of the Si and Re to Pythagoras. 
 
 Among the moderns, the passage from the simple 
 to the compound has been quite as slow ; com- 
 position in the chromatic style only dates from the 
 epoch when Cjrprian de Rore wrote his madrigals 
 (middle of the sixteenth century). 
 
 A similar process seems to characterize the history 
 of the notion of colours. Neither in the Koran 
 nor the Bible, any more than in the hymns of the 
 Rig- Veda, is the blue colour of the sky ever 
 mentioned. Red and yeUow, a kind of dominants, 
 are the first differentiations effected, because they 
 belong to the longest and most powerful ethereal 
 waves. To Aristotle the rainbow only had three 
 colours ; red, green, and blue, and their shades only 
 became specific sensations at a fairly late date. 
 Acquiring, like the retina, new aptitudes under 
 
224 MUSIC : its laws and evolution 
 
 the incessant impacts of the molecules of the ether, 
 the ear improved by degrees under the influence of 
 circumstances such as the chase, war, and all the 
 relations of social life. It is at the present day the 
 paramount artistic sense, certainly superior to that 
 of vision, for its impressions have given rise to the 
 language which is most capable of unifying indi- 
 viduals and of creating collective emotions, and has 
 finally reacted on the ear itself. 
 
 It is no longer a machine, the study of which 
 belongs only to anatomy and its microscopes, or 
 to physics, but an organism into whose tissues 
 penetrate, evefy minute, phenomena of a psychical 
 order. The ear has a purely organic memory, 
 similar to that which stores itself up in the 
 fingers of the virtuoso, capable of playing " by 
 heart " the most difficult compositions, while 
 carrying on a conversation on any given subject. 
 It compares, it appreciates, and it judges, quite 
 apart from the intensity of the impact, the distance 
 which separates it from the source of emission. It 
 selects, for one of the marvels of its structure 
 is that it not only hears, but also, that it does 
 not hear certain sounds which, though musical in 
 themselves, would render music impossible were 
 they perceived. It has arrived at such a degree of 
 sensibihty that certain conflicts of vibrations are a 
 positive suffering to it. It distinguishes the finest 
 shades ; lastly, if it makes the synthesis of sound, 
 it excels — and that is its superiority over the eye — 
 in the analysis of a group of sounds. 
 
 The eye is unable to analyse its impressions. If, 
 for example, we cause to revolve rapidly a disc on 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 225 
 
 which bands of all colours have been superposed, the 
 eye will only see one result : the colour white. On 
 the contrary, sound a perfect chord, and if his ear 
 be at all educated, the hstener will distinguish the 
 three notes, their position, and their timbre. While it 
 is difficult for us to admit that we have simultaneous 
 states of consciousness, he will say whether the first 
 note is given by a violin, the second by an alto, and 
 the third by a wind instrument. In the middle of 
 the rendering of a symphony by eighty or a hundred 
 musicians, the conductor, sensitive to a slight in- 
 accuracy of tone, will direct one of his musicians to 
 tune his first string sHghtly up or down. We may 
 add that the eye only properly catches the waves in 
 front of it. The ear, on the contrary, can equally 
 well receive the waves of sound whether the subject 
 be in front, behind, or at the side of the source of 
 emission. 
 
 All this, no doubt, presumes a superior mechanism 
 of which it would be a very feeble explanation to 
 urge that the need of hearing ended in creating the 
 means of hearing ; but it must be admitted that 
 psychical life intermingles with the organs which 
 are its condition, and that the boundaries of 
 physiology cannot be very accurately defined. As 
 between the sonorous body and the receptive appa- 
 ratus there must exist a medium of conduction, 
 such as the air. Thus, in the same way, while passing 
 from the network of nerves and the centres of the 
 brain to the consciousness, the vibrations seem to 
 traverse a medium formed of habits, of locahzed 
 images and of innate or acquired aptitudes. . . . 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE LOCALIZATION OF IMAGES 
 
 If now, we resume the journey the broad lines of 
 which have been indicated above, and study its last 
 stage — the one in which the sound-waves impress 
 themselves on the brain — we note some very curious 
 phenomena, which should be noted here. The 
 attempt has been made to deduce from these phe- 
 nomena conclusions which they do not warrant. 
 They are in no way incompatible with the theory 
 of musical thought (acting in the same manner as 
 verbal thought, but without concepts) which has 
 been upheld in this book. I have already had to 
 reproach certain scholars with judging music from 
 laboratory experiments, which do not deserve the 
 name of music. We shall see that they do not 
 always abide by the experimental method, and 
 sometimes argue like theologians. 
 
 The articulate verbal language and the musical 
 language — the one rendering thought, the other the 
 emotion which is its accompaniment — are closely 
 united, in the embryo state, in the instinctive and 
 natural speech observable in the child, the non- 
 civilized, and the man under some emotion to 
 which he gives free vent ; but they are imited 
 somewhat in the same way as two persons standing 
 
 226 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 227 
 
 back to back ; the first step forward and they 
 separate, to commence evolutions very different 
 from one another. 
 
 The first language was composed of words with 
 a conventional and partly intelligible meaning ; the 
 second is formed of sounds which have been called 
 positive gestures of the muscles, provoked by invol- 
 untary reactions and of a universally inteUigible 
 meaning. But a moment comes when the logical 
 element of speech and the melodious element are 
 differentiated, bifurcate, and organize themselves 
 separately. This dissociation might have for symbol 
 the structure of the lyre, the two horns of which, 
 forming the base of the instrument after starting 
 from a common point, follow different directions. 
 
 First of all, each of the two languages primitively 
 united acquires new functions. Thus, the verbal 
 language, which, in its inception, only had two, 
 audition and articulate emission, adds to these 
 writing and reading ; while the musical language, 
 to audition, writing, reading, and song adds in- 
 strumental execution. In the second place, it is 
 thought that each of these functions is rendered 
 possible by the localization in the brain of what 
 may be called, though such a word may be rather 
 inappropriate, groups of distinct images. Truth to 
 say, this doctrine of locahzations does not present 
 itself with proofs from anatomical observation. It 
 has been recently attacked (together with the 
 theory of Broca) by one of the most distinguished 
 of Charcot's pupils. Dr. Marie ; and, after the re- 
 joinder of Dejerine, the question may still be called 
 an open one. With this reservation, we give a very 
 
228 MTTSic : ITS laws and evolution 
 
 concise account of a theory of which we must, 
 especially, bear in mind the general principles. 
 
 As regards speech, the verbal auditive images 
 are locahzed, according to the majority of physio- 
 logists, in the posterior part of the first temporal 
 lobe, and, according to certain authors, in the first 
 circumvolution of the left temporo-sphenoidal lobe, 
 called " Wernicke's centre " ; the visual images of 
 words are localized in the lower parietal lobe, 
 called " Dejerine's centre," or " KussmauU's cen- 
 tre " ; the images of articulation in the posterior 
 part of the third left frontal circumvolution, at a 
 point called " Broca's centre." As to the graphic 
 images (the localization of which, it is true, has been 
 rejected by many neurologists), they have, as the 
 seat of their concentration and activity, a place 
 situated at the foot of the second frontal circum- 
 volution, called " Exner's centre." 
 
 As regards music, hypothesis no doubt has more 
 than once to be called in, and observation is not 
 so far advanced. For the brain, as for the ear, 
 lengthy researches are still necessary and difiicult. 
 Still (except for the graphic centre), the parallehsm 
 of the musical and verbal locaHzations seems very 
 defensible to the greatest experts in these matters. 
 The images, of auditive musical sensation would be 
 locahzed in a centre which forms a specialized 
 function of the general auditive centre ; the visual 
 images necessary for notation would be locahzed in 
 a centre, itself included in that of sight generally ; 
 the images allowing emission and song would 
 specialize a function of articulate speech ; graphic 
 images, indispensable for guiding the movements 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 229 
 
 which realize writing, would be localized, perhaps, 
 in certain cellular groups of the centre of verbal 
 writing. As for instrumental execution, it would 
 proceed from several functional locaHzations, the 
 same muscles not being always called into play : 
 for instance, the pianist plays with his hands, the 
 organist with his feet as well as his hands ; the 
 flute player with his hands and his breathing 
 apparatus, etc. 
 
 The distinction between these two groups of 
 functions — ^verbal language and musical language : 
 and, in each group, between the functions of the 
 specializations — is founded on clinical observations. 
 Indeed, it is by closely studying the abnormal, the 
 hysterical, the mentally deranged, the degenerates, 
 and those afHicted with hereditary taints, and by 
 examining very carefully the connexity or the in- 
 dependence of certain disorders, that it has been 
 possible to deduce logically the existence of the 
 several centres, and their total, unequal, or partial 
 synergy. It was first noted that the functions of 
 the musical language did not become disturbed 
 together with those of the verbal language, and 
 that often, if not always, one or the other could 
 be altered or reduced to impotence while the other 
 remained normal ; it had therefore to be recognized 
 that they constituted two physiologically distinct 
 systems. 
 
 For the rest, I imagine that, while making use 
 of the lesions (hsemorrhage, softening, etc.) which 
 disease has caused in brains hitherto normal, 
 neurologists consider the proofs from these irregular 
 cases as a last resort. 
 
230 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 § 1. Aphasias and Amtisias 
 
 The localization, on distinct points and in a 
 separate system, of musical images confirms the 
 independence and originality we have claimed for 
 music. This differentiation of the physiological 
 mechanism, ending in a dualism of autonomy, re- 
 sults from the observation of aphasias and amusias. 
 
 We term aphasia the loss of the functions of the 
 verbal language, and " amusia " that of the func- 
 tions of the musical language. Either one or the 
 other may be total or partial, affecting either the 
 centres of sensorial images (reading) or the centres 
 of images of movement (song, writing, execution). 
 Finally, they may be non-concomitant. Here are 
 a few cases I borrow from Dr. Ingegnieros.* 
 
 1st. A young man, aged twenty-five, accustomed 
 to perform a great deal of music, sat down to the 
 piano one evening. He remained motionless, as if 
 suddenly impotent. He could find nothing to play. 
 It seemed to him " that memory had left his brain." 
 He opened a score. He was no longer able to read 
 it. He tried to whistle, to hum the opening bars 
 of his favourite melodies. It was of no avail. 
 The inhibition was complete. The patient had 
 completely lost the language in all its functions : 
 memory, song, reading, and execution. {Total sen- 
 sorial and motor amusia.) 
 
 ■ 2nd. A young woman, twenty years of age, had 
 an attack of hysteria ; since then, every time she 
 sat down to the piano, she imagined " she was 
 playing on an instrument without strings." She 
 
 * Le langage musical et ses troubles hysUriques. Akan, 1907. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 231 
 
 had preserved the power of singing and execution 
 by simple muscular memory, but neither heard 
 what she sang nor what she played. The loss of 
 musical audition was complete as to aU instruments 
 and voices. (Partial sensorial amusia: deafness.) 
 
 3rd. A woman of twenty-two had an excellent 
 ear for music, read perfectly, could also write 
 music, but phonation (musical) and articulation (of 
 the verbal language) were entirely lost. [Partial 
 motor amusia, combined with dumbness.) 
 
 4th. A girl of seventeen, through convulsions 
 brought on by disappointment in love, lost the 
 faculty of singing while still able to read, write, 
 hear, and execute music. Concurrently, all the 
 functions of the verbal language had disappeared. 
 (Partial motor amusia, combined with complete motor 
 aphasia.) i 
 
 5th. A young woman became unable to move her 
 fingers at the piano, while still capable of hearing, 
 reading, and writing music. (Partial motor amusia.) 
 I Anomalies have also been observed, due not to 
 any lack, but to irregular conditions : such as 
 the exaggeration or the perversion of a function. 
 A young woman of twenty-nine could no longer 
 read a printed text unless she sang it with all the 
 musical inflections of an interminable romance, 
 continuously improvised. The subject of the read- 
 ing, whether newspaper, letter, scientific work, 
 novel, etc., did not affect the song. Here is the 
 morbid synergy of a function of the sensorial 
 images in the articulate language, with a function 
 of the motor images, become preponderant, in 
 the musical language., 
 
232 MUSIC : its laws and evoltttion 
 
 A young Creole was haunted by the memory of a 
 song in an operetta, especially at night, and lost 
 her sleep through it. Here is a predominance, with 
 recoil on the. general organism, of the function of 
 the sensorial and motor images. 
 
 A young lady violinist of the Institute of Monte- 
 video failed in an examination for which she had 
 worked hard, and this failure brought on convul- 
 sions. Ten years after she still held the violin in 
 horror ; and every time she heard it she had a fresh 
 attack. She had to retire from ah. society Ufe. — 
 Here is a partial exaggeration of the functions of 
 the sensorial images, due to an association of ideas 
 which had become indissoluble. 
 
 A man took an aversion to piano playing. By 
 degrees all music, vocal and instrumental, became 
 intolerable to him ; at length, bells, whistles, sirens, 
 and electric beUs inspired him with an unconquer- 
 able irritation, and hearing a military band pass 
 caused him to faint away. — The same as above : 
 hypersesthesia of a centre of sensorial images, 
 without association of ideas. 
 
 A young woman, of odd tastes, very fond of 
 music, and a fair pianist, divided her repertoire into 
 several groups : red, green, blue, white ; she could 
 only perceive sounds when associated with colours. 
 — Here is a morbid connexity of two groups of 
 different sensorial images. 
 
 \These examples, which might be multipHed, have 
 enabled a classification of the diseases of the musical 
 language to be made, and at the same time its 
 different functions to be considered as independent." 
 It is plain that in the case of a patient who can 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 233 
 
 hear words, but not perceive singing, or who can 
 sing, but has lost the faculty of writing music, one 
 has the right to assert that these various functions 
 are diversely locaHzed. They may be tabulated as 
 follows — 
 
 (Sensory ( Verbal deafness 
 
 (centripetel function) j ,, . blindness 
 Motor j Aphasia, properly so called 
 
 (centrifugal function) \ Agraphia 
 
 „ / l^usical deafness 
 
 " \ Inability to read music 
 
 II. Amusiasi I ^"^^ °f «™.f j-^^ P°^^'^ 
 
 Motor } " »^"t'og >'. ^ 
 
 j „ ,, power of mstru- 
 
 ' mental execution 
 
 To this last group we should perhaps add the 
 hypermusias, due to exaggerations of functions, 
 and the paraimisias, due to morbid associations 
 which have become more or less fixed. 
 
 Let us now inquire what conclusions may be 
 drawn from these facts. 
 
 Prom a study of the centres of musical language, 
 the different types of the musician have been deter- 
 miaed, by virtue of a predominance of some of 
 these centres over others ; and, finally, the musical 
 inteUigence itself, which would seem to be an 
 aptitude for the development of this special lan- 
 guage. Here are some inextricable difficulties, 
 which certain physiologists have eluded by the use 
 of vague formulas, unworthy of a scholar, or even, 
 which is worse, by contradictory ones. 
 
 Having thus sought a useful contribution from 
 physiological teaching, we shall now be compelled 
 to combat its encroachments. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MUSICAL INTELLIGENCE 
 
 In their normal state the centres of musical lan- 
 guage are usually synergetic, with a predominance 
 of the activity of one of them, produced by heredi- 
 tary predisposition, congenital instinct, or education. 
 For instance, the talent of the pianist who is a 
 virtuoso without being a composer presupposes the 
 common activity of all the centres, with a pre- 
 dominance of the motor images. The merit of the 
 amateur who possesses an excellent memory for 
 melody (without, at the same time, that of words 
 or figures) presupposes a predominant activity of 
 the sensorial centres, almost invariably linked with 
 a certain aptitude for execution. But to remember 
 music, to decipher it, to write it (materially), are, 
 after aU, but secondary operations. Above this 
 is the musical intelligence. Let us see how it is 
 attempted to explain this. 
 
 I will briefly examine the theory put forth by 
 Dr. Ingegnieros, because it comprises the most 
 recent theories. If it appeared as a simple con- 
 tribution to the study of musical phenomena, 
 we should only have to note the results of the 
 experiments it makes known. But, as Pythagoras, 
 after having found the numerical relations express- 
 ing certain intervals, claimed to draw from them a 
 
 234 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 235 
 
 doctrine regarding the plants and the organization 
 of the universe, so, at the present day, most scholars 
 find it difficult to resist the temptation of general- 
 izing d outrance and of making facts say more than 
 they really do. Every day they set hterary men or 
 the " aesthetes " the sorry example of a method 
 which ceases to be scientific by the substitution of 
 romance for observation. 
 
 The musical inteUigence, we are told, comprises 
 four kinds of aptitudes — 
 
 " 1st. The individual aptitude for perceiving the 
 auditory sensations provoked by musical stimula- 
 tion." — This is self-evident, and amounts to saying 
 that the musically intelhgent have a delicate ear. 
 
 " 2ndly. The memory of musical sensations, 
 comprising the preservation of auditory images, the 
 power of reproducing them, or the capacity of local- 
 izing them, and the remembrance of the emotional 
 states which accompany the stimulations produced 
 by music." — An excellent observation to which we 
 eagerly subscribe. Memory is almost always the cer- 
 tain sign of musical intelUgence, and it is evident that 
 it implies the remembrance of the emotional states 
 provoked by former stimulations. The musician 
 who, by his fireside, reads an orchestral score as he 
 would a journal or a book associates the visual 
 images of the notes with the actual effect, previously 
 felt and preserved by him, which the instruments 
 of the orchestra would produce in rendering the par- 
 ticular notes. Deciphering is a perpetual evocation, 
 a sort of abstract emotion produced by an internal 
 and silent execution, based on the recollection. 
 
 3rdly. " Musical intelhgence includes the reproduc- 
 
236 MUSIC : ITS laws and evolution 
 
 tive imagination." — This is a form of the memory ; 
 it [^is the aptitude for bringing back to the domain 
 of consciousness images which, once perceived, had 
 passed into the unconscious state. 
 
 4thly. " Musical intelligence comprises the con- 
 structive imagination, or so called musical fancy; that 
 is to say, the aptitude for transforming and combining 
 images without subordinating them to the memory 
 of their original perception." — We may leave out of 
 the question this novel aptitude, seeing that, in order 
 to be musically intelligent, it is in no way necessary 
 to be able to compose. Moreover, it might be said 
 that musical creation, in a great number of cases, 
 and in its elementary form, is a recollection of the 
 images previously stored in the mind. Let us be- 
 ware of the false analogy here estabhshed between 
 the verbal and the musical language. In the 
 case of the former, the normal working of 
 the intelligence comprises the aptitude for creating, 
 or transforming and combining, at the same 
 time as the aptitude for perceiving. What would 
 be, indeed, a person who could hear but not 
 speak ? But, in the case of the musician, his intelli- 
 gence may be very active, without lapses, and yet be 
 limited to hearing. The verbal language is founded 
 on necessity or utility ; the musical language is 
 aesthetic, an object of luxury. The first develops 
 among individuals acting equally and for the same 
 reason ; the second presupposes a public, an essen- 
 tial distinction between performers and listeners 
 who take no part. 
 
 " 5thlj.fTh.e intelligence of the musician further 
 comprises ' musical ideation ' in its figurative sense, 
 
MTJSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 237 
 
 corresponding to what it is agreed to term ' musical 
 ideas,' i.e. : a certain co-ordination or series of emo- 
 tional states associated with an idea by education^/ 
 It is formed by the three most developed processes 
 of the musical intelligence : (a) the conception, or 
 the aptitude for comparing, associating, and ab- 
 stracting the various elements of music and its 
 representative states ; (b) the musical judgment, or 
 the aptitude for perceiving and ' interpreting the 
 relations of affinity, difference, quantity, identity, 
 genesis, and development between these elements 
 and these states ; (c) musical logic, or the aptitude 
 for co-ordinating, subordinating, and connecting the 
 technical and psychological elements of the musical 
 language in a manner analogous to the logic of 
 ordinary verbal thought."* — Here we come to the 
 delicate part of the question, and we must keep 
 close touch with the meaning of the terms employed. 
 Of the first three operations mentioned — com- 
 parison, association, abstraction — we may disregard 
 the first two, seeing that they are already imphed 
 in the aptitude for being affected by auditory sen- 
 sations. To perceive (musically) a sound is to 
 cormect it with a tonic, which is the same as " com- 
 parison and association." As to knowing how to 
 abstract, it is certainly one of the essential conditions 
 of musical intelUgence if by this it is meant to 
 convey that, given the formula expressive of an 
 emotional state, the musician should be able to 
 appreciate and enjoy this formula per se, regardless 
 of the sentiments or the object with which it was 
 originally connected. Thus, a musically intelligent 
 
 * Dr. Ingegnieros, loc. cit., pp. 65-8. 
 
238 MUSIC : its laws and evolution 
 
 person is lie who, in an opera, appreciates the 
 melody and the instrumentation by isolating them 
 and disregarding the libretto and the scenery. 
 All history shows that in music progress has taken 
 place thanks to this operation : viz. music weaned 
 by degrees from literature, from utihtarian action, 
 and from visual forms. 
 
 But this separation once effected, on what prin- 
 ciple does there form in the composer's mind the 
 independent synthesis of the musical images, and 
 in that of the listener an intelligent perception of 
 the same synthesis ? — According to an " ideation," 
 we are told, that is to say, " a certain co-ordina- 
 tion." This is very vague and very insufficient. 
 
 An " idea " is a simple image, not an organizing 
 principle, and the words I have underlined might 
 be apphed to no matter what, for everything 
 whatever can be considered as a certain co- 
 ordination ; it has a proprium quid. It is this 
 proprium quid which must be clearly explained if 
 we would be scientific. Shall we find it in " the 
 aptitude for perceiving and interpreting the rela- 
 tions of affinity, difference, quantity, identity, etc.," 
 of musical elements ? No, certainly not, for to 
 possess this aptitude is to know the rules of har- 
 mony, and harmony is no more music than verbal 
 grammar, with its rules of syntax, is poetry. 
 
 Shall we find it in the aptitude for grasping the 
 relation which exists between the musical phrase 
 and such or such a state of emotion ? Still less is 
 this the case. First, we have just seen that to be a 
 real musician one must have the power of abstrac- 
 tion ; secondly, the perception of this relation is 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 239 
 
 most generally impossible. Take the charming 
 Sonata of Beethoven (Op. 49) for piano — 
 
 j,'E jp-?] | j'jjj|J.JJ ^ 
 
 I think I fully appreciate it — which is really not 
 a difficult matter — but I assert that no one could 
 declare, without incurring ridicule, what state it 
 expresses. There certainly is one, but the com- 
 poser has not enunciated it ; probably he could 
 not have done so, and we have no need to know it. 
 In the second place, does any one think that to 
 hear this phrase with intelligence it is enough to 
 know what is a perfect concord, a fifth, a triplet, 
 an embroidery, a passing note, a mediant, an im- 
 perfect cadence ? Is it with such scholarly pedantry 
 that one listens to the music of a Mozart ? Anxious 
 to arrive at something precise, and manifestly em- 
 barrassed, the author I have quoted concludes by 
 saying that the elements of the musical language 
 are co-ordinated in a way analogous to the logic of 
 the ordinary verbal thought. 
 
 This is a very serious matter. It would simplify 
 everything were it exact and capable of proof. 
 Unfortunately, the word " analogy " impUes differ- 
 ences as well as resemblances ; in this case it is 
 the differences which constitute the specific pheno- 
 menon ; they must not be mentioned in a vague 
 formula, which resolves the chief difiiculty by 
 pretermission. 
 
 In the same way that there is a logic in the verbal 
 language, so is there one in the musical language : 
 
240 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 this is the very general principle that may be laid 
 down ; but the use of the word " co-ordination " is 
 insufficient to make it plain, for it ought to be 
 stated under what law this co-ordination is effected. 
 When one confines oneself to recalling "what it is 
 agreed to call musical ideas," one forgets that, 
 since the time of Plato, the principal duty of 
 science is precisely the control or explanation of 
 conventional judgments ; one forgets, Hkewise, that 
 an "idea" is a simple image, and can only form 
 a synthesis with other ideas thanks to something 
 which dominates it. 
 
 Logical resemblances between the two languages ? 
 I fail to see any. The identity of certain intervals, 
 both in instinctive speech and in melody, constitute 
 a common material, but by no means obhges the in- 
 telligence to put it in operation the same way. The 
 rhythm of a musical phrase can be dissected exactly 
 like that of a phrase written in irregular verse, and 
 a certain sonata of Beethoven is constructed on the 
 same plan as one of Pindar's odes ; but rhythm is 
 not logic. The proof of this is that, by isolating it, 
 all interest in the thought is removed. I might, 
 indeed, reproduce on the drum the rhythm of the 
 sonata of Beethoven of which the beginning is given 
 above ; but there would no longer be anything 
 musical in it. 
 
 The means of " expression " (intensity, varia- 
 tions of movement, timbres, shades) are the same, but 
 music can dispense with them ; they are, so to speak, 
 external to it, and proceed rather from the executant 
 than from the composer. 
 
 There is no indication of the " shades " in certain 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 241 
 
 works of the greatest masters ; they have, never- 
 theless, a very clear meaning. To exhaust all 
 possible hypotheses, I will add that there exists in 
 music a very important art, which has its counter- 
 part in literature, and which is the art of develop- 
 ment. A verbal formula is taken, then on each of its 
 component words there is constructed, by means of 
 analysis, a system of words, more or less extended. 
 The greatest musicians have shown their superiority 
 in the use of this process ; Brahms has made an 
 exaggerated use of it. But of two things one : 
 either this musical " development " is purely 
 formal, and therefore of moderate value ; or else it 
 is organic, essential (as it always is in Beethoven), 
 and, in that case, it simply renews the thought, so 
 that the explanation we are seeking must again 
 be foiled by an inexplicable proprium quid. 
 
 However much we may multiply analyses, unless 
 we ignore, in a problem of this kind, all that is 
 artistic, and thus either argue beside the question 
 or waste time on trifling matters of which we 
 exaggerate the importance, we cannot escape 
 the following observation : to be intelligent in 
 music is to understand. Understand what ? — the 
 thought that a "melody exists. This is to be capable 
 of seeing a meaning where concepts do not exist ; 
 a meaning where there do not exist words ; a logic 
 where all the processes of verbal dialectics are ex- 
 cluded and replaced by a kind of direct intuition. 
 
 That this faculty may be educated, perfected by 
 the aid of practice and culture, cannot be denied ; 
 but is not this the case with the intelligence also ? 
 Aptitude for education is not a characteristic ; 
 
242 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 before understanding hetter, one must have already 
 some understanding. Thus, before giving skiHul 
 attention to a plant, the cleverest horticulturist 
 of Haarlem or Rotterdam must first have the seed 
 from which the plant springs. We must further note 
 that education in the technical language is in no 
 way necessary to the musical intelligence. The crowd 
 is easily moved by eloquence, yet knows nothing of 
 rhetoric. In the same way, the' musical thought may 
 be understood by persons totally ignorant of music, 
 not only of harmony and counter-point, but even 
 of the notes of the scale. The active co-operation 
 of all the centres of the language of music is not 
 necessary ; one may possess musical intelligence 
 without being a performer or singer (and vice versa), 
 or even without having a good memory. 
 
 The parallelism established by physiologists be- 
 tween the localization of the sensory and motor 
 images of the musical and verbal languages enables 
 us to generahze this observation, and even to draw 
 from it an argument as simple as it is decisive, in 
 favour of our theory : \there is no necessary relation 
 between the activity of the centres of the verbal 
 language and ordinary thought .V. 
 
 Would one venture to assert that a deep thinker 
 like Pascal or Liebnitz was a man with good ear, 
 an excellent memory, capital " phonation," and a 
 splendid handwriting Uke a lawyer's clerk ? It is 
 the same with a musically intelligent person. 
 
 It is through neglecting this evident fact that 
 a classification of the various degrees of musical 
 intelligence, in great part based on the distinction 
 between the sensory and motor centres, has been 
 
MTTSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 243 
 
 made which is inadmissible. The examination of 
 this point is not devoid of interest, for it brings in 
 incidentally some rather curious facts. 
 
 § 1. Tone Deafness and Musical Deafness — 
 Degrees of Musical Intellioen'cb 
 
 This is how physiologists explain and settle the 
 matter — 
 
 1st. Starting from the zero absolute, as physicists 
 say, they place on the lowest rung of the ladder 
 the "musical idiots." This idiocy "consists in 
 hearing sounds of different pitch without perceiving 
 a difference." " Not to perceive the difference," 
 says Ferrand,* " between two neighbouring notes, 
 and to think one hears the same sound when the 
 performer's finger goes higher or lower when running 
 over the contiguous steps of the musical scale 
 . . . implies a special deafness," termed tone deaf- 
 ness. It is the deafness of the "musical idiot." 
 Examples of musical idiocy : Victor Hugo, who 
 has defined music as " the least disagreeable of all 
 noises " ;■ Andrew Lang, who declares he canjonly 
 understand a melody when the words are nice ; 
 Theophile Gautier, who shared Hugo's opinion ; 
 Macaulay, who, according to the testimony of his 
 nephew, was never able (save on one occasion) to 
 distinguish one tune from another ; Cuvier ; the 
 surgeon Desgenettes, who had a deep aversion 
 to music, etc. ; and. Dr. Ingegnieros concludes : 
 " Musical idiots cannot perceive the pitch of sounds ; 
 they hear noises instead of notes y 
 
 In this first statement, just given, I see a 
 
 * His teaching is adopted by Dr. Ingegnieros, loc. cit. , p. 69. 
 
244 MUSIC : its laws and evolution 
 
 somewhat whimsical literary development, a 
 few real misapprehensions, and an interpretation 
 of facts far from scientific. It is rather amus- 
 ing to see a Victor Hugo thrust down among 
 the " idiots " of music, but is it sufficiently war- 
 ranted by a simple witticism — which, moreover, 
 might be taken for an eulogium of musical art ? 
 How could one dare to speak of the tone deafness 
 of him who spoke so magnificently of Palestrina, 
 and who wrote — 
 
 Gluck est un foret ; Mozart est une source ? 
 
 Andrew Lang figures in the same category because 
 he has said: "It is the only art which is forcibly 
 thrust upon us, since we cannot escape from 
 sounds, though we can fly from paintings." Kant 
 has written something similar : "Any one who draws 
 from his pocket a scented handkerchief compels 
 you, whether or no, to smell the perfume, just as, 
 at church, the choir forces its chants upon you." 
 But is this really a sufficient foundation for the 
 diagnosis of " tone deafness " ? 
 
 The testimonies of this or that writer on persons 
 now deceased ought to be verified, but cannot be so. 
 All this is somewhat ".got up," a little "smart," 
 amusing from the pen of a journalist, but inad- 
 missible when said by a clinical authority. Tone 
 deafness is really pathological, and does not exist 
 in the normal organism . If a popt does not appreciate 
 music, it is because he does not understand it, not 
 because of any unUkely disability to tell a third 
 or a fifth from unison. It is antipathy of a purely 
 intellectual nature, similar to that of Lamar tine for 
 figures. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 245 
 
 2nd. On the next higher rung comes " musical 
 imbeciUty " ; that is to say, the case of those 
 " who can hear music, but do not understand it." 
 Well and good ; but does not the fact of " not 
 understanding " imply a meaning to be under- 
 stood " ? 
 
 Various little facts are added. Goethe complained 
 to Eckermann that he was not sufficiently sensitive 
 to Mozart's music. Napoleon said that music 
 disturbed his nervous system, and that he preferred 
 listening to the stupidest, because it caused him 
 less pain. Grant hated music ; obliged to attend 
 a musical seance in Paris, he considered that 
 time as one of the dreariest in his Ufe. Napoleon III 
 frowned whenever he saw a piano opened. Gam- 
 betta regretted the time lost in listening to music, 
 because it produced no impression on him. Zola 
 could never understand the dehghts of amateurs 
 of music. Stook could never appreciate any other 
 than that of the inevitable God Save the Queen. 
 Max MuUer did not understand the singing of Jenny 
 Lind, and explained his faihng : " I am as re- 
 fractory to sounds as some others are to colour." 
 Fontenelle placed music among definitely incom- 
 prehensible things : " Society, women, music, and 
 acrobats," etc., etc. 
 
 Let us admit all these observations, including 
 the frown of Napoleon III interpreted as a sign 
 of " imbecihty." None of these cases differ from 
 those classed in the first group ; it is, again, musical 
 unintelligence. Such persons do not understand, 
 hence their boredom and aversion. If they do not 
 understand, it is no wise because they are unable 
 
246 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 to connect the formula they hear " with the emo- 
 tional states they are thought to express " ; the 
 most accomplished musicians could not do so when 
 listening to a fugue or certain sonatas. Neither is it, 
 either, because they are ignorant of the technique. 
 The relations of attraction or inhibition that exist 
 between the notes may be correctly reahzed and 
 perceived by the aid of phrases which are undeserv- 
 ing of the name of music — 
 
 i 
 
 ^ 
 
 n JB 
 
 We have here a regular sequence, devoid of mean- 
 ing. The knowledge of technique is not indispen- 
 sable to the intelligent hearer. It is a proof, no doubt, 
 of a good education to be aware that in these four 
 groups there is a perfect tonic chord followed by 
 one on the sub-dominant, a third, which is an 
 inversion of the seventh, on the dominant, and, 
 lastly, a return to the tonic ; but this is a proof of 
 scholarship, not a sign of intelligence. In fact, 
 those possessed of the best technique do not listen 
 to music in an analytical spirit. " Understanding " 
 is quite another thing ! And it is quite natural that 
 when one has not understood, music should simply 
 seem a distressing noise. 
 
 3rd. A fortiori, we must keep to the same stand- 
 point for judging the two higher forms of musical 
 intelligence : the talent of execution and the 
 genius of creation. 
 
 A pianist can only be considered to have " talent " 
 if he has a comprehension served by sound organs. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT A1?D PHYSIOLOGY 247 
 
 of the musical thought. He must certainly have a 
 centre of acoustic sensations readily impressionable 
 by the most delicate appeals from without, a highly 
 differentiated and very active centre of visual 
 images and of co-ordination, and a synergy of these 
 different aptitudes or faculties. He must possess a 
 good ear, a quick eye, and a sure hand. Memory, 
 audition, reading, impressibility of the nervous 
 system, and muscular movements have for him a 
 very important and almost equivalent role. He must 
 have very great energy, not only tO play fortissimo, 
 but also, and especially (hke the singer), to distinguish 
 the half tones of piano and pianissimo ; energy is fur- 
 ther necessary to keep his nerves under restraint, and 
 it is probable that the very difficult and very complex 
 act, supplemented by a number of extra-musical 
 things, of playing, in public a concerto of Bach 
 or of Beethoven, creates habits, varjring with each 
 person, which give rise to localizations, which it 
 would be impossible to enumerate in the form of a 
 general law. 
 ^^ut the performer is only deserving of the name 
 of artist when he understands and can bring out 
 the thought contained in the melody he is playing. 
 In this we have the sure criterion which allows us 
 to classify the higher and lower forms of talenti\ 
 
 Lowest in the scale must be placed the pianist 
 who only possesses memory and "fingers" hardly 
 differing from the automatic organs in Dutch 
 brasseries, instruments in which the sensory and 
 motor centres are replaced by clock-work. ^ Above him 
 — and here the variations are numerous — is the 
 pianist who thoroughly feels that in music there is 
 
248 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 something more than notes, but who renders incor- 
 rectly or erroneously the thought of the composer^/ 
 This is the artist who acts as traditore instead of re- 
 maining tradutore ; or he even makes nonsensical mis- 
 takes, evidenced by faults of rhythm, unseasonable 
 changes in the rests, wrong " colouring." ^\0r again, 
 what is most common, even in celebrated virtuosi — 
 he carries to the extreme the spirit of analysis j 
 he overdoes the details ; he wishes to be briUianl?, 
 to give an original rendering without noticing that 
 he gradually falls into the ridiculous error of sub- 
 stituting his own thoughts for those of a Beethoven 
 or a Bach, and of thrusting his own personahty in 
 front of these great masters' own. 
 
 ^"At the highest point of this hierarchy is the 
 pianist who understands the musical thought, 
 identifies himself with it, and reproduces it exactlyV\ 
 An example is Anton Rubinstein. Certainly Rubin- 
 stein had, in a very high degree, those aptitudes 
 which are described and explained by physiology ; 
 but, as regards this, it is very important to note 
 that if on certain points (memory, for instance) he 
 was perfection itself, as regards others there were 
 lapses. " In an eminent pianist," says Dr. Ingeg- 
 nieros, " the centre of co-ordination must be par- 
 ticularly perfect." This was not at all the 
 case with Rubinstein ; his playing was not free 
 from faults. An eye-witness told me that at the 
 end of a concert given in Paris, when receiving the 
 congratulations of the audience, he replied to one 
 of his admirers : "A whole piece could be com- 
 posed with the false notes I struck." And yet, to 
 all who heard him — to those even, mark you, who 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 249 
 
 were by no means professionals or connoisseurs — 
 Rubinstein gave the impression of being a genius. 
 Nothing is more easily explained. When playing 
 Beethoven's sonatas, Rubinstein understood exactly 
 the composer's idea and reproduced it faithfully 
 with so adequate a rendering that,, in listening to 
 him, one no longer thought of the presence of the 
 pianist, but of that of Beethoven himself, fin the 
 presence of so complete an identification, and by a 
 quite natural illusion, we apphed the same qualifi- 
 cations to the interpreter as to the composer 
 interpreted. This is the most authentic and striking 
 case that can be quoted to prove the reahty of the 
 musical thought and to show its effects l\ 
 
 4th.VGenius is musical intelligence at its highest 
 point, but it wholly escapes physiology. It is often 
 served by moderate or defective organs. It is 
 incapable of education. It is unconscious and 
 spontaneous. 
 
 It is a power which resembles the primary prin- 
 ciples, or fundamental forces, of Nature. Here, 
 more than anywhere else, it must be confessed, that 
 if "to know is to comprehend the cause " (Aris- 
 totle), or " to demonstrate things in a regular 
 manner," or again, " to reduce an order of things 
 known to a systematic whole " (Kant), we know 
 nothing as to the composition of genius. At least, 
 we can say from its effects what genius is not. 
 
 The classification which I have reproduced and 
 examined in the preceding pages terminates with 
 this definition : " Musical genius creates new 
 forms of expression ; or else conceives and reahzes, 
 in an entirely personal manner, forms .of expres- 
 
250 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 sion already known." A very inexact definition, 
 which requires fresh Hght on an essential point : 
 What are we to understand by " form " in music ? 
 We shall now point out one of the most grievous 
 errors which have hitherto vitiated the whole of 
 musical aesthetics. 
 
 We must not content ourselves with words, but 
 must always keep before our minds the real facts to 
 which the terms employed relate. Nothing is easier 
 than to invent new " musical forms," but to think 
 that this act of invention is necessarily a sign of 
 genius, is going rather too far. 
 
 In 1882, Rimsky Korsakof had the pecuhar 
 whim of employing the bar in eleven time (char- 
 acterized by the use of eleven crotchets, forming an 
 indivisible group), certainly a new form ; is it a 
 mark of genius ? No, only a framework, the value 
 of which is determined by the contents.* 
 
 The Turks have rhythms, ousouls, in a consider- 
 ably larger number of times ; but that alone does 
 not cause the Western nations to describe them as 
 musicians of genius. 
 
 The composer in the Middle Ages who bethought 
 himself to repeat a melodious phrase, simultaneously 
 in the upper fifth or lower fourth (diaphony, organum) 
 certainly made an innovation ; but although this 
 attempt has been fruitful, he has been looked upon 
 by nearly all the critics as a barbarous musician 
 with no ear. An amateur utterly devoid of talent 
 may write a symphony in which he upsets all rules 
 as regards plan and style, and runs counter to 
 all accepted ideas of harmony and counter-point. 
 * Last scene of his opera, Snegorutschka. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 251 
 
 The more ignorant he is, the more the forms he uses 
 will be " novel." Any one who, in an opera, placed 
 the orchestra on the stage in costume, and the 
 singers in the orchestra in evening dress, would 
 evidently produce a novelty. 
 
 M. Vincent d'Indy, in his Istar, has placed his 
 leading theme at the end of the variations instead 
 of before them ; this novelty in no way gives to the 
 work its value, which is quite independent of this 
 whimsical arrangement. Let us also remark that, 
 to the psychologist, a novelty is the more " per- 
 sonal," the worse, the more incorrect, and the 
 more inartistic it is. Nothing can be more original 
 than the scrawls of quite young children. Con- 
 temporary musicians who have created " new 
 forms " are legion ; but do they all possess genius ? 
 
 Take, on the other hand, a Schumann, a Bizet, a 
 Caesar Franck, or a Saint-Saens composing a melody, 
 ^his melody has a form constituted by the notes of 
 which it is composed. Can the one be taken apart 
 from the other ? Is not the melody (the thought) 
 and the form one and the same thing ? And has not 
 the act of invention consisted, in short, in finding 
 out a new form ? We approach a problem which has 
 greatly exercised aesthetes : — whether in a sonorous 
 phrase there is a receptacle and a contentf^ Cer- 
 tain critics, after turning this question over and 
 over from all points of view, have declared — which 
 is perfectly correct — that a melody is indissolubly 
 bound up with the form which realizes it ; and 
 from this they have concluded^which is wrong- 
 that in music there is nothing else but forms. This 
 is the theory of Hanslick ; it is also the generally 
 
252 MUSIC : its laws and evolution 
 
 accepted theory, for no one, to my knowledge, has 
 ventured to affirm the existence of a purely musical 
 thought outside forms of melody. 
 
 Without entering into a tedious discussion of 
 matter and form, which would call to mind Mohere 
 as well as Aristotle, I shall simply say that, as 
 regards this point, it is the same with music as 
 with ordinary language. 
 
 It is impossible for us to think, even in silent com- 
 munion with ourselves, without the use of words, 
 and yet we cannot go so far as to say that thought, 
 a natural act of the mind, is identical with a system 
 of artificially acquired signs ; it precedes it as 
 conception precedes birth — in accordance with 
 the classical sajdng, " Man thinks his words before 
 putting into words his thoughts." There are even 
 cases where it has been possible to note- that the 
 one existed without the other. All philosophers 
 have heard of the celebrated Laura Bridgeman, 
 who, though blind, deaf, and dumb, yet had a 
 highly developed intellect. It may be said that all 
 language presupposes a thought. 
 
 '^ In the same way, in music, the notes of a melody 
 presuppose a thought. The connection between 
 the two is the normal fact, but it also has excep- 
 tions. Does not the musician, when composing, 
 sometimes seek for notes — as an author hesitates 
 for words — in order to convey his exact thought ? 
 Beethoven's note-books testify to this. It would 
 even seem that when writing the orchestral score of 
 a melody, or founding on it a series of variations, a 
 certain break occurs between the form and the 
 substance. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND PHYSIOLOGY 253 
 
 I shall therefore conclude that :-4-Genius is 
 musical thought raised to its highest power, together 
 with the sense of beauty, the logic, and the pene- 
 trating expression belonging to it. It is the com- 
 plete and supreme emancipation from aU concepts ; 
 something which, without using words, should 
 give us the equivalent of the plays of .iEschylus 
 or Shakespeare : all the forces of life, of the imagina- 
 tion, of feeling, and of reason exalted in their full 
 freedom, but in the pure state, disentangled from 
 every object and attempting many syntheses as 
 if for the preparation of a new cosmos .V Thus 
 does musical genius present itself to us in the 
 adagios of Beethoven's quartets. One can under- 
 stand that, when listening to these, thinkers Mke 
 Schelling and Schopenhauer, carried away by their 
 metaphysical dreams, should have ascribed to 
 music a direct hold on First Principles. Between 
 the verbal thought contained in our practical 
 language and that of those adagios, the same 
 difference exists as between the atmosphere of our 
 cities, laden with dust and smoke, and the pure 
 ether where glides through infinite space the light 
 of the stars. 
 
 ^^In music, as in poetry, genius is not passion — 
 which is attainable by any idiot — but thought, 
 lightning-like and supreme, — dominating every- 
 thing .^ 
 
 § 2. Conclusions of the Thied Pakt 
 
 To sum up: (1) The musical intelHgence has 
 organs which serve it admirably, but cannot be 
 said to produce it. The musician finds the means 
 
254 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTJTION 
 
 of action in his auditory apparatus and in the 
 rich organization of his brain ; but when he thinks, 
 he can only think within himseK ; the fundamental 
 error of certain physiologists has consisted in 
 reasoning like Helmholtz in the first pages of his 
 book : " there are no external models nor concepts 
 in music ; hence, in music, sensation is everything." 
 This conclusion is by no means unavoidable. There 
 is another explanation, which is the one we have 
 adopted. The exclusion of concepts does not at all 
 imply that of thought, and may, on the contrary, 
 favour the acts of a freer and less superficial intel- 
 lectualism. (2) The " parallelism " of the musical 
 and the verbal language, treated as localizations in 
 similar centres, is a quite admissible thesis founded 
 on many observations, but it in no way interferes 
 with our own ; it shows us, in a harmony, an 
 essential differentiation, which is sufficient for us. 
 
 Parallel lines neither begin nor end in the same 
 point. 
 
FOURTH PART 
 
 MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE 
 LAWS OF NATURE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MUSIC AND PERIODIC PHENOMENA 
 
 § 1. Outside the Ear 
 
 Wb continue this retrograde journey, of which we 
 have ah-eady accomphshed several stages. Prom 
 the psychological phenomenon to the brain centres ; 
 from the acoustic nerve and the very minute 
 network in which it terminates to the internal 
 ear — the only absolutely indispensable part of the 
 mechanism of audition ; then to the chain of tiny 
 bones, to the membrane of the tympanum, and, by 
 the auditory conduit, to the chamber opening on 
 to the external world. 
 
 What are the phenomena produced outside the ear 
 and subject to laws independent of our will, which it 
 is important for us to know in order to have a com- 
 plete notion of "music" ? This is the last question 
 we have to deal with. I have no intention of repro- 
 ducing or summarizing here a treatise on acoustics — 
 for aU sound, as we have seen, is not necessarily 
 
 2SS 
 
256 Mxrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 musical — but will simply try to indicate a few funda- 
 mental phenomena which enable us to perceive an 
 agreement between the extremes of a series : on the 
 one hand, the laws which regulate the vibration 
 of the bodies which produce the sound ; on the 
 other hand, the unconscious habits of the composer 
 when writing a sonata or a symphony. 
 
 The musician, who thinks in sounds, is in harmony 
 with social life, and his inteUigence is subserved 
 by an organ of which it appears to understand the 
 mechanism. We shall now see him in harmony with 
 objective nature. 
 
 It is especially at this point that the method 
 followed in the present work could be justified, if 
 necessary. We might first say that sound is a 
 purely subjective creation of the ear, and that 
 outside us it has no existence. To it might be 
 applied the adage : esse est per dpi. And this fact 
 will be found linked to what is the very foundation 
 of our thesis. 
 
 By the consciousness we directly grasp what a 
 melody is ; if we separate ourselves from this feel- 
 ing, of which the physiological conditions are already 
 very obscure, either we shall no longer be aware of 
 anything but modahties, and shall not penetrate 
 into the essence of things, or else we shall enter the 
 field of hypotheses — that is to say, the region of 
 clouds and wrangles. 
 
 By the aid of mathematics, philosophers make 
 measurements. Given a vibrating string, they first 
 register, by the use of ingenious apparatus, the 
 number of vibrations per second ; they measure the 
 length of the wave they produce in the conducting 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 257 
 
 air and the time taken to reach the auditory 
 apparatus ; they measure, in decimetres, the length 
 of the string and the radius of its section ; they 
 reckon, in kilogrammes, the weight which stretches 
 it ; they estimate the specific weight of its sub- 
 stance ; and then, having noted that the relation of 
 these phenomena or properties remains constant 
 whatever the sharpness or depth of the sound 
 produced, they sum up these measurements and the 
 comparison they have made of it in a formula 
 which becomes a law. 
 
 This formula may be transposed into ordinary 
 language. Example : The number of vibrations of 
 the string per second — that is to say, the pitch of the 
 sound — is in inverse ratio to the length and radius 
 of the string ; it is directly proportional to the weight 
 which stretches it ; it is inversely proportional to the 
 square root of the density. For brevity, each of the 
 properties figuring in this equation may be ex- 
 pressed by an algebraic sign. 
 
 But. all this simply describes matters by external 
 observations and nothing more. If the physicist 
 does not desire only to study externals and move- 
 ments, if he wishes to penetrate into the inwardness 
 of things, the bases of certainty fail him, and he is 
 reduced to hypotheses. Do not ask him, especially 
 nowadays. What is matter ? 
 
 This general remark has for its object to reduce to 
 their proper proportions the pretensions of certain 
 authors who, like Helmholtz, have approached the 
 science of acoustics on the principle that it ought 
 to give us the secret of the language of 
 sounds. Of this secret we already know all that 
 
258 MTJSic : ITS laws and evolution 
 
 can be known. It is internal observation, it is 
 psychology alone, which has revealed it to us. 
 After having shown the relations of the musical 
 phenomenon to social hfe, and after having studied 
 its physiological conditions, we have now only to 
 determine its place in nature, and to show that on 
 this outward side, which looks towards the cosmos, 
 there are hnks which connect music with the whole 
 or a part of the whole of the other phenomena. 
 
 § 2. ViBKATIONS — A FlEST AGREEMENT OF THE MUSICAL MiND 
 
 WITH Objective Laws 
 
 Music employs as material, if we may use such 
 a term, sounds— not noises — of a certain kind. 
 Musical sound is produced by periodic vibrations. 
 It is important to note at once that the cell of every 
 musical work, the sound, is a type of " composition." 
 
 Periodic vibrations occur when, during strictly uni- 
 form periods of time, an elastic body, disturbed from 
 its position of equihbrium and set in motion, passes 
 again and again through the same states. The 
 duration of the period is a constant : it is the 
 time which elapses between two successive repro- 
 ductions of the same state of movement. The 
 sensation of noise is due, on the contrary, to non- 
 periodic movements, producing irregular soimds 
 breaking forth by jerks, and not " compound." 
 
 Many efforts, as we have seen, have been made 
 to discover the origins of rhythm : from Plato to 
 Karl Biicher the explanations proposed vary greatly. 
 Have we not here a fact to be strictly reckoned 
 with ? When the musician, in his freest exercise 
 of fancy, employs the uniform frame of the 
 
MUSICAL THOTTGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATT7RE 259 
 
 bar ; when he introduces symmetry between two 
 parts of a phrase, between two phrases or two 
 strophes or two systems of strophes, he is instinc- 
 tively obeying a law which is already realized in 
 a single sound. The distinction between mere noise, 
 in which numerous auditory sensations are mingled 
 and jostle each other ; and a musical sound 
 due to the periodicity of the vibrations does not 
 only enable us to say where the domain of music 
 begins, but makes us perceive an initial principle 
 of organization which reverberates through the 
 whole work of the musician. 
 
 Is music, then, uniformity, or the regular repeti- 
 tion of identical movements ? Certainly not. Is it 
 pure caprice ? Not that either. It is both one and 
 the other. It rests always on an opposition and an 
 adaptation : opposition of the creating liberty 
 which delights in the unforeseen, and of the law 
 of rhythm, which demands the regular recurrence 
 of like phenomena; and lastly, adaptation of this 
 tendency to that law. In every musical work there is 
 a conflict at the same time that there is a harmony. 
 Composers at the present day carry the conflict 
 as far as possible, while the classics reduced it to 
 a minimum, but they only exaggerate it to give 
 themselves the pleasure of resolving it. They are 
 in a situation similar to that of the gymnast or 
 dancer who takes the most abnormal positions 
 without, however, emancipating himself from the 
 laws of gravity. 
 
 We recognize, therefore, that when Beethoven 
 wrote a symphony he arranged aU the parts of it 
 rhythmically, both because a certain order was in- 
 
260 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 herent to the nature of his thought and because 
 this thought itself was unconsciously subject to 
 the influence of the law which regulates periodic 
 vibrations. 
 
 Here are two facts which will enable us to grasp 
 in a more exact manner this concord of the sub- 
 jective work of the composition with that which 
 is outside the will of the composer. 
 
 § 3. The Hakmonics 
 
 First fact. — This is the phenomenon of multiple 
 resistance, commonly admitted to be the basis 
 of our musical system. A string, when a bow is 
 drawn across it, or when struck by a hammer, 
 has one total movement and, at the same time, a 
 great number of partial movements. It subdivides 
 by itself into very unequal parts, separated by rela- 
 tivety fixed points, termed nodes, which produce 
 independent vibrations, superposed in the sound 
 wave on the total vibration, somewhat as smaU 
 waves are superposed on large ones. The same 
 thing occurs with the column of air which is made 
 to vibrate in a tube. The sounds resulting from 
 this subdivision are as follows — 
 
 Son Rarmoniques 
 
 m 
 
 fondaraenfal 
 
 m 
 
 \>i 
 
 r L I . r r T f 
 
 When we strike a Do (a fundamental sound) on 
 the piano, we produce at the same time sounds of 
 lesser intensity which enwrap the auditory sensa- 
 tion of the first, and are indicated here by the 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 261 
 
 crotchets 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. . . . These figures 
 are not only numbers of order, but indicate rela- 
 tions : the octave gives twice as many vibrations 
 as the fundamental note ; and the twelfth (Sol) 
 gives three, while the octave gives two, etc. This 
 subdivision of the vibrating string is explained by 
 a celebrated theorem of Fourier, which may be thus 
 formulated : every form of periodic vibration can 
 be decomposed into a certain number of vibrations, 
 of which the durations are a haK, a third, a fourth 
 those of the movement given. The calculation 
 enables us to determine the amplitude of the vari- 
 ous vibrating fractions, so that a periodic movement 
 not only can be subdivided into a certain number 
 of simple divisions, but must indeed be divided in 
 one single way. 
 
 Calculation was first employed a priori to esti- 
 mate the divisions of the string. Helmholtz 
 demonstrated that the harmonics were something 
 more than a mathematical fiction ; he isolated 
 them and demonstrated their objective existence. 
 I will not here enter into the objections raised 
 against his theory, particularly by M. Guillemin, 
 which, I think, have not yet succeeded in over- 
 throwing his doctrine. 
 
 Now, the first harmonics which are superposed 
 on the fundamental sound form the perfect chord: 
 Do, Sol (Do), Mi. This was termed by Rameau 
 " the first outburst of nature." 
 
 Second fact. — If I turn over the leaves of a book 
 of music — opera scores, sonatas, collections of con- 
 certos, and symphonies — I note that the perfect 
 concord is the beginning and the end of all com- 
 
262 MUSIC : ITS laws and evolution 
 
 positions (save some rare and deliberate exceptions), 
 and is only departed from to be returned to. From 
 the very firett line it is the framework in which the 
 musician denotes his thought. 
 
 Let the reader call to mind the first bars 
 of compositions familiar to him : in Beethoven, 
 the ero'ica Symphony, the first pianoforte con- 
 certo ; the Sonata Op. 31, No. 2 ; the Appas- 
 sionata ; the Sonatas Op. 2 (No. 1, and Scherzo of 
 No. 2) ; the Sonata Op. 7 ; the presto of Op. 10, 
 No. 2 ; the Fantasia Op. 27, No. 2, and its presto 
 agitato, etc. ; of Mozart, the Sonatas 3, 5, 6 {allegro 
 alia turca), 9, 15, 16, 17, 19. . . . He wiU see that 
 very beautiful specimens of musical thought have 
 for their formula the perfect concord.* This concord 
 is, as it were, the first outburst of composition. 
 
 There is, then, a harmony between these two facts : 
 the one psychological and artistic (the form in- 
 stinctively given by the musician to his thought), 
 the other objective (law of multiple resonance). 
 
 The bringing together of these two verified facts 
 seems to support the theorists who declare that 
 
 * In order not to bring in musical theory and to keep within 
 the bounds of ordinary experience, I wUl further instance : Haydn, 
 quartets Op. Nos. 1, 2, and 5 ; Op. 2, Nos. 5 and 6 ; Op. 3, Nos. 
 2, 3, and 6 ; Op. 9, No. 2 : Op. 17, No. 3 ; Op. 20, No. 6 ; Op. 50, 
 No. 3. The Sonatas Op. 54, No. 2 ; Op. 64, Nos. 1 and 4 ; Op. 74, 
 No. 2. Beethoven, the beginning of the Septet No. 20 ; the 
 Sextets (Adagio and Allegro) Op. 8b and Op. 71 ; the Quintet (for 
 piano, hautbois, clarinet, horn, bassoon) Op. 16 ; the Quartets 5 
 (Op. 18, Nos. 5 and 6), 8 (Op. 59, No. 2) ; the Quartet (with piano) 
 Op. 16 ; the serenades Op. 8 and Op. 25. Mozart, the beginning 
 of Sextet in F J] major, the Quartets in D J] major, in F J] major. 
 . . . The first pages of the Rheingold (51 bars), wherein R. Wagner 
 endeavours to represent the genesis of all things, are curious in 
 this connection. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AISTD THE LAWS OF NATURE 263 
 
 the foundation of music rests on an objective law, 
 outside and independent of us. In the eighteenth 
 century Sauveur, Rameau, and d'Alembert had en- 
 deavoured to estabHsh the theory of music on this 
 basis. Helmholtz took up and completed their 
 attempt. After stating precisely the doctrine of 
 harmonics, he claimed to deduce from it the elements 
 of a grammar. 
 
 This theory, thus set forth, cannot be accepted, and 
 must be essentially modified. It is inexact to say 
 that, if we attribute a paramount part to the perfect 
 chord, it is because this phenomenon is the first to 
 present itself in the vibration of strings or sounding 
 tubes. Indeed, this phenomenon would perhaps 
 escape our notice, among several others which con- 
 tradict it, had we not already within ourselves the 
 notion of its importance, or an organization (physio- 
 logical or intellectual) which predisposes us to ascribe 
 to it a predominant role. As an excellent musician* 
 has said : the principle of harmony cannot be deduced 
 from an experiment which supposes to be known, or 
 valued as they deserve, the laws of this harmony. 
 
 In a word, between the mind of the musician and 
 nature there exists a harmony, and not simply a 
 relation between cause and effect. 
 
 Amid the enormous complex of the phenomena 
 of the physical world we should not make straight 
 for this fact more than another were there not 
 within us a certain reason for this choice. 
 
 Certain very simple observations will make this 
 clear — 
 
 1st. The harmonics called forth by the funda- 
 
 • M. Dador (Revue musicale, annee 1905, p. 508). 
 
264 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 mental note are not all allies whicli contribute to the 
 beauty of the principal sound. The exact value of 
 Si\> is 7, 11 ; and there is no note, marked sharp or 
 flat, in any scale which represents it absolutely (the 
 -La I represents 7, 12) ; this Si\^ is not used in music. 
 The notion of the perfect chord, if borrowed, 
 therefore implies a choice, and this choice can only 
 be made in obedience to the very f eehng of harmony 
 which exists within, and not outside us. 
 
 2nd. The instruments capable of employment in 
 music do not all give harmonics, or rather partial 
 sounds in consonance "with the fundamental note, as 
 do the strings and the tubes. Circular plates, and 
 distended membranes, have very numerous accessory 
 sounds, very contiguous to the base and greatly 
 dissonant from it. As regards elastic rods, the partial 
 sounds are, on the contrary, very distant, but quite 
 as dissonant. Thus, representing by 1 the number 
 of vibrations of the fundamental sound (designated 
 by Do), the following are the partial sounds of a 
 freely swinging rod — 
 
 No. of vibratioDS. In ordinary notation. 
 
 First sound 
 
 (fundamental) 1 Doq 
 
 Second sound 2-7576 Fa|i + 0-2 (instead of the 8ve) 
 
 Third sound 5-4041 Faj -0-1 ( „ „ 12th) 
 
 Fourth sound 13-3444 La, - 0-1 ( „ „ dble. 8ve) 
 
 Rameau and the majority of the theorists of the 
 eighteenth century considered as an object of 
 worship everything which was " natural." But 
 these organic dissonances of rods, membranes, 
 and plates are as " natural " as the consonances of 
 tubes and strings. Then comes this question : 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 265 
 
 Why, while we are using these two groups of 
 instruments in our orchestra, do we attribute to 
 the one a very secondary, and to the other an ex- 
 ceptionally important' part ? Why do we consider 
 as still barbarian musicians those savages who only 
 know how to strike stretched skins or metal objects ? 
 What is the cause, if it be not musical feeling, of 
 the distinction we draw between systems both 
 equally springing from nature ?, To the physicist 
 the realm of dissonance is even greater than that of 
 the other ! 
 
 3rd. We will also remark that- to say that the 
 perfect chord is the " first outburst of nature " is 
 to ignore the first harmonic at the octave of the 
 fundamental sound, or to consider it as identical 
 with this latter. Now this identification can have but 
 a subjective foundation ; objectively, it would be 
 as inadmissible as the equation 2=1. The ear 
 separates 2 into 1 + 1, and draws from the paradox 
 2=1, which, from the musical point of view, is 
 not false. 
 
 We thus see that it is not possible to assert that 
 our system has a strictly scientific basis. 
 
 The harmony of two terms does not consist in 
 their identity ; it presupposes differences, with cer- 
 tain points in common and an adaptation. After 
 comparing the two facts above stated, we do not 
 subordinate the second to the first : we place them 
 on the same level. Between the two there is a 
 harmony which the metaphysicians of the seven- 
 teenth century would have termed " pre-estab- 
 lished " ; but we content ourselves with noting 
 the fact. 
 
266 MUSIC : its laws and evolution 
 
 We could insist much further on this similitude 
 which we have indicated. 
 
 § 4. Musical Sounds and Colouks 
 
 The objective analogy of natural phenomena has 
 for parallel or consequence the correlation established 
 between the two realms of sensation ; in other words, 
 our organs do not react in a manner absolutely 
 independent of outside influences ; the actions of the 
 one reverberate not infrequently on the other, and 
 there results from this a more or less important or 
 regular synergy, which may be considered as the 
 image within us of the unity around us. 
 
 Thus, in many cases, visual sensations are ac- 
 companied by auditory ones and reciprocally. The 
 fact does not happen continuously, and any attempt 
 to regard it as a law is condemned to fail ; but, 
 even as an exception, it has interest, for the 
 connexity of certain facts supposes a relationship 
 between the causes which produce them. 
 
 We win point this out by taking, for a brief 
 comparison, two given realms : — music and light. 
 The two senses to which they correspond, the eye 
 and the ear, alone receive impressions which 
 systematize themselves into a work of art ; smell, 
 taste, and feeling, though susceptible of the highest 
 education and in no way limited to a utiUtarian part, 
 have not given rise to creations of a truly sesthetic 
 character. 
 
 To show the analogy between sound and light, 
 music and colours, wiU. be to reaUze, on an 
 essential point, the programme of harmony we 
 have traced out. 
 
MtrSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 267 
 
 1st. In the diagram of vibrations* the phenomena 
 of light occupy, like the musical sounds, seven 
 octaves, if we include those which, situated in 
 the regions of the infra-red and ultra-violet, are 
 not decomposable by the eye ; but visible light, 
 decomposable by the colours of the prism, com- 
 prises but one octave, placed between the 48th and 
 the 49th (of the series of 55 octaves of vibrations, 
 which represent the phenomena known to us), viz. : 
 red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Even 
 this octave (9 : 15) is incomplete. It is only by 
 forcing nature a little that one could arrive, by 
 comparing the wave-lengths, at estabhshing the 
 following octave : O'OOOS mm. for the red, and 
 00004 mm. for the violet, situate on the opposite 
 side. We may say that the violet has a tendency 
 towards the repetition of the red. However this 
 may be, the region of discernible light and of colour 
 is much smaller than that of sounds (whence it 
 follows that bhndness is a shghter iU than deaf- 
 ness). 
 
 Let us now point out the similarities. 
 
 2nd. Do the simple elements which form ordinary 
 light form one organized series by a law similar to 
 that of the harmonics which constitute the funda- 
 mental sound ? 
 
 There is a difficulty in comparing clear and well- 
 defined matters, such as musical sounds, to others 
 without a fixed beginning or end, like the colours 
 of the spectrum. Thus the red commences at 400 
 
 * A complete scale of ether-waves compiled by Prof. Lebedeff is 
 given in Prof. Bruno Kolbe's Introduction to Electricity (Eng. ed.), 
 Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1008, p. 383.— Ed. 
 
268 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 trillions of vibrations per second, and extends as far 
 as 460 trillions. It is the same with the others. 
 But by selecting a suitable point in these diminu- 
 tions or accelerations of tones, it is possible to con- 
 struct chords of hght on the same basis as musical 
 chords. 
 
 Taking red at the limit of the spectrum, yellow 
 at the (approximate) limit of the orange, and green 
 at that of blue, we obtain the ratios 8 : 10 : 12, 
 which are those of the three notes of the major 
 perfect chord Do-Mi-Sol. 
 
 Taking at their extreme limit the three colours 
 which terminate the series of colours easily discern- 
 ible by the eye — orange, green, violet — we get the 
 ratios 10 : 12 : 16, representing the chord of sixth. 
 By taking the terms of comparison in the middle 
 region of the spectrum, we should still more easily 
 find a counterpart to the chord of sixth and fourth. 
 
 We may state the following equation — 
 
 686 (green) 703 (violet) 5 , . , . , , 
 488 (red) =686 (green) = 6 (™"" *^'^'^)- 
 
 We must not lay too great stress (as M. de Hart- 
 mann has done in his Esthetique) on the identity of 
 these two series of constructions. But we have 
 other points of comparison. 
 
 3rd. The teaching as to the auditory and visual 
 sensations at first passed through a similar period 
 of error. It is known at the present time that 
 sound and Hght are nothing else but the perception 
 of a particular mode of movement ; but in former 
 times it was thought that the impressions on the ear 
 were due to a particular agent called sound, having 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 269 
 
 a real and objective existence ; and this meta- 
 physical conception, coupled with a vicious circle 
 (due to the Pythagoreans and reaffirmed by the 
 Stoics), has for counterpart the primitive hypo- 
 thesis, according to which the sensation of light 
 was produced by " luminous corpuscles." Let us 
 remark, in passing, that this last lasted much 
 longer than the other. It is only since the seven- 
 teenth century (Descartes and Huyghens) that the 
 undulation theory has displaced that of emission. 
 Now, Plato, Aristotle, and Theophrastus among the 
 ancients had already perceived the real nature of 
 sound.* 
 
 4th. Are the two senses of hearing and of sight 
 formed by the same evolution and by a similar 
 process ? This is what the facts of history would 
 seem to affirm. The ancient poets only speak of a 
 very small number of colours, and the history of 
 painting offers facts parallel to these Hterary testi- 
 monies. We know, from Pliny, that the pictures of 
 the ancients were painted in one unique red tone, the 
 cinnabar or minium of Ephesus (then red ochre, or a 
 particular kind called Sinopid). Little by Mttle the 
 palette of the painter was enriched by fresh re- 
 sources. At the present day the Papal manufac- 
 tory of the Vatican, which is the most important 
 of all existing mosaic estabhshments, possesses 
 28,000 stones of different shades. 
 
 These facts have as their equivalents, in music, 
 the primitive and scanty constitution of the scale, 
 reduced to the fundamental intervals, and ending, 
 
 * See the fragment of a lost treatise by Theophrastus (edit. 
 Wimmer, III, p. 32, in Diels' Doxoffraphi grceci, 1879, p. 525, 18). 
 
270 Mtrsic : its laws and evolution 
 
 later on, in a chromatism of the twelve semi-tones ; 
 harmony, at first restricted to the exclusive use of 
 unison, soon enriched by the octave, the fifth, and 
 the fourth, and then making use of dissonances ; 
 lastly, the evolution of the orchestra, starting from 
 such humble origins and afterwards arriving at the 
 formidable display of its present forces. 
 
 5th. Every day we see confounded the two orders 
 of sensation and the two arts which correspond 
 to them, which doubtless is wrong from a purely 
 artistic point of view, but testifies to an instinct 
 which evidently has its rise in natural analogies. 
 
 It is well known that artists daily employ musical 
 terms when talking of painting, and vice versa. 
 Eugene Fromentin speaks as follows of the Assump- 
 tion of Rubens : " His palette . . . resounds in the 
 few dominant notes, yellow, red, black, grey." Th. 
 Sylvestre says a propos of Delacroix : " He makes 
 the red resound like war trumpets, and draws from 
 the violet mournful moans." Taine, Charles Blanc, 
 M. Sully Prudhomme, and a thousand others have 
 employed a similar language. Nietzsche has uttered 
 the following paradoxical judgment upon Wagner, 
 giving it, it is true, the value of a criticism : 
 " Wagner as a musician should be classed amongst 
 the painters ; as a poet, among the musicians." 
 
 A priest of Western Flanders, the Abbe de Les- 
 cluze, has attempted to reduce to a system what 
 had hitherto passed as an instinctive approximation 
 or a simple oratorical phrase. According to him, a 
 painter like Memling " plays a different melody " 
 on each of his canvases. What characterizes each 
 painter or each school is the use of a particular 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 271 
 
 scale of colour, given by a simple number and by 
 its multiples. There is the Spanish gamut, made up 
 of multiples of 5, and having orange as its tonic ; 
 the scale of Jordaens, multiples of 9, with red as 
 tonic ; the gamut of Rembrandt, the Italian, the 
 Japanese, etc. 
 
 6th. We wiU give some more precise observations. 
 
 In the first place it was observed that cer- 
 tain persons always associated the idea of a 
 colour with that of sound (a morbid phenomenon 
 called coloured audition) ; nothing more was needed 
 for a new path to be opened out to the researches 
 of physiologists and to their attempts to establish 
 systems. In 1892 a bibhography of this course 
 of study, drawn up by an American (Mr. Krohn), 
 contained no less than eighty -five articles. Since 
 then some important works have enriched this 
 list ; I will mention only that of M. Flournoy, 
 professor of experimental psychology at the Uni- 
 versity of Geneva : Les phenomenes de Synopsie.* 
 It contains a great number of curious facts, and 
 the author has the merit of great prudence in 
 drawing conclusions. 
 
 M. Flournoy's method is as follows : He ques- 
 tions men, women, and children. — When an impres- 
 sion strikes your ear, do you, at the same time, see 
 something, and if so, what ? Siace when has this 
 happened to you ? Has it varied ? etc. — ^And he 
 has noted that, with many persons, seeing and 
 he^-ring are inseparable acts. 
 
 Never to perceive a sound without associating it 
 with colour is termed " having photisms." There 
 * Paris, Alcan, 1893. 
 
272 MTJSIC : ITS laws and EVOLtrTION 
 
 Are alphabetical photisms. To certain persons a is 
 white ; i is red ; o, bright yellow ; u, green, etc. 
 There is a photism of names. To various persons 
 Cecilia is bright yellow ; Susannah, chrome yellow ; 
 Mary, pearl - grey ; Alice, cherry - red ; Henry, 
 myrtle-green ; Lucy, intense blue ; Edmund, dark 
 blue ; John, grey-blue ; Leo, golden yeUow. Lastly 
 there are musical photisms, produced by the 
 notes of the scale, by tones, instruments, and by 
 the music of such and such a composer. With one 
 person, the fact of making a note sharp or flat 
 simply modifies slightly its tint : Mi is dark blue 
 and Mi C light blue ; Fa ti is light violet and Fa # 
 is amethyst or sapphire blue. With another person 
 an operation of this nature completely changes the 
 colour : >Si|; is green and Sit> hlac. 
 
 As regards the colours suggested by the work of 
 a composer taken as a whole, the associations are 
 very different and often contradictory ; there is 
 nothing astonishing in this, seeing that it is no 
 longer a question of a physiological phenomenon, 
 but of a work of art freely interpreted. The single 
 symptom of agreement occurs in the case of Gounod, 
 whose music gave the impression of violet colour 
 to one person and of blue to another. 
 
 7th. Above all these verbal statements, we may 
 set the example given by a large number of eminent 
 composers who likewise seem to have possessed 
 "photisms." or to have sought for them, for they 
 have been greatly enamoured of what the Germans 
 call Tonmalerei, music painting : Kuhnau, Haydn, 
 Weber, Pelicien David, R. Wagner, Liszt, Berlioz, 
 Saitit-Saens, Massenet . . . and how many more 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 273 
 
 . . . among the old masters and among our con- 
 temporaries, have given, or endeavoured to repre- 
 sent, colour by means of the orchestra ? 
 
 In Part III of the Introduction to the Creation, 
 Haydn clearly intends to represent the fresh morning 
 tints when he employs flutes in conjunction with 
 stringed instruments ; in Harold in Italy BerHoz 
 is certainly painting the twihght when he marks 
 the Priere des pelerins by the persistent note 
 of the horn. To render his landscapes sonorous, 
 the musician often turns to account a simple 
 analogy estabUshed between the shades of the 
 same colour and the various tones which form a group 
 in the instruments of the orchestra. Thus green 
 comprises delicate green, Veronese green, emerald, 
 and black-green ; in equal relation are found, in a 
 quite different series, the vioUn, the alto, the violon- 
 cello, and the double bass. Blue comprises cobalt, 
 ultramarine, Prussian blue . . . ; the hautbois, the 
 cor anglais, the bassoon form a series of similar 
 shades. Between the various yellows (Naples, ochre, 
 terra-cotta . . .) there exist differences correspond- 
 ing to those which separate the fife, the flute, 
 the clarionet . . . By this it is easy to perceive 
 that music treats the objective colour, taken as 
 a model, as it treats feehng : by the aid of a 
 system of equivalences it only reproduces its dy- 
 namics. 
 
 8th. This equivalence takes place on another 
 point which has greatly exercised the aesthetes : 
 namely, timbre.* 
 
 * On these questions see the excellent exposition of M. Lechalas 
 in his fUtudes d'EsfMtique, p. 169 et sqq. Alcan. 
 
274 MTTSlc : ITS laws and evoltttion 
 
 Between the two orders of phenomena which 
 we have compared, there appears, at first, a singular 
 difference. In music, the conditions of tone seem 
 to be the exact opposite to what they are for light. 
 A sound owes its " colour " to the number of 
 harmonics by which it is accompanied, to their 
 intensity in relation to the fundamental note, 
 and to their relative pitch : thus the sounds 
 accompanied by the first six harmonics, with an 
 average intensity, are full and "furnished," as organ 
 makers term it, and have an agreeable tone ; those 
 sounds accompanied only by the alternate har- 
 monics are of a poor and nasal character, and have 
 a disagreeable tone ; the sounds which are accom- 
 panied by the higher harmonics, very clear at the 
 start from the sixth or seventh, are sharp and harsh. 
 As to the simple non-decomposable sounds, such as 
 those of the diapasons associated with resonant 
 pipes, they are dull and devoid of tone, like phan- 
 tom sounds. In a word, the compound has colour, 
 the component parts none (indeed, aU simple 
 sounds are Kke one another). 
 
 In white light it is exactly the reverse ; the 
 compound has no colour, the simple components 
 are alone differentiated : violet, indigo, blue, etc. 
 This inversion of facts is, perhaps, only due to the 
 imperfect presentation that we make of them, and 
 to the difficulty we have in defining the word tone, 
 when we are no longer dealing with acoustics. We 
 shall confine ourselves to noting a few facts. 
 White light is not the only one which exists : the 
 stars send us light with different shades which 
 constitute their "tones"; and in the same way 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 275 
 
 that those different shades are due to the chemical 
 constituents of the stars, it is not to be doubted 
 that the quahty of the harmonics, and the form of 
 compound vibration resulting therefrom, are due to 
 the molecular nature of the vibrating body. 
 
 Without looking so far away : in the paintings 
 of Rubens, Rembrandt, Raphael, and Velasquez 
 there are identical colours — red, black, green, etc. — 
 but with a different "tone," that is to say, with a 
 particular physiognomy obtained by the aid of 
 certain component elements which constitute the 
 manner or the originality of each artist, because the 
 choice and the proportions of these elements destined 
 to produce a complete impression are the artist's 
 secret. The process is the same in the matter of 
 instrumentation. 
 
 Delacroix (according to a remark of Ch. Blanc) 
 at times obtained from a colour an exquisite effect 
 by mixing together the commonest tones ; likewise 
 one is astonished to find a composer like Berhoz 
 often associate instruments which seem "as if they 
 ought not to go well together " (this is the parallel 
 drawn by M. Camille Saint-Saens), and yet draw 
 from them a charming tone. So that, in both these 
 cases, the theory of tone finds it apphcation. 
 
 Must we conclude from all this that the musician 
 is a kind of painter, and that, as has been proposed 
 by an engineer of the present day (M. L. Favre*), 
 our orchestras might be subjected to a radical 
 transformation, to render them more intelligible, 
 by constantly associating visible colours with the 
 tones produced ? Nothing is further from my 
 * L. Favre, La Mtisique des Couleurs. Paris, Schleicher. 
 
276 MUSIC : its laws and evolution- 
 
 thought. Such confusions are illegitimate and 
 dangerous. To reduce music to a mental imagery 
 is inartistic. But it is one thing to misunderstand 
 the insurmountable frontier between two arts by 
 assimilating their practical effects, and another to 
 note the close relationship — secret and unperceived 
 by the hearer — of the materials which they employ. 
 There are many things which we enjoy without 
 being conscious of them. Such are the degrees of 
 civilization reached by our ancestors since the 
 beginning ; the social organization of which we form 
 part; and our adaptation to the cosmos. Yet it is 
 owing to these three aids that present man stands 
 upright and hves for a brief space ! In the same 
 way, in music, the resemblance of sound to colour 
 is one of those profound phenomena which apper- 
 tain to the realm of the unconscious. It contributes 
 to the creation of the indecision and the disturb- 
 ance of musical emotion in the average listener, 
 who does not listen with the ear of a contrapuntist, 
 and gives way artlessly to the charm of a composi- 
 tion. It reveals to us the harmony of two different 
 worlds ; and the pleasure we find in such a feehng 
 would vanish, if this harmony, instead of being 
 diffused over our sensibility, took the shape of 
 clearly defined images. 
 
 § 5. The Place or Music among Periodic Phenomena 
 
 In nature everything is vibration ; this- broad 
 view of things has given rise to a kind of axiom 
 propounded by modern science. As music is the art 
 of combining and systematizing vibrations, we need 
 not confine ourselves to comparing it with hght and 
 
musicaIj thought and the laws op nature 277 
 
 may seek to discover what place it holds in the 
 series of universal phenomena. 
 
 Here is a pendulum making one oscillation per 
 second : we will imagine this oscillation to increase 
 in rapidity — ^in which case it transforms itself into 
 vibrations, that is to say, movements, which we 
 can neither see nor count — and we wiU class the 
 phenomena which result for 55 octaves, 1, 2, 4, 
 8, 16, etc., by doubhng the number of vibrations 
 up to 55 times. In reahty, there is nothing ia the 
 phenomena of which we are about to speak which 
 corresponds to the purely physiological effect from 
 which has been drawn the definition of the musical 
 octave ; but we may use this word here without 
 ascribing any real value to it ; it is a simple means 
 of estimating the field we have to go over. 
 
 At 16 vibrations per second, with a wave-length 
 of about 20 metres,* our pendulum would commence 
 to produce acoustic sensations, the field of which 
 would extend, in our supposed diagram, from 16 to 
 30,000 vibrations per second. In this first region, 
 which has for Umits, on the one side, very deep and 
 heavy sounds, and on the other shrill whistles — is 
 enclosed the field of musical sounds, comprising 
 about seven octaves, from the fifth to the tweKth. 
 
 From 30,000 vibrations per second to 10 milhons 
 appear the high frequency currents (Kelvin), which 
 are quite another phenomenon : to wit, the intensity 
 of an electric current, subject to periodical vibra- 
 tions in a wire. This region, moreover, overlaps 
 the preceding one, for alternators are constructed 
 
 * By a wave-length in the air is meant the amount of space 
 traversed by the sound during one complete vibration. 
 
278 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 which yield currents of which the frequency is of 
 the order of 80 to 100 periods per second, that is to 
 say, are comparable to the deep notes of the musical 
 scale. 
 
 From 10 millions of vibrations per second to 
 100,000 millions the phenomena produced by our 
 pendulum would be the Hertzian oscillations the 
 lower Hmit of which cannot be fixed, for they also 
 may be slow. 
 
 From 100,000 millions to 3,700,000 miUions we 
 have an unexplored interval. 
 
 From 3,700,000 miUions, and for about six octaves, 
 dark heat. 
 
 From 375,000,000,000,000 (ultra-red of the 
 spectrum) to 750,000,000,000,000 (ultra-violet), 
 light. 
 
 Beyond that come the two octaves of the actinic 
 rays, which act upon photographic plates and excite 
 thermo-electric batteries. 
 
 After an unexplored interval one would arrive at 
 the iV-rays of M. Blondlot (30,000,000,000,000,000 
 vibrations per second), of which, however, the 
 existence is, rightly or wrongly, contested by 
 several physicists.* 
 
 These phenomena differ very widely one from 
 the other ; they can, however, be made the object 
 of a comparison based on certain analogies. As 
 was the case when deahng with verbal language, 
 musical language, and the localization of images, 
 
 * For all this, see Bruno Kolbe, op. cit. Why M. Combarieu 
 should attribute the discovery of high frequency currents (he 
 evidently means the oscillatory discharge of a Leyden jar) to Lord 
 Kelvin, I do not know. — Ed. 
 
MtrSICAL THOTTGHT AUD THE LAWS OF NATURE 279 
 
 we note resemblances with essential differentia- 
 tions. Here, the vibrations are perceptible, can 
 be registered, and are produced in air ; there, they 
 are the object of a double hypothesis concern- 
 ing their existence and the conducting medium 
 (ether). Here they are perpendicular to the Mne 
 which represents the direction of propagation, and 
 are called transversal ; there, they follow the direc- 
 tion of propagation, and are called longitudinal. 
 Certain vibrations are intramolecular (electricity), 
 others are on the periphery. There is, however, one 
 characteristic — vibration itself — common to all the 
 generating causes and in certain cases to the modes 
 of transmission. Here are a few facts which tend 
 to justify the comparison we have set up. 
 
 There is, and we should not forget it, enormous 
 differences between heat and sound. One passes 
 through a vacuum, the other cannot ; what pro- 
 duces the acoustic sensation is the vibration of a 
 mass of molecules, relatively slow and transmitted at 
 a speed of some hundreds of metres per second ; 
 what makes heat is an individual and very precipi- 
 tate movement of each molecule from the focus 
 of emission, reproducing itself many trillions of 
 times and transmitted (solar heat) at a speed of 
 300,000 kilometres per second.* And yet these two 
 orders of phenomena are related ; they offer three 
 great identical facts : (1) in the first place, an 
 accumulation of a certain force, ahke in the body 
 heated and in the body vibrating ; (2) dissemination 
 at a distance by synchronous vibrations (that is to 
 say, with periods of like duration, backwards and 
 * The author seems here to confuse heat and light. — Ed. 
 
280 MTTSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTlOl^ 
 
 forwards) transmitted by the ether or the air ; 
 and (3) a partial capture of this vis viva in every 
 direction by bodies which become heated or give 
 forth sounds. 
 
 On the other hand, heat and hght have been 
 closely approximated ; after it had been noted 
 that they were subject to the same variations of 
 weakness or intensity each time the vibration 
 itseK was modified, it became possible to consider 
 them as two phenomena due to one vmique vibratory 
 movement possessing two connected properties, the 
 one luminous, the other calorific, and producing two 
 different effects. Lastly, and of this there can be no 
 doubt, the luminous and the electrical oscillations, 
 projected in the same medium, relate to one 
 single phenomenon. 
 
 Thus, after having observed the properties 
 common to electricity and hght, to Mght and 
 radiant heat, to heat and to sound {exceptis 
 excipiendis !), it is difficult not to acknowledge a 
 certain unity in things, with special laws for very 
 different modahties. 
 
 This unity the mathematical physicist continually 
 finds inscribed of itself in the formulas he uses, 
 and in which it seems as if the phenomena he puts 
 into words mutually exchange their language. 
 When he meets with the same equation in the 
 theory of attraction, in that of the movements of 
 hquids, in that of the electric potential, in that of 
 magnetism, and in that of the propagation of heat, 
 etc. ... it is difficult, unless one is bMnd, not to 
 see that the most opposite phenomena, having no 
 apparent relationship, are yet connected by a secret 
 
MtrSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 281 
 
 internal analogy, that of the principle which 
 governs them. 
 
 Music has its place in this harmony. It is not an 
 exception, a miracle, it forms part of a concert in 
 which one can define its field. Its originality con- 
 sists in belonging, at the same time, to two different 
 worlds, and in subjecting to the conditions of 
 objective Ufe, to the laws of acoustics and of num- 
 bers, that flow of force which proceeds from the 
 depths of feehng. . . . 
 
 We can, therefore, extend to all phenomena the 
 observations made above with regard to sounds 
 and colours. - As a rule, physicists are not fond of 
 generahzing ; they study, especially, the restricted 
 systems that observation can reach and declare that 
 they know nothing of the Universe, taken as a 
 whole. They wiUingly leave to philosophers the 
 work of constructing theories which go beyond the 
 range of experiment. Yet one idea disengages itself 
 from their labours. If everything is vibration, 
 everything is energy. Energy is not merely a force 
 superposed on matter and which, distinct from it, 
 animates it by virtue of a fundamental law ; it is 
 identical with the things of reality and would 
 suffice to explain everything. " On this hypothesis 
 matter would only be the capacity for kinetic energy, 
 its pretended impenetrabihty energy of volume, 
 and its weight energy of position in the particular 
 form which presents itseK in universal gravitation ; 
 nay, space itself would only be known to us by the 
 expenditure of energy necessary to penetrate it.* 
 
 Lucien Poincar^, La Physique moderne, son Evolution, p. 67 sg., 
 Eng. ed. (Kegan Paul & Co., London, 1907). 
 
282 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLTTTION 
 
 Even were this idea somewhat insufficient to 
 constitute a complete and thoroughly solid doctrine, 
 it would be quite capable of explainiag certain 
 characteristics of musical emotion. 
 
 Now music, as we have seen, unable as it is to 
 " imitate " any given passion, generalizes and 
 confines itseK to reproducing the dynamics of 
 psychological life. But these dynamics we do not 
 regard as being the exclusive image of feeling ; 
 the concepts once put aside, we interpret these 
 dynamics as a new and involuntary generalization ; 
 unconsciously, we assimilate them to those of 
 natural phenomena. Of the nature which adds 
 itseK to our internal being, we know nothing or 
 next to nothing, and if by chance we do know 
 something, we certainly do not think of it when we 
 are Hstening to a symphony : but this ignorance is 
 exactly a condition of the psychical state created 
 by music. It amazes us, disturbs us, and fills us 
 with deUght as if, unknown to us, it placed us in the 
 heart of things and put us in communion with the 
 principle of them : hence that emotion, in which 
 those unconscious phenomena, ignorance and illu- 
 sion, play so great a part, tends to take us outside 
 the bounds of our personality, by making us feel 
 beyond the petty things of the ego, through a prism 
 of brilliant images — Life ! 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MUSIC AND MATHEMATICS 
 
 It is not possible to study the phenomena of nature' 
 without bringing in the numbers which measure 
 them. In the course of this study we come across 
 a question — a sort of annexe to the subject examined 
 in the preceding chapter — which occupies a very 
 large place in the history of music, and appears, in 
 the eyes of many persons, to be surrounded with 
 mysteries difficult to unravel : What part do mathe- 
 matics take in the theory of the musical art ? By 
 what right are they brought into it ? What services 
 do they render ? Let us at once comfort the reader 
 by assuring him that, if he wish to be informed 
 on this subject, it will only require a little attention 
 and curiosity on his part. 
 
 At the outset of his celebrated lecture at Bonn, 
 Helmholtz stated that he had always been struck 
 by the relations between the musical art and 
 mathematics. This is an idea which is as old as 
 science itself, and has given rise to theories, some- 
 times excellent and at others inadmissible, accord- 
 ing to the manner in which the same facts were 
 presented. 
 
 Pythagoras, who is considered by our Western 
 tradition as the greatest of all inventors in this 
 
 283 
 
284 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLtTTION 
 
 province, discovered the numerical ratios which 
 expressed the two fundamental intervals : f for 
 the fifth, f for the fourth, f for the octave. To be 
 historically exact, we should say |, |, etc. ; for the 
 ancients, instead of counting the vibrations, mea- 
 sured the length of the vibrating strings, which is 
 in an inverse ratio. But this matters little. De- 
 lighted with his discovery — which was, besides, an 
 admirable one — and yielding to the temptation to 
 generahze common to nearly all scholars, he first 
 began to assimilate numbers with musical sounds, 
 and then with the whole of reality. He elaborated 
 from his discovery a theory both astronomical and 
 cosmogonic. He imagined that, in nature, numbers 
 were the substance of things, and that the quater- 
 nary number, the tetractys-, 1, 2, 3, 4, was the 
 "source of eternal nature " (Vers dor is de Pytha- 
 gore, 47).* 
 
 I wiU give an idea of his point of view by stating 
 that, had he known the phenomenon of multiple 
 resonance, he would not have said : " The ratio of 
 the first harmonic to the fundamental is ^ because 
 it is placed at the octave." He would have said 
 instead, "that the first harmonic is placed at the 
 octave because it must be in the ratio ^ to the 
 fundamental sound, and that this ratio pre-existed 
 before all the rest." Numbers are being itself ; the 
 music in which they are realized is but an epiphe- 
 nomenon. One sees at once that this fact, the 
 numerical ratios of sounds, may become singularly 
 strange, according to the manner in which it is pre- 
 
 * It is, of course, excessively improbable that the Golden Verses, 
 a Neo-Platonic production, contain anything of Pythagoras. — Ed. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 285 
 
 sented, and that a thesis of abstruse metaphysics 
 may itself be substituted for the most inoffensive 
 observation. 
 
 The Chinese held not very dissimilar views. They 
 said that 3 was the sky, 2 the earth, and ^ the 
 harmony of the world ! 
 
 These ideas, though they were disputed by the 
 Eleatic philosophers (Parmenides, Zeno, fifth and 
 sixth centuries B.C.), long persisted in the mind of 
 the Greeks. Traces of them are often found in 
 Plato and Aristotle. " Numbers are the ideas (i.e. 
 things) and the sources of reality. — The soul is a 
 number which has movement." Discarding its 
 metaphysical pretensions, this system was handed 
 down to the Middle Ages by Boethius, and for cen- 
 turies it tyrannized over music, forbidding, in the 
 name of the arithmeticians, certain advances which 
 popular instinct would of itself certainly have 
 realized. 
 
 In modern times, Descartes, who when defining 
 matter by its extent spoke as strange a language as 
 Pythagoras, Euler, and many others after them, 
 have attributed to numbers a very important part 
 in musical theory. I will mention the original and 
 brilliant — but somewhat empty — saying of Leib- 
 nitz : " Music is an unconscious arithmetical exer- 
 cise." In his Introduction to Philosophy,* the 
 German philosopher Herbart writes, not without 
 some peevishness : " There are allegations whose 
 authority is due to audacity alone ; for instance, 
 it is claimed that numbers and their ratios (which 
 
 * Lehrbuch zur EMeitung in die Philosophie, Hartenstein's 
 complete edition (1850-2), I, p. 151, and II, pp. 114-6. 
 
286 MTJSic : ITS laws and evolution- 
 
 give the sole and unique means of distinguishing 
 consonance from dissonance) are not the true ele- 
 ments of the Beautiful in music ! " 
 
 What must we think of all this ? Why into the 
 theory of musical art are there brought, with the 
 ratios of numbers, square-roots and logarithms ? 
 In what way can this support or contradict the 
 theory upheld in this present work ? 
 
 § 1. Mathematics as a Means of Simplification and 
 Analysis 
 
 Mathematics has no right to supreme power, 
 but it has great claims to the gratitude of musicians. 
 
 1st. It serves — and it is an infinitely valuable 
 service — to convey in plain language that which has 
 been created hy the musical instinct. 
 
 The order of facts is as follows : (1) The popu- 
 lar singer — who can neither read, write, nor cypher 
 — ^invents melodies formed of certain intervals ; 
 (2) the scholar studies these melodies, arranges 
 in a certain order the notes of which they are com- 
 posed, deduces from them the scale, and by em- 
 pirical observations (comparison of the length of 
 the vibrating strings which produce the sounds) he 
 succeeds in determining the numerical relations 
 representing the musical intervals : ^ for the octave, 
 and I for the fifth, relations which, as soon as it 
 becomes possible to count the vibrations, must be 
 reversed and become ^, |^. 
 
 In propounding these relations, the mathematician 
 has accomphshed two things : he has summarized 
 some real facts, for which he substitutes, for the 
 greater facility of analysis, a very concise formula ; 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 287 
 
 in the second place, he has connected them with an 
 objective law, independent of all music (law of the 
 lengths of the strings). 
 
 This last act and the discovery it implies do not 
 allow him to restrict himself to the part of an 
 observer taking measurements : he has — or thinks 
 he has — a principle to which everything may be 
 referred ; the interval of the fifth wiU now enable 
 him, not to build up an abstract system, created all 
 of one piece by arithmetic, but to see more clearly 
 into the phenomena of real music ; it is thus that he 
 arrives at the constitution of the scale called " Pytha- 
 gorean," which already is a mixed work, founded on 
 observation, but attributes to one of the facts noted 
 a preponderating importance — 
 
 19 81 4 3 27 2430 
 ^ ?"' T>4' "3"' Y' Ttt' T'2'¥ ^• 
 
 When two groups of vibrations are in the ratio 
 of 1 to 1^, there is between the two sounds an in- 
 terval of a major tone. Do— Re ; if in the ratio of 
 1 to I^J, there is an interval of a third, etc. All 
 these ratios are obtained from the single datum : f . 
 
 § 2. Mathematics Suggest the Idea of Neoessaky 
 courections 
 
 2nd. By placing before our eyes, by means of per- 
 fectly clear symbolical substitutes, musical facts, to 
 the direct observation of which we should sacrifice an 
 enormous amount of time, the mathematician shows 
 us, at one glance, the corrections of which these musical 
 facts are susceptible. 
 
 We will remark that, if observation suppUes the 
 primary basis, we carmot rely solely upon it to 
 establish a musical system. In these days, when 
 
288 MUSIC : ITS laws and evolution 
 
 education is carried to such a pitch, how rare are 
 the singers whose voices are always in tune ! While 
 observing what is done by musicians, we should 
 rectify their habits, and not be the dupe of their mis- 
 takes, nor take a fault for a primary fact ; in a word, 
 put order into what is undetermined. Without 
 this, it would be impossible to form the scale or, 
 rather, to give a settled foundation to musical 
 grammar. , The mathematician, therefore, becomes 
 dogmatic after having been a simple observer ; he 
 sets up and organizes musical facts after measuring 
 them ; he is forced to take up this new part, for 
 the language in which he obhges the phenomena to 
 express themselves is so clear and striking that 
 it of itself suggests the idea of certain improvements. 
 
 Here is the interval of the third, valued in the 
 Pythagorean scale at the ratio 81 : 64. This mea- 
 sure is deduced from a general principle (the fifth), 
 and, at the same time, it has been possible to 
 deduce it from certain usages amongst mxisicians. 
 But we shall see immediately that it is not a very 
 happy one. 
 
 Two simultaneous sounds give rise to a third 
 sound, the number of vibrations of which is deter- 
 mined by the difference between the two first. In 
 this case, between 81 and 64, it would be sound 17. 
 Now, 17 has for its octave 34, and for its double 
 octave 68, which is higher than 64. The two sounds 
 of the Pythagorean third therefore give rise to a 
 sound which is dissonant in relation to them, and 
 for this reason this third is contrary to the harmony. 
 It is too great. 
 
 In the scale called the physicists', in which the 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATTJEE 289 
 
 system of Pythagoras has been modified, this third 
 has been reduced to the ratio 5:4. In this the 
 sound produced is 1, which has for its octave 2 and 
 4, and consequently strengthens one of the two 
 elements composing the third. 
 
 This new third, hkewise, is given by experiment 
 as well as being discovered by theory. The remarks 
 of MM. Mercadier and Cornu have, in fact, proved 
 that musicians use the third 81 : 64 in monody, and 
 the 5 : 4 in polyphony. 
 
 The slightest modification in so delicate a system 
 as the scale is pregnant with consequences. If, from 
 an excessive longing for unity, we adopt the second 
 third to the exclusion of the first, the whole of our 
 scale is in disorder, although this change seems in- 
 significant. If we reduce the interval Do— Mi, we 
 are obliged to reduce at the same operation the 
 two other thirds, Fa— La and Sol— Si. Further, 
 to lessen Do— Mi necessarily enlarges Mi— Fa, and 
 the same occurs between Si and Do by the modifica- 
 tion of Sol— Si. Lastly, the sharps and flats like- 
 wise feel the effects of these alterations. In the 
 scale of the physicists, the i)oJf is lower than the 
 ReV; in the Pythagorean system, on the contrary, 
 it is higher. We are therefore confronted by the 
 following question : Admitting a change in one 
 part of the scale, to which of the other parts must 
 we look for compensation ? 
 
 Mathematics has created the difficulty ; by 
 its aid we shall find the solution .^f| I 
 
 A third scale has been constructed, named the 
 "temperamental," which, instead of subjecting this 
 or that interval to the necessary alteration, applies 
 
290 MTTSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 this alteration to all the intervals of the scale, 
 divided into twelve uniform semi-tones. Here, 
 again, it is calculation which gives us the formulas, 
 and that in the most simple way. 
 
 Let us represent by a the tonic as our starting 
 point. The octave should be 2a. Between these two 
 points we have to place 12 equal semi-tones. 
 
 The first degree above the tonic will be obtained 
 by multiplying this tonic by an unknown quantity. 
 This obligation of multiplying instead of adding 
 was unknown to the ancients, and need not 
 surprise us. To state that i2et| is to Do in the 
 ratio f is to say that Re tl=the f of Do. To find 
 Re we must therefore take the ^ of Do, that is, 
 multiply Do by ^. 
 
 Let q be the constant interval to be inserted 
 12 times in the new scale. The first degree after a 
 will be aq; the next aqxq, or aq^ ; then aqxqxq, 
 or ag^, etc., which will give us — 
 
 a, aq, aq^, ag^, aq^, aq^, ag^ ... 2a. 
 
 If, instead of taking each value, always formed 
 of the same elements a and q, but with different 
 exponents, we take these exponents alone (0, 1, 2, 
 3, 4, 5, 6 . . .), we obtain an arithmetical pro- 
 gression instead of a geometrical one ; and if q is 
 known, it will be sufficient, in order to determine 
 any note in the scale, that we know the correspond- 
 ing exponent. This is what is called finding a 
 number by means of its logarithm. 
 
 The base we require here is obtained as follows : 
 to go from a to 2a, it being a question of ratios, 
 expressed in fractions, we have had to proceed by 
 multiplication, and not by addition ; consequently. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OP NATURE 291 
 
 to obtain the degree-type of our scale, which com- 
 prises twelve uniform intervals, we have not to divide 
 the difference 2a—a=a by 12, but to take the tweMth 
 root of the qtiotient ^a : a=S. The fundamental 
 formula of the temperamental scale is therefore 
 
 2, the value of the chromatic semi-tone. 
 
 y^ 
 
 The following table gives the intervals of the 
 twelve degrees of the temperamental scale to about 
 1/10*. Side by side are the values of the notes 
 of the Pythagorean and physicists' scales — 
 
 Temperamental Scale. 
 
 Scale of Pytliagoras. 
 
 Scale of Physicist 
 
 Do =1 
 
 1=1 
 
 1 
 
 Do # = 1-059463 
 
 
 
 Re =1-122462 
 
 f=l-125 
 
 1=1-125 
 
 Re #=1-189207 
 
 
 
 Mi =1-259921 
 
 f 1=1-265625 
 
 1=1-25 
 
 Fa =1-334840 
 
 f=l-333. . . 
 
 4 = 1-3333 
 
 Fa #=1-414214 
 
 
 
 Sol =1-498307 
 
 f=l-5 
 
 1 = 1-5 
 
 Sol #=1-587401 
 
 
 
 La =1-681793 
 
 f^= 1-6875 
 
 f= 1-6666 
 
 La # = 1-781797 
 
 
 
 Si =1-887749 
 
 2f3.-l-8984375 
 
 J^-1-875 
 
 Do =2 
 
 
 2 
 
 Thus arithmetic, it wiU be seen, after having been 
 ancilla cantus, becomes magistra cantus, in the 
 sense that it succeeds by degrees in disengaging 
 from the facts the principle which governs them. 
 
 In music it is not always, as in physics, the sole 
 language used ; the composer might even be un- 
 acquainted with it : feeling, imagination, and 
 pure thdfcght might fully suffice him. If, however. 
 
292 MUSIC : its laws and evolution 
 
 we do not rely on instinct alone and demand 
 a doctrine, arithmetic presents itself first, since 
 the musical construction is formed out of measur- 
 able quantities. It is immensely convenient — 
 eliminating all the complex pecuUarities of things 
 and only retaining their form, and it places before the 
 eyes of the theorist symbols which save him from 
 loss of time, and on which he can work as on the 
 realities themselves. 
 
 It has been objected that, on the one hand, 
 numbers and numerical ratios reject all approximate 
 calculations ; that, on the other hand, in practical 
 music everything is but approximation, perfect and 
 absolute exactness never having been obtained ; 
 and that, consequently, aU connection between the 
 language of figures and that of sounds is vain. This 
 objection would have the sole effect of demonstrat- 
 ing the utihty of mathematics : they furnish means, 
 more certain than the ear, of appreciating the 
 errors themselves ; and the system they aUow us 
 to set up, if never strictly followed by the virtuosi, 
 is a necessary ideal which they should seek to 
 attain as nearly as possible. 
 
 This observation appHes, above all, to the sym- 
 phony, in which several instruments which need a 
 common base of agreement come in. To adopt as 
 a normal pitch a sound created by 870 vibrations 
 per second, and make it the principle of this base, 
 is to recognize that nausic cannot be socialized 
 without the aid of arithmetic. 
 
 Finally, the musical instrument maker finds him- 
 self in the same position as the physicist, as regards 
 method and means of labour ; without the^ormulas 
 
MUSICAL THOtraHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 293 
 
 which mathematics has constructed once for all 
 from a study of the facts, he would only succeed, 
 after a long course of experiments, in fixing the 
 spot where the tube must be bored for making a 
 flute, or the point on the distended string where the 
 hammer should strike in a piano. The extent of 
 each instrument is fixed by acoustic laws ; the com- 
 poser who writes for the trombone, the horn, the 
 flute, the double bass, etc., must know accurately 
 this compass ; he is, therefore, in the act of creation, 
 ruled by objective laws which can be expressed by 
 numerical formulas, which he must master if he 
 would not resign himself to the use of simple 
 receipts. 
 
 § 3. Mathematics as a Means of Discovemng Impomant 
 Analogies 
 
 3rd. By causing reality to speak a language in ver y 
 general use, mathematics enables us to perceive curi- 
 ous analogies between music and phenomena very far 
 removed from it. 
 
 It has been said that the great book of nature 
 " is written in the language of mathematics ' ' 
 (Galileo). And, certainly, while bearing in mind 
 that writing is not thought, we may say the same 
 of a musical work, which can be entirely expressed 
 by numbers and their ratios. Now, one of the 
 great advantages of the expression of funda- 
 mental intervals by numerical ratios is that it 
 allows us to make very easy comparisons between 
 separate phenomena, and suggests to us analogies 
 which, without them, might have remained un- 
 noticed. 
 
294 MUSIC : its laws and evolution 
 
 It is a fact singularly worthy of notice that a 
 fundamental sound emitted by a stretched string 
 and the first five partial sounds accompanying it 
 should be towards one another as the numbers 
 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, that these first harmonics should 
 give the perfect chord, and that the simpUcity of 
 the ratios which constitute them should cease at 
 the next harmonic, which is very dissonant in re- 
 lation to the base and out of use. Is there in this a 
 pecuMarity special to music ? or is it, indeed, the 
 manifestation of a general law ? 
 
 It is understood that one cannot tell precisely 
 when a ratio ceases to be simple ; but, in practice 
 this difficulty does not exist. If, when plajdng the 
 piano, my right hand has to strike a certaiu number 
 of semi-quavers taken from the series 1-6, while my 
 left hand plays a certain but different number of 
 quavers in the same series, I experience no great 
 difficulty, because the ratio of the two movements 
 will appear simple to me. But if, on the contrary, 
 I have to produce five sounds with one hand, and a 
 lesser number with the other, it wiU be difficult to 
 manage. Thus is it, with a great show of reason, 
 that consonance has been considered to be due to 
 simple ratios. 
 
 This was the opinion of Pythagoras and Aristotle, 
 as also that of Descartes, who only admitted in 
 musical constitution the numbers 2 and 3, and re- 
 jected the number 5 as creating a rhythm perfected 
 with difficulty. His error was rectified two hundred 
 years later, in 1818, by M. Galhn, when he stated 
 that the quinary rhythm could be as easily per- 
 ceived in any rather quick movement as the binary or 
 
MUSICAIi THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 295 
 
 ternary rhythm. In 1739, in his Essais d'une 
 nouvelle Theorie musicale, Euler took up the Car- 
 tesian theory and developed ideas which may be 
 summed up as follows: "No assembly of sounds 
 can please us save when we can discover the 
 law of their arrangement. The more plainly we see 
 the order which reigns in the object constructed, 
 the more we find it simple and perfect." 
 
 Among the moderns, one of the most convinced 
 partisans of this system was M. Meerens, who re- 
 gards the numbers 2, 3, 5 as always giving out 
 musical sounds, and places in these numbers alone 
 the principle of melody, of consonance, and of time 
 and rhythm. 
 
 M. de Hartmann* thought to estabHsh very im- 
 portant considerations on this fact, that the simple 
 ratios, so much discussed in musical theory, also 
 regulate the series of colours. M. Hugo Gold- 
 sohmidt, professor of natural science at the Uni- 
 versity of Heidelberg, has written a recent work to 
 affirm that the law is the same in the phenomena 
 of crystallization. In a curious work, The Magic of 
 Numbers (1882, in German), HeUenbach asserted 
 that " the Universe is constructed so as to reaUze 
 as much as possible the law of simple and rational 
 numbers." 
 
 This last affirmation will perhaps seem on a par 
 with the idea of Kepler, that, when creating the 
 worW and regulating the order of the heavens, God 
 had in His mind the five regular polyhedrons of 
 geometry ! But, without having such soaring dog- 
 matic ambitions, we only need to read and compare 
 * In his Philosophy of the Beautiful, 1867, in German. 
 
29(5 MUSIC : ITS laws and bvoltttion 
 
 in order to perceive, on certain points, an identity 
 between the laws of music and those of chemistry. 
 The comparison of these two orders of phenomena 
 was already patent to the Greeks, who called by 
 the name of mixture and combination (Kpacris and 
 fiiiig) — without distinguishing between the two — 
 every emission of simultaneous sounds in simple 
 ratios, and compared consonance to the " mixture " 
 of wine with honey. 
 
 Let us recall some of the laws discovered at the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century — 
 
 " When two or several bodies are united in several 
 proportions, the weights of one of these bodies which 
 unites it to an eqiial weight of the other are in direct 
 proportion to each other." (Law of Multiple Pro- 
 portions, or Dalton's Law, 1808.) For instance, 
 oxygen forms with nitrogen six different compounds. 
 In these the weights of oxygen, combined with a 
 like weight of nitrogen equal to 7, are respectively 
 equal to 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, or, between themselves, 
 resemble our harmonics 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 
 
 "The weights according to which the different 
 bodies are united to the same weight of the same sub- 
 stance represent the ratios according to which these 
 weights unite among themselves, or are the simple 
 multiples of these ratios." (Law of Proportional 
 Numbers, ascribed to Berzehus, 1810.) 
 
 " When two gases combine, the volumes of the com- 
 ponent gases are in direct proportion to each other; 
 (2) the volume of the combination, measured in the 
 gaseous state, in the same conditions of temperature 
 and pressure, is in direct proportion to the sum of the 
 volumes of the components." (Laws of the com- 
 
MUSICAIi THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATUEE 297 
 
 bination of the volume of gas, ascribed to Gay- 
 Lussac, 1810.) 
 
 Thus the volumes of hydrogen and of oxygen 
 which combine to form water are in the simple 
 ratio, 2 to 1. This is the ratio which expresses the 
 octave in music. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MUSIC AND LIVING BEINGS 
 
 There is one last realm I wish to explore. 
 
 We have just compared music to the phenomena, 
 which we were unable to term " material " in the 
 old sense of the word, now that the ideas of energy 
 and vibration have penetrated into the intra- 
 molecular world itself ; at all events, we cannot 
 confuse them with living beings. Is it possible to 
 stretch as far as the latter the parallel sketched out 
 above ? If so, where are 'we to search for the 
 second term of our comparison ? Shall it be in the 
 mind and the thought of the musician ? or in the 
 various kinds of compositions — symphony, opera, 
 religious chants — considered as organized beings ? 
 or, again, in the concrete and personal musical 
 work ? Without going too closely into the ques- 
 tion, I would point out a few similarities which will 
 serve to make plainer the part of the unconscious 
 which enters into musical emotion, and the har- 
 monies of which it is composed. 
 
 1st. Living beings are capable of assimilation 
 and are organized ; (2nd) they evolve ; {3rd) they 
 reproduce their species, decline, and die. 
 
 Such are the three general ideas round which a 
 few musical facts may be grouped. 
 
 298 
 
MXJSICAIi THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 299 
 
 § 1. Assimilation and the Musical Mind 
 
 In his Lemons sur les Phenomenes de la vie Communs 
 aux Animaux et aux Vegetaux (1878), Claude Bernard 
 makes the following declaration : " Relinquishing 
 the attempt to define the indefinable, we will simply 
 endeavour to characterize Hving beings in rela- 
 tion to matter." Thus, we do not define hfe ; 
 nor the essence of musical thought, which is a 
 form of life. We may generalize, and say that all 
 essential definition is impossible ; if, by chance, any 
 definition of this kind were given to us by a super- 
 man, we should not comprehend it. 
 
 There are persons who, not satisfied with the 
 surface measurements given by physicists, want to 
 know " of what consists " or "of what is made," 
 intrinsically, such and such a phenomenon. It is 
 doubtful whether they know clearly what they are 
 asking. However much I may cudgel my brains, 
 I am unable to conceive a force in itself. We are 
 only cognizant of effects and mechanism ; and we 
 must not be more exacting with regard to the 
 musician than to the physicist or to the biologist. 
 There is but one way of knowing hfe or artistic 
 thought direct ; it is the inward sense, or con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 All hving bodies are distinguished from material 
 bodies by one fundamental property, i.e., assimila- 
 tion. At every moment, on every point of the 
 matter of which they are made, there occur losses and 
 gains, a breaking down and a building up, which imply 
 the assimilation of two substances. The musical 
 mind also has the unceasing and invisible activity of 
 
300 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 "elementary life," and is placed, at whatever mo- 
 ment we take of general or individual history, between 
 a conservative heredity and revolutionary forces. 
 It may react in an infinity of ways — to its advantage 
 or the contrary — by the contact and penetration of 
 two kinds of influence, viz.: those proceeding from its 
 environments, which it transposes or transforms ; and 
 those which are derived directly from ancient or 
 modern music. By an assimilation, nearly always 
 unconscious, the mind of the musician forms itself, 
 like that of the man of letters, by (musical) reading, 
 by the examples of the masters, by imitation and 
 by observation. Conversely to matter, it is not 
 used up, but fortifies and develops itself by 
 the exercise of its activity. Like living beings, it 
 nourishes itseH with ahments which have to be 
 suitable and digestible to assure its growth, or other- 
 wise they may give it disease, poison it, and kill it. 
 
 The characteristics connected with the faculty of 
 assimilation are, in the case of Uving beings, com- 
 plexity and organization. The microscope reveals 
 the fact that they are not homogeneous, but that 
 their existence results from a mixture of various 
 substances reacting on each other. We know, like- 
 wise, the very complex elements which analysis 
 discovers in the formation of the musical mind : — 
 physiological aptitudes of the ear, memory, senti- 
 ment, faculty of abstraction, purely intellectual 
 activity, and imagination ; hereditary patrimony and 
 acquired culture ; unconscious application of the 
 law of numbers and creative spontaneity ; social 
 life and objective life penetrating into personal 
 Hfe. . . . And if we examine a symphony, and 
 
MUSICAL THOTTGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATTJKE 301 
 
 borrow the methods and the terminology of the 
 biologists, we shall have no difficulty in demon- 
 strating the same complexity. 
 
 The co-ordination of the mechanism of life in a 
 superior hving being is admirable. Biologists re- 
 linquish all idea of describing it completely ; they 
 are compelled to divide it into partial activities or 
 functions, which they can only distinguish in a 
 very conventional way, because they are so closely 
 bound together. Admirable, likewise, is the unity 
 of musical thought creating such a complete work 
 as a quatuor or a symphony of Beethoven. 
 
 Of such an organism we may say, with Claude 
 Bernard : it is a " special arrangement which gives 
 birth to the immanent properties of living matter." 
 A fugue starts with a subject which is a cell sub- 
 jected to dichotomy. All the elements of which a 
 symphony is composed react on each other. Two 
 forms only seem to escape this general law ; but 
 they are very inferior forms which prove the rule : 
 one, the rhapsody, limits itseK to juxtapositions 
 without construction or development ; the other, 
 the pot-pourri, of which the sole object is to please 
 the ear. 
 
 The opera itself, when it is in truth a lyrical 
 drama, obeys this law of co-ordination and unity. 
 The Leitmotive, or "conducting themes," have only 
 been one of the means employed to organize a very 
 vast composition, to preserve it from the inartistic 
 fault of indefinite juxtaposition, and to arrange its 
 parts in a coherent whole. 
 
 We may even draw from this a rule of criticism : 
 a musical work should form one complete and un- 
 
302 MUSIC : ITS laws and evolution 
 
 broken whole. In the same way that we do not — 
 except in the case of hydras ! — make extracts or 
 " chosen portions " of hving beings, so should it be 
 impossible to cut in two a fine composition without 
 altering its character ; and every time that, from 
 an opera, a symphony, or any poem, we are able 
 to take a few pages without lessening their value, to 
 play them apart, it is, except in special and rare 
 cases, a certain sign that the work is only of moderate 
 value. 
 
 § 2. Musical Evolution and Living Beings 
 
 The second characteristic of living beings, the 
 most remarkable of all, according to Claude Bernard, 
 is evolution. Every being is so perfectly adapted to 
 its conditions of existence that from the first we 
 doubt whether such admirable instruments can 
 have been suddenly produced in their state of per- 
 fection. Thus, a machine, with all its improvements, 
 could not have been invented by one single man 
 (Darwin). Music offers us ample material for here 
 continuing our parallel. 
 
 While obejring an instinct which escapes our 
 analysis, and is even impossible for us to conceive, 
 the musician, as we*have already seen in a special 
 chapter, feeds himself on everything which his 
 social environment sends him. Now, this external 
 environment changes, and therefore the internal 
 conditions of musical life change also. 
 
 Music necessarily renews itself in order to adapt 
 itself to circumstances, which also are incessantly 
 renewed. The formation of a musician's talent, 
 influenced both by the principle of heredity and by 
 quantitative or qualitative acquirements from out- 
 
MTTSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 303 
 
 side, brings clearly to mind the formation of a living 
 being. In lieu of studying it in history, it can be 
 viewed in the individual, who repeats and often 
 exemphfies the evolution of the species. The musical 
 mind of the child who has just learnt his notes, their 
 places on the keyboard, and the elements of the 
 grammar, only knows the parasitical life. When he 
 has reached exercises in harmony, he still resembles, 
 docilely listening to his master's, word, the embryo 
 which in the maternal womb assimilates nutritive 
 matter. He develops, as the biologists say, by 
 epigenesis ; that is to say, by the addition of new 
 to pre-existing parts. 
 
 After having placed notes one atop of the other, in 
 order to construct chords, he passes on to the study 
 of counter-point ; and it is for him a new life, a 
 kind of metamorphosis, like that of a tadpole 
 which, first adapted for the aquatic life of ponds, 
 afterwards fits himself for life on land. He eliminates 
 from his mind certain now useless ideas ; hence- 
 forth left to himseK, his evolution continues un- 
 ceasingly, either continuing the line of heredity — or 
 the mysterious impulsion of nature — or adapting 
 himself {necessarily, but as far as in him Ues) to 
 outside conditions. It is thus that Bach absorbed 
 the art of the Italians, that of the French, that of 
 the Germans who had preceded or were contempo- 
 raneous with him, before he opened the era of 
 modern music. Thus did Beethoven imitate Mozart 
 before he wrote the sonata dedicated to the Arch- 
 duke Rodolph ; thus did Wagner imitate Meyerbeer 
 before writing the tetralogy; and thus did Verdi, 
 like so many others, modify late in Hfe his sesthe- 
 
304 MUSIC : ITS laws and evoltjtiok 
 
 tics in order to adapt himseH to the Wagnerian 
 fashion, then supreme. 
 
 To understand and properly judge a composer 
 the critic should, therefore, replace him in the his- 
 torical concatenation of which he is one of the links. 
 
 These " variations "■ — in the sense given to. the 
 word by naturalists — are almost always a conquest 
 of some higher form of life ; but they may be 
 wandering or arrested by malady or fatigue or even 
 retrograde, that is to say, they may suddenly re- 
 produce, in the middle of their upward progress, the 
 lower and obsolete tjrpe of some ancestor. We 
 have examples of this in the symphony and opera 
 of the present day. One reservation only, and that 
 a very important one, must be added to the in- 
 dication of these analogies. 
 
 The living being must either change or remain 
 passive when adapting itseK to the conditions of 
 existence. Either in a direct way (Lamarck), or 
 after the struggle for life and hereditary transmis- 
 sion (Darwin), he is subject to what G. Saint-Hilaire, 
 in 1828, termed the " ambient world," and what 
 we now call the " environment." There is in the 
 South of France an olive tree adapted to the 
 chmate ; take it to the Champ de Mars in Paris, and 
 it wiU perish. The musical or literary work which 
 has a success in Norway, because it is there in har- 
 mony with the social life, may, similarly, be struck 
 by a kind of death if transferred to Paris ; but it is 
 possible also that it might transform the " environ- 
 ment " and not be transformed by it. In a word, 
 music, up to a certain degree, is an educating force. 
 
MUSICiiL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 305 
 
 For the study of musical evolution a more definite 
 object than the musical mind might be taken : the 
 orchestra, for instance, comparable at the present 
 day to some gigantic and powerful animal. 
 
 The succession of the various embryonic stages 
 shows that the living being is at first indeterminate. 
 It does not possess all its organs at once : some 
 are wanting or are merely rudimentary. The in- 
 dividual is formed by degrees, passing from the 
 simple to the compound, from the homogeneous to 
 the heterogeneous. 
 
 The orchestra experienced, at first, the indeter- 
 minate stage. I refer to those " Recueils " of the 
 sixteenth century — songs, four-part dances — which 
 are to be sung or played, or both one and the other, 
 but without giving a precise indication of the in- 
 struments in the composer's mind : "For all kinds of 
 instruments " sometimes says the sub-title. 
 
 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries a 
 specialization of the functions begins to appear, but 
 all the orchestral parts are not written down ; some 
 are ad libitum. The chief care of the composer, after 
 fixing on the type of instrument to accompany the 
 singer, is to establish a bass. Each note of this bass 
 ought to form a support for a chord, but he confines 
 himself to representing them by ciphers ; and it is the 
 pianist, placed in the centre of the orchestra, who, 
 guided by these indications, does aU the rest. It 
 is something like a substance without any settled 
 texture, but able to give birth to new cells. 
 
 One of the creators of opera, Caccini, announces' 
 at the beginning of his Eurydice (1600) that he has 
 marked in the bass the intervals of the fourth, sixth, 
 
306 MUSIC : ITS laws and evolution 
 
 and seventh, the major and minor thirds, but that 
 "for the middle voices, necessary in certain places, 
 he leaves them to the judgment and taste of the 
 executant." Gliick himself, who represents a more 
 mature period, does not always take the trouble to 
 note aU that the orchestra has to say, or to name 
 distinctly the instrument to which he gives the 
 word. " It wiU hardly be believed," remarks MUe. 
 Pelletan in her edition of Iphigenie en Aulide, " that 
 the copjdst had, in many cases, to himseK compose 
 the scores of the wind instruments from those of the 
 stringed." Gliick at times writes the scores of the 
 first violins on the line of the seconds ; he writes on 
 the upper double octave of the basses those of the 
 altos, which should be in imison ; or, again, he forgets 
 the tone of the horns ; he writes a part without indi- 
 cating whether it is for the flute, the hautbois, 
 or the clarionet ; he writes on the line of the 
 double basses a few important notes for the bas- 
 soon, etc. 
 
 Such an orchestra may well be compared to a 
 new-born child whose frame and organs are not 
 fully formed. At the present day, as we are aware, 
 nothing of the kind happens. The composer leaves 
 no detail uncertain ; the shghtest shades of render- 
 ing are minutely indicated. The orchestra has 
 reached the adult age, in possession of all its organs, 
 which are clearly differentiated. 
 
 The ever-increasing number of the forces which 
 the orchestra utilizes is also a type of evolution. 
 
 We know from various documents that the 
 orchestra of J. S. Bach was composed of sixteen 
 voices and scarcely twenty instrumentaUsts. That 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 307 
 
 of Handel, on the same plane, reached thirty-two 
 performers. Burney, writing in 1770, informs us 
 that in the church of Padua there were forty musi- 
 cians, of whom sixteen were singers. These specific 
 cases enable us to imagine the ordinary usage. For 
 secular music the orchestra does not appear to have 
 exceeded, in the eighteenth century, fifty in number, 
 and was nearly always below this figure. To-day 
 it has increased with the size of the haUs, as has the 
 number of the audiences, and the richness of the 
 scenery. Wagner needed 110 musicians ; Berlioz 
 wanted 800J . . . 
 
 From a more technical point of view, again, the 
 evolution of the orchestra is interesting. Formerly — 
 at the period anterior to Gliick's best operas — 
 instruments were not employed, as now, in one 
 great mass ; they were divided into types coming in 
 one after the other. For accompanjdng the voices, 
 and for each item in his Mass in Si minor. Bach 
 selects the instrument which he deems most suit- 
 able ; and during the whole piece this instrument 
 remains the chief one, often without any other 
 support than the bass. Thus, the Gorno da caccia, 
 (hunting horn) which accompanies the quoniam of 
 this mass, only appears in this one piece ; it is 
 the same with the Viol d'amore, the hautbois, and 
 the bassoon, the cornets (Zinken), the trombones, the 
 trumpets, and other instruments which, in turn and 
 not simultaneously, are put in prominence. When 
 one calls to mind the fuUness of the modem orchestra, 
 one sees that evolution has taken place not only in 
 the direction of power, briUiancy, richness, and colour, 
 but also of that unity which allows the hving being. 
 
308 MXTSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 endowed with responsible faculties, to become con- 
 scious of all that he is. 
 
 I will add that in the musical world, as with 
 living beings, it is difficult not to"^ recognize a 
 " struggle for fife." Among the composers who 
 write, the virtuosi who perform, the masters who 
 teach, the instrument makers who manufacture — 
 among the forms of art themselves, whether in the 
 secular or in the rehgious world — competition is as 
 sharp as it is continuous. At all epochs there has 
 been a conflict of talents unequally adapted : con- 
 flicts of schools, conflicts of theories, conflicts of 
 kinds. The symphony has supplanted religious 
 music ; and the opera is now killing the symphony. 
 In music, as in all else, the strongest triumph, only 
 to recommence the struggle, and to be overcome in 
 their turn. Thus is evolution produced. 
 
 § 3. Genekation and Music 
 
 The third characteristic which distinguishes living 
 beings is generation, with which we may link every- 
 thing relating to anomahes, decay, and death. 
 
 In nature, as in music, generation may be studied 
 under two forms — 
 
 1st. Living beings are distinguished from material 
 bodies by the faculty they have, after having been 
 engendered, to generate in their turn. Omne vivum 
 ex vivo (Harvey). The belief in spontaneous genera- 
 tion is now classed among errors championed by 
 nobody. A musical work is a spontaneous creation, 
 but this spontaneity could not exist had it not 
 proceeded, and, as it were, been called forth by a 
 more or less distant heredity. A masterpiece, sym- 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 309 
 
 phonical or lyrical, is never an isolated fact. If 
 preceded by a line of ancestors, to it succeeds a line 
 of descendants. Hence we see that compositions 
 cannot be likened to living beings, except in the 
 case of compositions of a superior order. 
 
 All the evolution of polyphonic song earher than 
 the sixteenth century culminates in Palestrina. 
 Nor did Bach invent anything. Never was work 
 more evidently prepared by his forerunners than 
 his. Every great artist proceeds from a previous 
 one, and in his turn generates others. To Peri (end 
 of the sixteenth century), who confined himself to 
 recitatives and choruses of three or four voices 
 generally accompanied by a figured bass, succeeds 
 Monteverde, to him LuUi, to LuUi Rameau and 
 Gliick : the chain continues with Mozart, Weber, 
 Meyerbeer, and ends without a break in the author 
 of Tristan und Isolde. The composer raises up heirs 
 by his example, by his teaching, by the disciples 
 directly formed by him, and by the school or 
 opinion he has created. 
 
 2nd. A second form of generation may be men- 
 tioned here. The transmission of talents and 
 qualities does not always occur between individuals 
 of pure race, in a straight line which represents the 
 heredity of the characteristics of the race. Among 
 living beings, unions are formed between persons 
 near to one another, or greatly differentiated. 
 
 I shall venture a few reflections here on the 
 analogies between musical and plant hfe. 
 
 The fruit served up at our table, the flowers with 
 which we like to decorate our rooms, nearly all the 
 comestible or ornamental species we utUize are the 
 
310 MXTSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 produce of art, cultivation, and selection, in fact of 
 the art of grafting. Cultivation from seed is thought 
 insufficient. 
 
 In the arts something similar occurs. Krst, in 
 literature, Nisard has already remarked that the 
 law under which French poetry was developed 
 was that of imitation, which is nothing else but 
 grafting. Corneille grafted the genius of Latin on to 
 that of French, and as the first introduced specific 
 modifications into the second, there resulted an 
 intermediate type. Racine did the same with Greek, 
 etc. The same law seems to hold good in music. 
 
 In fact, we are only acquainted with different sorts 
 of music which have developed because a foreign art 
 has been united with them. In the East, Korean and 
 Chinese music were grafted on the Japanese. This 
 last had itself borrowed from that of the Hindus. 
 Egyptian music grafted itself at the outset on the 
 music of the Assyrians and Hebrews, as later did 
 the Persian on Arab music. Among the Greeks, as 
 attested by the names of certain modes, Oriental 
 music was grafted on to the national music. 
 
 Among the moderns the art of those Netherlanders, 
 who from 1450 to 1600 were the recognized models, 
 successively imparted its sap first to the French, and 
 then to the Itahan genius. Italian art, which from 
 1600 to about 1700 was the most brilliant of aU, 
 interpenetrated the German genius, and this latter, 
 which- from the eighteenth century downwards held 
 the supremacy, was grafted on to the art of nearly 
 all the other countries of Europe. 
 
 One very side we see nothing but crossings, changes, 
 transmissions, and interpenetrations. Phenomena of 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 311 
 
 this kind might be, above all, studied in France, 
 where musical eclecticism has been very great, and 
 Tf^here the combination of very difiEerent hereditary 
 patrimonies with unequal coefficients, distributing its 
 effects over a large number of descendants, produces 
 at the present day a remarkable polymorphism. 
 
 The results of cross unions are the most vigorous, 
 because the already adapted average type will 
 always be present (Le Dantec). 
 
 This is the point when the comparison becomes 
 more interesting and may even give rise to practical 
 conclusions. 
 
 Naturalists warn us that certain species can- 
 not be grafted. There must be selection, else 
 the labour is in vain. The mistake made by the 
 ancients, by Virgil and Pliny, was endeavouring to 
 make the vine grow on the olive tree, and holly 
 on the rose tree. These are what are called 
 " heteroclitical " grafts. A contemporary of Buff on, 
 Duhamel du Monceau, has proved them to be 
 impossible. To arrive at any result, the operations 
 must be carried out with plants as nearly related 
 as possible, and with a close botanical affinity. It is 
 the same with the transfusion of blood. If blood 
 from a different species is injected into an invalid, 
 not only is the patient not fortified thereby, but 
 may die through the toxic effect of the serum from 
 species not related, and especially through the 
 globulicide action. 
 
 Many musicians have fallen into an error of this 
 species. If the grafting of the Italian on the French 
 genius has produced a charming musician, such as 
 Gounod, it is because it brought together two 
 
312 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 kindred races'; but is not the visible check of certain 
 attempts at the accHmatization, in France, of other 
 forms of musical art due to a contrary circumstance ? 
 
 The analogy just pointed out may be carried 
 further. Modern naturalists inform us that the 
 principle which excludes heteroclitical graftings is 
 only in part true {Dastre) : it applies to the apple 
 and pear trees, but not to the almond and the peach, 
 the plum and the apricot trees, which are genera 
 further removed from each other. It has been found 
 possible to fix the olive on the hlac and on the ash 
 tree. Recently, M. Daniel has succeeded in joining 
 the lilac to the maple. Thus there are exceptions. 
 But even to this extent, and precisely on account of 
 these exceptions, somewhat indeterminate in num- 
 ber, the principle is applicable to musical works. 
 
 We have French composers who, by miracles of 
 skill, have succeeded in producing exotic music ; 
 but these are exceptional works, always present- 
 ing anomalies and gaps. Baclji may have gained 
 much by imitating Italian genius, but we may 
 be allowed to urge that, at times, the same opera- 
 tion was less favourable to Handel. 
 
 As in a plant resulting from too risky a graft 
 the size of the tree and the exuberance of the foliage 
 are greatly sacrificed to the size of the fruit, so in 
 musical works which aspire to bring together 
 mannerisms of feeling, of thought, and of expression 
 too different from one another, there are evident 
 inequalities, shocking incongruities, and something 
 strange and deformed. Thus, in the operas of 
 Handel the ornate at times resembles an excessive 
 vegetation, which jars on the mind. 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 313 
 
 Living beings do not always procreate healthy, 
 well-constituted individuals of normal organiza- 
 tion. Sometimes they produce beings of a doubtful 
 character, and even monsters. The study of 
 anomalies takes a large place in natural history ; 
 musical works also offer to it ample and inter- 
 esting matter. 
 
 In the first place, there are among Hving beings 
 Protean kinds (Darwin), that is to say, genera very 
 complex and as it were shunning analysis. By some 
 they are considered true species, by others simple 
 varieties. There is something similar in music. 
 The madrigal, the oratorio, the symphony with its 
 programme are often difficult to classify. This un- 
 decided character recently allowed the Damnation 
 of Faust, by BerHoz, to be put on the stage as a 
 real opera, and at the same time produced energetic 
 protests against this attempt. Contemporary opera 
 is called, in turn, "dramatic action," "lyrical 
 comedy," " musical romance," etc. It is Protean, 
 polymorphous. 
 
 The illegitimate pairing of two individuals of 
 different species produces monsters, and as these 
 monsters seem to be characterized by the juxta- 
 position, in all parts of their being, of two molecules 
 which do not interpenetrate each other, they are 
 usually sterile.. 
 
 In music also there are monsters : they may have 
 an ephemeral success and create a passing infatua- 
 tion, but they never found a lasting school. They 
 are sterile. I wiU quote two examples. 
 
 In the sixteenth century some composers, such as 
 Claude de Jeune and Mauduit, imitating the 
 
314 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 eccentricities of certain poets of that period,' be- 
 thought themselves of writing melodies in , the 
 fashion of antiquity, by measuring French 
 words into shorts and longs, like the Sapphic 
 and Alcaic Odes of Horace. It was coupling two 
 principles which could stand side by side, but not 
 combine. Monsters only were produced ; they 
 have been sterile. 
 
 In the seventeenth century some weU-meaning 
 minds thought they would create the religious 
 opera, edifying and spiritual : such were II Santo 
 Alesio of Laudi (1634), Philotea, id est anima Deo 
 cara, a sacred comedy (1643). It was joining to- 
 gether two principlbs which cannot usefully unite ; 
 so these works remain isolated in history. 
 
 Finally, species once extinct never reappear 
 (Darwin). In music also, in which there is continuous 
 evolution, we may speak of " extinct species." At 
 the present day many kinds once held in honour have 
 disappeared from use. Is it impossible that they 
 should return ? The whim of a composer, no doubt, 
 could restore to them a semblance of hfe ; nothing 
 prevents the, writing now (1907) of one of those 
 dances so beloved during the ancient regime : alle- 
 mande, loure, canaries, etc. etc. The musician may 
 even go back to the Middle Ages and amuse himself 
 by writing a diaphony or an organum, a " conduct " 
 or a "hocquet." But naturahsts point out a fact 
 which is a warning : archaeological resurrections 
 cannot have for more than a moment any but a 
 phantom life. They would no longer find among us 
 conditions favourable to their existence. 
 
 Thus the essential laws of organized matter are 
 
MUSICAL THOUGHT AND THE LAWS OF NATURE 315 
 
 rediscovered in' Wt. The musical work appears, de- 
 velops, and perpetuates itseK like the living being : 
 escaping, like it, aU complete and quaUtative defini- 
 tion, it is in a like manner an organism formed 
 of complex elements brought into unity ; it 
 evolves, for numerous reasons, of which many 
 escape our notice (for the primum movens remains 
 unknown), but one of which is the struggle for life, 
 and the resulting selection. Like the animal and 
 the plant, it can and must improve by the cross- 
 breedirig of individuals belonging to species not too 
 distant. Like them, finally, it has the gift of trans- 
 mitting life after receiving it. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 After so many incursions into fields where I must, 
 at times, have shown more curiosity than actual 
 knowledge or clearness, it is time to conclude. 
 
 In order to define music, we have taken as 
 starting-point musical feeling, which has revealed 
 to us that a melody, when really deserving the 
 name, is a thought sui generis, without con- 
 cepts, but as significant to the musician as is, to 
 the literary man, a thought formed without con- 
 cepts. From musical feeling we passed on to 
 the study of sensation and of the physiological 
 mechanism ; there, two routes branched off which 
 we have successively followed : on the one side, 
 social life ; on the other, objective nature. We 
 have shown the relations of music to both. 
 
 Music is refractory to aU analysis which wishes to 
 explain its essence ; it appears isolated amid the arts 
 of painting and poetry. But if it be so, it is solely 
 because it has connections, deep, and not super- 
 ficial, with the individual, social, and cosmic life. The 
 mystery which surrounds it is in no way due to its 
 nature or its organization, it proceeds from life it- 
 self, which it expresses with deep penetration and in 
 the most general form. It issues from a universal 
 and deep-seated instinct of humanity ; it is feeUng 
 and imagination ; and it obeys those laws which 
 rule things and living beings. If a part of its secret 
 
 316 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 317 
 
 is hidden from us, it is that the secret of nature is 
 unfathomable ; even did we know it, we should 
 be unable to express it in words. 
 
 We think, however, that we have estabhshed a 
 clear principle founded on observation, and supply- 
 ing in practice a sure criterion, by enunciating the 
 following definition : Music is the art of thinking in 
 sounds. If this be not granted, it will be impossible 
 to understand a quartet of Beethoven, or any other 
 musical composition ; a phrase can no longer be dis- 
 tinguished from a simple, regular sequence of sounds; 
 it cannot be explained in what way Au clair de la 
 lune differs from an adagio of one of the great 
 masters. Our definition embraces aU the facts and 
 sacrifices none. The composer of music-hall waltzes 
 is a man who thinks in sounds as does a Bach or a 
 Handel, only his thought is weak, superficial, trivial, 
 poor, and as far from that of Handel or Bach as that 
 of an ordinary writer differs from the thought of 
 a Leibnitz, a Pascal, or a Bossuet. The Hottentot, 
 who has only three or four notes in his melodies, 
 also thinks in sounds, only his thought is (from our 
 point of view) blurred, incomplete, and barbarous. 
 
 Many minds fashioned by classical education are 
 loth to admit that thought is possible without the 
 aid of words. Yet it is a fact which must strike an 
 observer. I have endeavoured not to multiply the 
 already very numerous points of view I have had to 
 take up in this work, by examining the real value 
 of verbal language as the expression of deep psychical 
 life, but I will sum up my opinion in a few words : 
 the essential nature of things (moral or material) 
 cannot be defined ; now verbal language, formed 
 
318 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 of very clear concepts, only acts by means of defini- 
 tions. It, therefore, deforms all it touches. 
 
 Music, on the contrary, liberated from Hterary 
 formalism and only borrowing from reality its 
 most general dynamics, is more able to pass through 
 the surface of things and to penetrate, more or less, 
 into their inmost being. This causes it to be a very 
 realistic and very valuable art, for, without it, many 
 far-off phases of moral life would remain closed to 
 us. But music is also a work of great imagination. 
 It is not too much to say that it gives a plastic form 
 to immaterial realities ; without neglecting funda- 
 mental laws, it creates possible ones. It is flexible, 
 diverse, and unequal ; it is free, it has wings, like 
 thought' ; in a word, it does what it wiU. 
 
 At every stage of our investigation — physiology, 
 sociology, acoustics, mathematics — we have met 
 with a system which claimed to stay us by forcing 
 upon us its own explanation. But we simply, while 
 keeping on our road, stored up " contributions," and 
 it is indispensable thus to set things right. 
 • The student of acoustics who sought to explain 
 musical art by that science alone would achieve 
 very poor results. One might as well, in order to 
 understand the poet^ of Lamartine, simply study 
 his manuscripts, note their caligraphic mannerisms, 
 and interpret them after the manner of the grapho- 
 logists. Sounds considered as mere matter cer- 
 tainly play, in a symphony, a more important part 
 than the caligraphic style or the voice of the 
 reciter does in poetry; but, however pure, agree- 
 able, and regularly connected they may be, they do 
 not, of themselves, constitute music. 
 
CONCLX7SION 319 
 
 The theory we are upholding — which, after all, only 
 notes an evident fact, which we are unable to define 
 fully — has no need whatever to call in metaphysical 
 conceptions or to appeal to a vague mysticism. 
 Musical thought is a form widely differentiated from 
 our intellectual activity ; but, by showing us its uni- 
 versality, history enables us to cormect it with a 
 primordial and persistent instinct of humanity, 
 which is, no doubt, very apt for the dialectic of 
 concepts, but has always required feehng, belief, 
 and imagination for its existence. 
 
 We also know that the work of the musician, 
 entirely permeated by social influences, is organized 
 in accordance with general principles which over- 
 pass it and govern many other phenomena. We 
 have discovered the same laws at various stages in 
 life. We have, therefore, the right to draw conclu- 
 sions as to the sentiment of one grand ensemble in 
 which everything is connected by secret links. 
 
 In an article on music, in which all the concep- 
 tions of the Western world are again met with,* the 
 Chinese Se-Ma-T'sien says : " Music conies from with- 
 in us — music is that which unifies." This twofold 
 formula, in agreement with what has been said in 
 former pages as to primitive magic and German philo- 
 sophers, sums up the ruling thought of this book. 
 
 In a celebrated poem in his Feuilles d'Automne 
 (Ce qu'on entend sur la montagne), Victor Hugo 
 contrasts the voices of nature with those of human- 
 ity. Nature gives out a grand, peaceful and joyous 
 music, and the world, floating in space, is wrapped 
 
 * Mimoires historiques de Se-Ma-T'sien, translated, with notes, 
 by Ed. Chavannes, Professor at the CoUtee de France. Leroux! 
 1889, Vol. III. 
 
320 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND BVOLtTTION 
 
 in harmony. Humanity, on the contrary, gives 
 forth a sound which grates, like one produced 
 by a brazen bow on an iron lyre ; it is no longer a 
 symphony, but there are shrieks ! A contrast easy to 
 note, if in humanity we only view the conflicts of 
 interests, mean passions, pohtioal storms, and social 
 events, in fact, the superstructure, but if we pene- 
 trate to the permanent and universal base, there is 
 no longer a dissonance, and there is a concert which 
 should appeal to the poet's ear. 
 
 Without suspecting it we hve, as guests of the 
 Cosmos, in the midst of a sublime harmony; and 
 it is not possible for perfect accord not to exist 
 between what is within us and what is all around us. 
 The grandest function of music, by enlarging the 
 ego and freeing it from all surface divagations, is to 
 replace us in this harmony of which we have never 
 the full consciousness, but to which we are insensible, 
 because it is in us, and because without it we should 
 not be. A Lied of Schumann, a nocturne of Chopin, 
 and a symphony of Beethoven, quite pure and with- 
 out " programme," have the privilege of emancipa- 
 ting us and plunging us again into the midst of 
 universal harmony. An art such as this, in spite of 
 the technical knowledge with which it has been en- 
 riched, is full of simplicity : it expresses, exalts, 
 and magnifies the feeling of hfe which aspires to a 
 higher state ; and it is marvellous that so many 
 things so coarsely indicated by analysis should be 
 contained in a passing breath of air. . . . 
 
INDEX OF NAMES, WORKS, Etc. 
 
 Abipones, the, 12 
 
 iEschylus, 36, 253 
 
 Agrioola, 71 
 
 Akbar, Emperor, 104 
 
 Albret, Jeanne d', 102 
 
 Aloman, 156, 158 
 
 Alembert, d', 263 
 
 Algonquins, the, 160 
 
 Alhambra, the, 37 
 
 Ambrose, 124 
 
 Angelo, Michael, 53 
 
 Aristophanes, 11, 181 
 
 Aristotle, 40, 96, 120, 132, 136, 
 
 223, 249, 252, 269, 285, 294 
 Armide (Gluok), 60 
 Arnira, Bettina d', 66 
 Art de la Lecture (Legouv^), 170 
 Art musical au S&nigal, etc, , L' 
 
 (Verneuil), 142 
 AtellauiB, the, 11 
 AtheniEug, 156, 158 
 Attilius Fortunatianus, 147 
 AuriSlien de Reomd, 113, 187 
 Australians and their songs, 98, 
 
 99 
 Autolycus, 102 
 
 B 
 
 Baoh, J. 8., 8, 9, 14, 15, 49, 51, 
 64, 62, 71, 79, 86, 95, 130, 146, 
 158, 192, 194-200, 208, 303, 
 309, 312 
 
 — Ph. E., 71 
 
 Balzac, 85 
 
 Barlow, 99 
 
 Beethoven, 1, 2, 9, 14, 40, 50, 
 56, 71, 77, 81, 83, 86, 87, 95, 
 106, 146, 158, 175, 192, 208, 
 240, 241, 252, 253, 258, 262, 
 303, 317, 320 
 
 Beitrdge zur Analyse der Empfind- 
 
 ungen (Mach), 217 
 Bergson, M., 91 
 Berlioz, 7, 34, 45, 51, 55, 89, 
 
 169, 272, 273, 275, 313 
 Bernard, Claude, 299, 301, 302 
 Berzelius, 296 
 Bible, the, 179, 223 
 Bizet, 7, 169 
 Blanc, Charles, 270, 275 
 Blondlot, M.,278 
 Boas, 99, 
 Boethius, 285 
 Boileau, Etienne, 157 
 — Nicholas, 204 
 Bossuet, 23, 24, 85 
 Botocudos, the, 160 
 Bourgault-Ducoudray, 120, 130 
 Brahms, 241 
 Bridgeman, Laura, 252 
 Broca, 227, 228 
 Brossard, 195 
 Bruneau, Alfred, 12 
 Biicher, Karl, 134, 135, 136, 258 
 Buffon, 311 
 Bulletin de I'Acadimie de Midecine 
 
 (1895), 212 
 Burney, 307 
 
 Gaccatides (Alcman), 158 
 Caccini, 129, 305 
 Cagniart de la Tour, 17 
 Capella, Martianus, 113 
 Coquet des Oiseaux, Le (Janne- 
 
 quin), 158 
 Carissimi, 129, 133 
 Gate the Elder, 101 
 Cavalieri, 129 
 Cesti, 129 
 Charcot, 227 
 Charpentier, Gustave, 12 
 
 321 
 
322 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Chateaubriand, 23 
 
 Chavannes, Ed., 319 
 
 Cherokees, the, 160 
 
 Chopin, 7, 59, 320 
 
 Cicero, 24, 166 
 
 Clesinger, 173 
 
 " Colonies Fram;aises, Les 139 
 
 Combarieu, M., 278 
 
 Condillao, M., 167 
 
 Corneille, 310 
 
 Cornet, 71 
 
 Cornu, M., 289 
 
 Corti, 216 
 
 Coussemaker, 69, 70, 189 
 
 Creation (Haydn), 273 
 
 Cuvier, 243 
 
 Cyprian de Eore, 223 
 
 D 
 
 Dador, M., 263 
 
 Dalton, 296 
 
 Daniel, 312 
 
 Dante, 36 
 
 Danteo, Le, 28, 311 
 
 Darwin, 45, 151-56, 158-61, 302, 
 
 304, 313, 314 
 Dastre, M.,30, 312 
 David, F^licien, 272 
 Debussy, M., 203 
 JDibuts de I'Art, Les (Grosse), 
 
 98 
 Decamps, 170 
 Dejerine, 227, 228 
 Delacroix, 270, 275 
 Demosthenes, 24, 85 
 Descartes, 3, 29, 48, 269, 285, 
 
 294 
 Descent of Man, The (Darwin), 
 
 151 
 Desge7iettes, 243 
 Diabelli, 72 
 Diderot, 166 
 Dionysos, 12 
 
 Dodehachordon (Glar^an), 125 
 Don Juan (Mozart), 63, 122 
 Dubois, Th., 77 
 Duhamel du Monoeau, 311 
 
 E 
 Eokermann, 245 
 
 Mnsame Blumen (Schumann), 
 
 222 
 Emile (Rousseau), 167 
 Engel, 104 
 Epaminondas, 143 
 Erasmus, 124 
 
 Erl King, The (Schubert), 39 
 Esquimaux, the, 10, 99, 160 
 Essais sur I'Origine des Connais- 
 
 sances humaines (Condillac), 
 
 167 
 Essai sur VImagination er(atrice 
 
 (Ribot), 49 
 Essais d'une nouvelle Thiorie 
 
 musicale (Euler), 295 
 EstMtique (de Hartmann), 268 
 Etudes d'Esthitique (Lechalas), 
 
 273 
 Etudes de Mythologie et d'Arch4o- 
 
 logie Egyptiennes (Maspero), 98 
 Euler, 3, 285, 295 
 Euphrates, 13 
 Euryanthe (Weber), '87 
 Exner, 228 
 
 Favre, M. L., 275 
 
 ¥6ve, M., 32 
 
 Ferrand, 212, 243 
 
 Feuilles d'Automne (V. Hugo), 
 319 
 
 Fichte, 54, 92 
 
 Flechsig, 52 
 
 Flournoy, M., 271 
 
 Flute, the Magic, 46 
 
 Flying Dutchman, The (Wag- 
 ner), 93 
 
 Fontenelle, 245 
 
 Fourier, 261 
 
 Fourneaux, Capt., 157 
 
 Franck, C^sar, 7, 10 
 
 — Fran9ois, 53 
 
 FreiscJiiitz, Der, 49 
 
 Frescobaldi, 71 
 
 Fromentin, Eugene, 270 
 
 G 
 
 Gabrieli, Giovanni, 194 
 Galileo, 293 
 Gallin, M., 294 
 
INDEX OF NAMES, WORKS, ETC. 
 
 323 
 
 Gambetta, 245 
 
 Garlande, Jean de, 69 
 
 Gastoldi, 194 
 
 Gautier, Th^opliile, 173, 243 
 
 Gay-Liisaao, 297 
 
 Geamoenus, 158 
 
 Gesammtliche Schriften und Dick- 
 
 ten (Wagner), 105 
 Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Gam- 
 
 brensis) 115, 117 
 G4rase, Nioomaque de, 37 
 Gerbert, Martin, 185 
 Gevaeit, 113, 115, 120 
 Girard, Paul, 143 
 Glar&n, 125, 126 
 Glauoon, 20 
 
 GlUok, 60, 204, 244, 306, 309 
 Goethe, 49, 56, 95, 245 
 Goldsohmidt, Hugo, 295 
 Gopau), Naiq, 104 
 GaUerddmmerung (Wagner), 61 
 Gounod, 170, 272, 311 
 Grant, 245 
 Gr^try, 167 
 Groos, Karl, 47, 153 
 Grosse, 98, 99, 159, 160, 161 
 Guillemin, Prof., 18, 261 
 Guimet, Mus^e, 103 
 
 H 
 
 Hadrian's Villa, 38 
 Hallion-Comte, 53 
 Hand, Ferdinand, 43 
 Handel, 8, 9, 14, 27, 51, 71, 95, 
 
 130, 146, 197, 208, 312 
 Handle, Robert de, 70 
 Hansliek, 36, 37, 38, 39 
 Harmonic et Milodie (Saint- 
 
 Saens), 167 
 Harold in Italy (Berlioz), 273 
 Hartmann, Ed. de, 47, 268, 
 
 295 
 Harvey, 308 
 Hauptmann, 128 
 Haussman, Valentin, 195 
 Haydn, 10, 60, 71, 95, 158, 208, 
 
 262, 272, 273 
 Hebrews, the, 179 
 
 Hegel, 11, 41, 47, 90, 91, 93, 
 
 128 
 Hellenbach, 295 
 Helmholtz, 18, 31, 42, 112, 128, 
 
 130, 211, 217, 254, 257, 261, 
 
 263, 283 
 Henry IV., 102 
 Hensen, 219 
 Herbart, 285 
 Heroulaneum, 37 
 Hesiod, 151 
 Hittorf, 39 
 Histoire de la Thiorie rrmsicale 
 
 (Riemann), 115 
 Homer, 96, 102, 123, 141 
 Hubert, V., 100, 177 
 Hurons, the, 100 
 Huyghens, 269 
 
 Indy, Vincent d', 78, 251 
 
 Ingegnieros, Dr., 230, 234, 237, 
 243, 248 
 
 Institutions (Zarlino), 115, 117 
 
 Introduction to Electricity (Kolhe), 
 267 
 
 Introduction to Philosophy (Her- 
 bart), 285 
 
 Iphigenie en Aulide (Gluck), 306 
 
 Mar (d'Indy), 261 
 
 James, Mr., 210 
 
 Jannequin, CUment, 168 
 
 Jerome, of Moravia, 69 
 
 Jeune, Claude de, 313 
 
 Jeux des Animaux, Les (Groos), 
 
 153 
 Jordaens, 271 
 
 K 
 
 Kanitschatka, 156 
 Kant, 29, 41, 48, 244, 249 
 Kelvin, Lord, 30, 277, 278 
 Kepler, 295 
 Klingemann, 72 
 
324 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Kolbe, Bruno, 267, 278 
 Korsakof, Eimsky, 250 
 Koran, the, 223 
 Krause, Ferd., 95 
 Krislina-Govinda, 103 
 Krohn, Mr., 271 
 Kuhnan, 272 
 Kussmaull, 228 
 
 LaciSpede, 167 
 
 Lafontaino, 170 
 
 Lamarck, 30i 
 
 Lamartine, 26, 96, 244, 318 
 
 Lang, Andrew, 243, 244 
 
 Langlois, L. , 106 
 
 Langage iimsical et ses troubles 
 
 hysteriques, Ze (Ingegnieros), 
 
 230 
 Law of Proportional Nunibers 
 
 (Berzelius), 296 
 Lebedeff, Prof., 267 
 Leohalaa, M., 273 
 Le<;ons sur les FMnomknes da la 
 
 Vie commune aux animaux 
 
 et au V^getaux (Bernard), 
 
 299 
 Legouve, M., 170 
 Lehrhuch ziir Einleitung in die 
 
 PMlosophie (Hartenstein), 285 
 Lehre von der Tonempfindungen, 
 
 Die (Helmholtz), 216 
 Leibnitz, 3, 26, 43, 242, 285 
 Lescluze, Ahhi de, 270 
 Li-Ki, or Memorial of Rites, 
 
 97 
 Lind, Jenny, 245 
 Lindet, M., 143 
 Liszt, 272 
 Livre des Mitiers, Le (Boileau), 
 
 157 
 Lohengrin (Wagner), 45, 93 
 Louis XIV., 12 
 Louvre, the, 143 
 Lubbock, 160, 174 
 Lucretius, 156 
 Lulli, 12, 129, 309 
 Lutt^ C7»4DeraeKe, ia(LeDantec), 
 
 28 
 
 M 
 Macaulay, 243 
 Mach, 217 
 
 Madrelle, M. Claudius, 162 
 Magic of Numbers, The (Hellen- 
 
 bach), 295 
 Malebranche, 10 
 Mallarm^, St^phane, 204 
 Manuel d'Harmonique (G^rase), 
 
 37 
 Marey, 53 
 Marie, Dr., 227 
 Marpurg, 71 
 Marx, 128 
 Maspero, M., 97 
 Massenet, 272 
 Masson, 127 
 Mauduit, 313 
 Mauss, 100, 177 
 Meerens, M., 295 
 Meillet, Prof., 164 
 Meiners, 137 
 Meistersinger, Die (Wagner), 
 
 74 
 Milopie Antique, La (Gevaert), 
 
 113 
 Memling, 270 
 Memoires Historiques de Se-Ma- 
 
 T'sien (Chavannes), 319 
 Mendelssohn, 72 
 Mercadier, M., 289 
 Meyerbeer, 303, 309 
 Mincopees, and their songs, 99, 
 
 160 
 Miscellanea Lipsie7isia (1718), 
 
 158 
 Mooquerean, Dom, 187 
 Moliere, 11, 252 
 Mondnacht (Schumann), 33 
 Montaigne, 48 
 Monteverde, 129, 309 
 Morley, Thomas, 194 
 Mozart, 14, 27, 71, 95, 121, 158, 
 
 208, 244, 245, 262, 303, 309 
 Miiller, Max, 245 
 Muris, Jean de, 70 
 Musset, Alphonse dc, 52 
 Musical Ornamentation (Dann- 
 
 reuthei), 69 
 Musique des Couleurs, La (Favre), 
 
 275 
 
INDEX OF NAMES 
 
 WORKS, ETC. 
 
 325 
 
 Napoleon III, 245 
 
 Neri, organist St. Mark's, Venice, 
 
 194 
 Neveu de JBameau (Diderot), 
 
 166 
 Niebelungen (Wagner), 93 
 Nietzsche, 10, 55, 88, 92, 270 
 Nisard, 310 
 
 Notes thMrales (Schumann), 87 
 Nourrit, 170 
 Novalis, 91, 92 
 NouveUeSiloT.se, 167 
 
 
 
 Oddington, Walter, 116 
 
 Odyssey, the, 102, 141 
 
 Origin of Civilization (Lubbock), 
 
 174 
 Orpheus, 103 
 Osages, the, 160 
 Ottingen, von, 18 
 
 Palestrina, 175, 192, 244, 309 
 
 Parraenides, 285 
 
 Parole, La (Prudhomme), 166 
 
 Pascal, 242 
 
 Pathetic Sonata (Beethoven), 38, 
 
 83, 146 
 Pausanias, 143 
 Pelletan, Mile., 306 
 Peri, 309 
 Phinomines de Synopsie, Les 
 
 (Flournoy), 271 
 Philosophy of the Beautiful (de 
 
 Hartraann), 295 
 Physique Moderne, La (Poincar^), 
 
 281 
 Plato, 19, 26, 132, 135, 258, 269, 
 
 285 
 Plautus, 11 
 Pleiades, 12 
 Pleyel, 158 
 Pliny, 139, 269, 311 
 
 PoMique de la Jfusig'Me(Lao^pede), 
 
 167 
 Poincar^, L., 281 
 Pompeii, 37 
 Potain, 53 
 Pettier, M., 13, 143 
 Prudhomme, Sully, 166, 270 
 Psychologie des Sentiments(Ribot), 
 
 48 
 Pythagoras, 3, 94, 223, 234, 283, 
 
 284, 285, 289, 294 
 
 Q 
 
 Qilicherat, 170 
 
 Quincy, Quatremere, de, 39 
 
 Quintilian, 166 
 
 E 
 
 Racine, 59, 310 
 
 Kameau, 114, 124, 126, 127, 129, 
 
 204, 261, 263, 264, 309 
 Raphael, 39, 275 
 Becherches sur I'analogie de la 
 
 musique, etc. (Villotcau), 167 
 Reginon, 113 
 
 Begulce (Robert de Handle), 70 
 Rembrandt, 271, 275 
 Bevue ArcMologique (1899), 
 
 143 
 Eevue des Deux Mondes, 30 
 Meingold (Wagner), 220, 262 
 Ribot, Th., 48, 49, 63 
 Riohter, Jean-Paul, 52 
 Riemann, Hugo, 47, 115 129 
 Rig-Veda, the, 223 
 — (Langlois), 106 
 Righini, 71 
 Rink, 160 
 
 Rodolph, Archduke, 50, 303 
 Rossini, 158 
 Rousseau, J. J., 23, 31, 51, 
 
 166 
 Rousselot, Abb6, 217 
 Rubenstein, Anton, 248, 249 
 Rubens, 270, 276 
 Rubini, 170 
 Ruelle, M., 37, 100 
 
326 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLITTION 
 
 St. Ambrose, 184 
 
 St. Augustine, 185, 188 
 
 St. Chrysostoni, 185 
 
 St. Gregory, 184 
 
 St. Hilaire, G., 304 
 
 St. J^r6me, 185 
 
 St. Mark's, Venice, real orchestra, 
 
 195 
 St. Teresa of Bernin, 173 
 Saint-Di^, 69 
 Saint-Saens, M. Camille, 167, 
 
 169, 272, 275 
 Salzburg, 195 
 Sarzec, M. de, 13 
 Sauveur, 263 
 Scheldt, Samuel, 70, 71 
 Sohelling, 11, 94, 253 
 Schopenhauer, 11, 20, 90, 91, 93-5, 
 
 128, 253 
 Schubert, 27, 39, 72 
 Schumann, 7, 28, 33, 52, 72, 87, 
 
 320 
 Se-Ma-T'sien, 319 
 Shakespeare, 36, 253 
 Siegfried (Wagner) 99, 157 
 Smithson, Henrietta, 55, 89 
 fi'n«^onrfscAfca(RimskyKorsakof), 
 
 250 
 Socrates, 94 
 Sonata, op. 27 (Beethoven) 61 ; 
 
 op. 81, op. 90, 67 ; Pathetic, 38, 
 
 83, 146 
 Sophocles, 12 
 Spencer, Herbert, 135, 167, 168, 
 
 173, 175 
 Spitta, 71, 86 
 Stanley, H. M., 138 
 Stesichorus, 146 
 Stook, 245 
 Stumpf, Prof., 18 
 Stadella, 129 
 Suites, French, English (Bach), 
 
 70, 146 
 Sweelinck, 67, 71, 72, 73, 
 
 198 
 Sylvestre, Th.,270 
 Symphonie Fantastique (Berlioz), 
 
 55 ; Eroica (Beethoven), 262 
 
 Taine, 270 
 
 Tanganika, 138 
 
 Tannhaiiser (Wagner), 93 
 
 Telloh, 13 
 
 Terence, 11 
 
 Terpander, 223 
 
 Theocritus, 102 
 
 Theophrastus, 269 
 
 Tiersot, 130 
 
 Tigris, 13 
 
 Tinne Indians, 160 
 
 Titus, Baths of, 38 
 
 Tosi, 70 
 
 Traiti du Composition{d'Ijidj),TS 
 
 Traite de Oontre-point et de fugue 
 (Dubois), 77 
 
 Traits d'Harmonie (Gevaert), 115 
 
 Tralti des Rigles pour la Com- 
 position de la Musique (Masson), 
 127 
 
 Travailleurs du Bois a Dantzig 
 (1905), 142 
 
 Tristan and Iseult (Wagner), 34, 
 309 
 
 Tunstede, 70 
 
 Turk, 71 
 
 U 
 
 Ulysses, 102 
 
 Vatican, 38 
 Velasquez, 275 
 Venice, 192, 195 
 Verdi, 303 
 Verueuil, M., 142 
 Villoteau, 167 
 Virgil, 26, 96, 102, 311 
 Vittoria, 78 
 Voiture, 85 
 
 W 
 
 Wagner, Richard, 7, 11, 45, 93, 
 99, 105, 106, 169, 262, 270, 272, 
 303, 309 
 
INDEX OF NAMES, WORKS, ETC. 
 
 327 
 
 Wallasehek, 136 
 Walther, 71 
 
 Weber, 49, 87, 272, 309 
 Wernicke, 228 
 Wesendonk, Mathilde, 93 
 Wied, Prince of, 159 
 Wodan (Wagner), 93 
 
 "Wundt, 31, 47 
 
 Zaborowski, M., 156 
 Zarlino, 116, 127 
 Zeno, 285 
 Zola, 203, 245 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 Acoustics, 3, 6, 9 ; physiological, 
 204, 210, 221 ; secret of lan- 
 guage of sounds, 257, 318 
 
 Esthetics, 4, 47, 54, 135, 203, 
 250 
 
 AUeraande, the, 71 
 
 Amuslas, and aphasias, instances, 
 conclusions, 230-3 
 
 Anaci'ousis, 135 
 
 Analogues, and real emotion, 47 
 
 Anarchy, in music and other arts, 
 203 
 
 Anthem, the, or antiphonal, 
 146 
 
 Antinomy, apparent, 109 
 
 Antiphony, the, 112 
 
 Antistrophe, 146, 147 
 
 Aphasias, and arausias, instances, 
 conclusions, 230-3 
 
 Arabesques, of sound, 35-9 ; 
 Hanslick's theory of, 36, 37 ; 
 of Pathetic Sonata, 38 ; con- 
 siderations and conclusion, 38, 
 39 
 
 Artist, the perfect, 87, 88 
 
 Assimilation, and the Musical 
 Mind, 299-302 : distinguishing 
 characteristic of living bodies, 
 299 ; development by use, 300 ; 
 characteristics, 300 ; unity of 
 thought and co-ordination, 
 301 
 
 B 
 
 Bar, musical, definition, origin, 
 
 134, 135; and rhythm, 134, 
 
 136 " 
 Birds, songs of allurement, 153 ; 
 
 as singers, 156 ; stop on organs, 
 
 157 
 
 Canon, 72-4, 192 
 
 Chant, choral, of democratic 
 people, 181 ; object of faith, 
 186 ; antiphonio, responsorial, 
 189 
 
 Centres, brain, 228, 229, 233, 
 234, 242 ; of co-ordination, 248 
 
 Chemistry, laws of, and of music, 
 296 ; mixture and combination, 
 296 ; laws of nineteenth cen- 
 tury, 296 
 
 Chord, the perfect, 261, 264, 294 
 
 Chorale, the, 185 ; virtue of uui- 
 fication, 185 
 
 Church, the, and Music, Middle 
 Ages, 132, 184-6, 191 
 
 Clavecin, the, 86, 200 
 
 Colours, 84, 170, 223, 232 ; and 
 musical sounds, 266-7B : ana- 
 logy, 266, 267 ; similarities, 
 267-9 ; scale of, 271 ; coloured 
 audition, 271 ; photisms, 271 ; 
 musicians and, 272, 273 ; sin- 
 gular difference, 274 ; is the 
 musician a painter ?, 275 
 
 Comes, or companion, 79 
 
 Composer, unconscious obedience 
 to laws, 19 ; creates "with his 
 whole soul," 55 ; methods, of 
 Middle Ages and " novel," 250, 
 251 ; modern, 259 
 
 Concepts, music independent of, 
 7, 8, 29, 30, 54, 59, 64, 150, 
 207, 211, 241, 253, 254, 282 
 
 Concord, the perfect, frame- 
 work of musical thought, 261, 
 262 
 
 Concert, to elephants, 31 
 
 Consonances, perfect, 112-4 ; 
 mixed, 114, 115 
 
 328 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 329 
 
 Co-ordination, lav/ of, 301 
 Counter-point, all music based on, 
 43 ; simple, varieties, examples, 
 74 ; double, examples, 76-9 ; 
 methods in pure melody, 80-2 ; 
 and graphic system, 182 ; funda- 
 mental rules of, 191-3 
 
 D 
 
 Dalton's Law (Multiple Propor- 
 tions), 296 
 
 Development, musical, 241 
 
 Dissonance, used by Schumann, 
 221, 222 ; realm of, 265 
 
 Deafness, tone, musical, 243 ; 
 examples, 245 
 
 Descant, or diaphony, 74 
 
 Diatonic scale, 125 
 
 Dynamics, of passional life and 
 musical thought, 52-7, 87, 
 173 : energy retained, 54 ; " art 
 of inwardness," 54 ; complexity 
 of musical art, 55 ; Beethoven's 
 desire, 56 ; of psychological 
 life, 282 
 
 E 
 
 Ear, deception, 46 ; function of, 
 215-22 : anatomical elements 
 still to be analysed, 215 ; par- 
 tial, total accommodation, 216, 
 219 ; pillarsofOorti, 216 ; vowel 
 sounds, 217 ; Universal Resona- 
 tor, 218 ; fibres of Heusen, and 
 sounds, 219 ; auditory sense, 
 221 ; judgment of ear, 222 ; 
 unfinished evolution of, 222 ; 
 capacity for education, 223-5 ; 
 superior to vision, 224, 225 ; 
 organic memory of, 224 
 
 Electrons, 29 
 
 Eloquence, verbal counter-point 
 infused with life, 85 
 
 Emotions, abstract, and music, 
 48^57 : plastic and musical 
 imagination, 49 ; mind and 
 musical work, 51, 52 ; thought 
 and, 225 
 
 Energy, 281 
 
 English, early, and part-singing, 
 115, 116 
 
 Epode, the, 146, 147 
 
 Ethos, musical, 132 
 
 Evolution, musical, and living 
 beings, 302-15 : parallels, 302, 
 303 ; " variations," 304 ; ex- 
 ample of the orchestra, 305-7 ; 
 struggle for life, 308 ; genera- 
 tion, 308-15 ; masterpiece 
 never isolated fact, 308, 309 ; 
 analogies between musical and 
 plant life, 309-12 ; monsters 
 in music, 313, 314 ; extinct 
 species, 314 
 
 Expression, musical, 41, 69 ; 
 methods of composers, 59- 
 64 ; exactness and limit, 172, 
 173 
 
 Fibres, of Hensen, 219 
 
 Flourishes, musical, 69, 70 
 
 Fifth, the, 112 ; importance of, 
 114 
 
 Form, musical, 251 ; Hanslick's 
 theory, 251, 252 
 
 Formalism, and music, 35-9 
 
 Fourth, the, 114, 115 
 
 French Revolution, music during, 
 200, 201 
 
 Fugue, highest form of composi- 
 tion, 78 ; example (Bach), 79 ; 
 Bach's power of abstraction, 
 86 ; modern musician and 
 fugues, 86 ; Bach's skill and 
 methods, 195 ; Handel past- 
 master, vocal, 197 
 
 G 
 
 Generation and Music, 308-15 : 
 heredity, 308 ; transmission, 
 
 309 ; grafting, 310 ; oriental, 
 
 310 ; monsters, 313, 314 ; im- 
 provement, 315 
 
 Genius, musical, 249 ; definition, 
 253 
 
330 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Germans, and Aristotle's theory 
 of music, 40 ; and musical 
 sentiment, 41, 42 ; conception 
 of musical art, 90 ; opinions 
 on music, 91-5 ; musical meta- 
 physics and primitive magic, 
 95 
 
 Grace Notes, 69, 70 
 
 Greeks, and musical consonances, 
 112, 113 ; music before Greek 
 period, 178 ; music among 
 Greeks, 180-3 ; received modes 
 from Orientals, 190 
 
 Gregorian melodies, 81, 187, 
 190 
 
 H 
 
 Harmonics, the, 238, 260-6: 
 multiple resistance, 260 ; ob- 
 jective existence, 261 ; the per- 
 fect chord, 261 ; objective law, 
 263 ; Helmholtz deduction, 
 263 ; observations on harmony 
 between musician and nature, 
 263-5 
 
 Hearing, mechanism of, 216 (see 
 also Ear) 
 
 Heat, and sound, differences, 
 279, 280 
 
 Heredity, in musical works, 308, 
 309 
 
 History, 4, 10-12 
 
 I 
 
 Ideation, musical, 236-40 
 
 Idiocy, musical, 243-5 
 
 Images, 56, 58-64 ; musical, 
 poetical, 59 ; expression of hy 
 Gliick, Beethoven, Wagner, 
 Mozart, Berlioz, 60-4 ; organi- 
 zation of, 65-88 : melody, 66 ; 
 grace notes and variations, 69 ; 
 canon, 72 ; counter-point, 
 simple, 74 ; double, 76 ; in 
 pure melody, 80 ; rhythmical, 
 timbre, 83 ; Wagner and in- 
 
 ternal images, 93 ; " realized 
 metaphors," 150 ; localization 
 of, 226-33 ; words, sounds, 
 227; discussion of, 228, 229, 
 254 ; aphasias and amusias, 
 230-3 
 Imagination, musical, plastic, 49 
 Imitation, and composition, 192 
 Incantation, formulas of, 100 
 Intelligence, musical, 234-54 ; 
 aptitudes, 235-7 ; qualities of 
 real musician, 238 ; to under- 
 stand, 241, 242, 246; idiocy, 
 243-5 ; pianist and talent, 
 246-8 ; genius, 249 ; invention, 
 250 
 Intervals, general remarks on, 
 117-9 ; consonant and non- 
 consonant, 121 ; sociological 
 data, 148. (See also Scale.) 
 Instruments, manufacture of 
 musical, 205 ; consonant and 
 dissonant, 264 
 
 Language and Music, 164-75: 
 two parts, 165; of anation, 167; 
 parallel phenomena, 167, 168 ; 
 descriptive music and natural 
 language, 169 ; Gounod on 
 French and Italian, 170 ; ob- 
 jective expression, 171 ; rhythm, 
 repetition, 173-5 ; chanted to 
 instrumental, 195; verbal and 
 musical, representing thought 
 and emotion, 226-9 ; logical 
 resemblances, 239,240 ; presup- 
 position of thought, 252 ; 
 "parallelism," 254 
 
 Leitmotive, in composition, 
 301 
 
 Life, social, and rhythm, 144-9 
 
 Light, chords of, 268 
 
 Logarithm, 290 
 
 Love, and Music, 150-63 : Dar- 
 win's theory, 151, seq.; actions 
 of birds, 153, 156 ; and pro- 
 gress, 154, 162 ; ideas of primi- 
 
INDEX OF SUBJECTS 
 
 331 
 
 tive races, 160, 162 ; manifes- 
 tation of universal force, 163 
 Lyre, the, 227 
 
 M 
 
 Man, continuator of animals in 
 music, 154, 156 
 
 Magic, and Music, 89-108: primi- 
 tive peoples, 90, 95-101 ; magic 
 chant, Hindu Eags, 101-4 ; 
 "Wagner and magic of music, 
 105 
 
 Mathematics, and Music, 3, 283- 
 97 : Pythagoras and numerical 
 ratios, 284 ; views of ancients 
 and moderns, 284,285 ; services 
 to music, 286 ; corrections, 
 287; improvements, 288; modi- 
 iioation of scale, 289 ; logar- 
 ithm,- 290 ; approximation, 
 292 ; help to construction of 
 instruments, 293 ; analogies 
 between music and phenomena, 
 293-5 ; chemistry, 296 
 
 Melody, analysis of a, 22-5 ; im- 
 possibility of translation into 
 words, 26; simple, ornate, 66-8; 
 and counter-point, 80 ; Gre- 
 gorian example, 81 ; and form, 
 251, 252 
 
 Memory, emotional, 48, 50 ; 
 sign of musical intelligence, 
 235, 236 
 
 Mesode, 148 
 
 Metaphor, musical, 64 
 
 Mimic, art of, 170 
 
 Modes, major, 122-6 : Greek, 
 Hindu, 123; Lydian, 124; 
 Glarean's innovation, 125 ; 
 minor, 126-30 : contrasted with 
 major, 127-9 ; difference of 
 opinion, 130 ; origin of present, 
 131-3, 212 
 
 Mosaics, 28,000 shades, 269 
 
 Motet, 78 
 
 Movements, repetition of identi- 
 cal, 138-40 
 
 Music : a wave of the air, 1 ; 
 coinplexity of, 2, 52, 56; think- 
 
 ing in sounds, 7, 9, 16, 29, 48, 
 317 ; historic risumi, 10-14 ; 
 representative value of, 14 ; 
 only popular art, 15 ; specific 
 character of, 16, 29 ; and sen- 
 sation, 31-5 ; and formalism, 
 35-7 ; and sentiment, 40-7 ; 
 and abstract emotions, Schu- 
 mann, Musset, 48-52 ; and 
 emotional state, 54 ; a secret 
 of power, 53 ; art of intimacy, 
 54 ; Beethoven's declaration, 
 56 ; sonorous sensations, 59 ; 
 organization of images, 65-88 ; 
 and magic, 89-108 : German 
 opinions, 91 ; symphony, real, 
 93 ; and the will, 94 ; and 
 primitive folk, 95, 176-80; 
 Chinese, 97 ; Egyptian, 97 ; 
 inaccessible to verbal analyses, 
 98 ; magic chant, 101 ; iden- 
 tity of primitive and modern 
 ideas of, 105-8 ; melodious 
 elements of musical art, 109- 
 33 : no simultaneous discovery 
 of formula, 109 ; materials of, 
 111 ; modes, 122 ; rhythmical 
 elements of, 134-44 ; and social 
 life, 144-9 ; and love, 150-63 : 
 moving influence of, 152 ; 
 animals in pairing season, 153 ; 
 and progress, 154 ; observa- 
 tions on Darwin's theory, 155 ; 
 sexual instinct, 160 ; without 
 love no art, 163 ; and language, 
 164-75 : thought and emotion, 
 165 ; and logical speech, 166 ; 
 instrumental development of 
 vocal, 167 ; series double phe- 
 nomena, 167, 168 ; and external 
 things, 169 ; descriptive and 
 natural, 170-3 ; religious, pro- 
 fane, 179, 183 ; ethnical differ- 
 ences, 180 ; plain-song, 183 
 counter-point,191; music under 
 ancient rigime and French Re 
 volution, 200 ; present state of, 
 201 ; three ages of, 201 ; liberty, 
 202 ; anarchy, 203 ; parallel 
 evolution, 208 ; inter-relations, 
 208 ; pure sensation, 211 ; re^ 
 
332 
 
 MUSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 actions in organism, 213 ; ear, 
 function of, 215-33 ; musical 
 intelligence, 234-54 ; theory 
 of Dr. Ingegnieros, 234 ; pro- 
 gress of, 238 ; co-ordination 
 with verbal thought, 239 ; tone 
 deafness, 243 ; idiocy, 244 ; 
 grades of pianists, 247 ; novel- 
 ties, 250 ; matter and form, 
 252 ; Helmholtz theory, 254 ; 
 parallelism of musical and 
 verbal language, 254; and 
 periodic phenomena, 254-82 
 and objective nature, 256 
 vibrations, 258, 277; harmonics, 
 260 ; sounds and colours, 266 
 similarities, 267 ; photisms, 
 272 ; artists and colour effect, 
 275 ; differences and relation 
 ship, 276 ; objective, emotional 
 and psychological life, 281, 282 
 and mathematics, 283-97 ; and 
 living beings, 298-315 : as 
 similation and musical mind 
 299 ; unity of thought in crea 
 tion of symphony, 301 ; evolu 
 tion, parallel continued, 302 
 adaptation to outward con 
 ditions, 302, 303; heredity 
 303, 308; "variations," 304 
 the orchestra, 305 ; genera- 
 tion and, 808 ; " grafting,'' 
 310 ; crossings, 311 ; extinct 
 species, 314 ; music refractory 
 to analysis, 316; definition, 
 317 ; penetrating power of, 
 318; Chinese formula, 319; 
 grandest function of music, 
 320 
 
 N 
 
 iV-Rays (Blondlot), 278 
 Negroes, African, and keeping 
 
 time, 137 
 "Neumes," 184 
 Nodes, 260 
 Noise, 258, 259 
 
 O 
 
 Octave, the, 112 ; "of courtesy," 
 148 
 
 Opera, the, 98, 301, 305, 312 
 
 Orchestra, evolution of, 305 ; as 
 employed by various com- 
 posers, 806, 307 
 
 Orenda, the, 100 
 
 Organization, rhythmical, 83 
 
 Organ, the, 200 ; Bird Stop on, 
 157 
 
 Ousouls, 250 
 
 Painters, and colour scale, 271 
 
 PalsEography, 4 
 
 Perfect chord, the, 261, 264, 
 294 
 
 Philology, 4 
 
 Photisms, 271, 272 
 
 Phrase, musical, 140, 144 
 
 Physiology, 3 
 
 Fillars of Corli, 216 
 
 Plain-song, 183-91 : sociological 
 and religious characteristics, 
 184 ; great simplicity, 188 ; 
 tonic accent, 189 ; impersonal, 
 190 
 
 Poetry, development of, 85 ; by 
 imitation, 810 
 
 Polyphony, 116, 192 
 
 Pot-pourri, the, 801 
 
 Primitive Polk, 90, 95-101 : 
 moral forces and magic, 96; 
 repetition and rhj^hm, 99 ; 
 formulas of incantation, 100, 
 178 ; ignorance of technique, 
 188 ; women excluded from re- 
 ligious worship, 145 ; songs, 
 rites of magic, 176 ; the magi- 
 cian, 177 
 
 Pro-ode, the, 148 
 
 Psychology, 4 
 
 R 
 
 Rags, Hindu, 104 
 Eatio, an abstraction, 25 ; simple, 
 of movements, 294, 295 
 
INDEX or SUBJECTS 
 
 333 
 
 Reactions, produced by music, 
 210, 213 
 
 Reading, art of, 170 
 
 Receuils, 305 
 
 Resonance, law of multiple, 262 
 
 Resonator, Universal, 218 
 
 Rhapsody, the, 301 
 
 Rhythm, 83, 100; contrasted 
 with bar, 134, 135 ; and work, 
 135 ; Aristotle's principle, 136 ; 
 and primitive people, 136-9 ; 
 and social life, 144-9; higher, 
 elements of, 144 ; in initial 
 stages of the sonata, 146 ; in 
 Greek choruses, 147 ; in Middle 
 Ages, 147 ; musical composi- 
 tion, systematic, 149 ; and 
 language, 173-5 ; not logic, 
 240 ; origins of, 250 
 
 Rondo, the, 83, 145 
 
 Scale, the, 119-22; vibrations, 
 119 ; triumph due to routine, 
 120 ; smaller intervals of an- 
 cients, 120 ; a theoretical 
 fiction, 121 ; major mode, 122- 
 6, 149; minor, 126-30, 149; 
 origin of present, 131-3 ; theo- 
 retic existence, 149 ; history, 
 223 ; physicists, 288 ; con- 
 sequences of slightest modifica- 
 tion of, 289 ; temperamental, 
 289 ; intervals and values of 
 notes in various, 291 
 
 Scherzo, the, 146 
 
 Science, duty of, 240 
 
 Sensation, principle of pleasure 
 of music, 32 ; objections to, 32- 
 4 ; two realms of, 266 
 
 Sentiment, and music, 40-7 : 
 laws of, and of music, 43-4 ; 
 expressible in music, 45 ; and 
 corresponding sound, 46 
 
 Shades, in music, 240, 241 
 
 Sociology, music in relation to, 
 6, 176-208 
 
 Sonata, the, 83, 196 
 
 Sonatina, the, 83 
 
 Songs, of Australians, 98 ; of 
 Mincopees, 99 ; of the people, 
 110 
 
 Sound, sensations, Helmholtz 
 theory, 31 ; stages of journey, 
 215 ; theories of hearing, 216 ; 
 of vowels, 217 ; special organ 
 for perception of, 219; waves 
 and brain, 226 ; subjective 
 creation of ear, 256 ; cell of 
 every musical work, 258 ; 
 vibrations and, 259 ; of swing- 
 ing rod, 264 ; musical sounds 
 and colours, 266-76 ; and light, 
 266 ; octaves, 267 ; similarities, 
 267-71 ; musical terms em- 
 ployed by artists, 270 ; pho- 
 tisms, 271 ; and the realm of 
 the unconscious, 276 
 
 Strophes, system of, 144 
 
 Suite, for piano, creation of 
 Dutch musician, 198 ; Bach's 
 French and English, 70, 146 
 
 Symphony, real music, 93 ; Scho- 
 penhauer's description of, 94, 
 95 ; Beethoven and writing of, 
 259, 262 
 
 Technique, 1, 69 ; ignorance of, 
 among primitive people, 138 
 
 Therapeutics, based ou music, 
 213 
 
 Thirds, origin of, 115-7 
 
 Thought, musical, in modern 
 symphonists, 9 ; example of, 
 22 ; musical, and psychology, 
 22-108 ; Rubenstein, example 
 of understanding of, 248 ; 
 highest power of, 253 ; and 
 Laws of Nature, 255-315 
 
 Timbre, rhythmical organization 
 and, 83 ; employment, organ- 
 ization of, 84, 273 
 
 Time, musical, and work, 135- 
 44 ; and primitive people, 
 136-9, 142-4 ; not special to 
 music, 149 
 
 Tone deafness, 243, 244 
 
334 
 
 MTJSIC : ITS LAWS AND EVOLUTION 
 
 Variation, the, 171 ; in evolution, 
 304 
 
 Vibrations, of string, 256-257; 
 periodic, 258 ; Fourier's theo- 
 rem, 261; of swinging rod, 
 264 ; diagram of light and 
 sound, seven octaves, 267 ; in 
 nature, 276 ; of oscillating 
 pendulum, 277, 278 ; of mole- 
 cules, 279 ; and energy, 281 
 
 Violin, the making of a, 205 
 Voice, registers of human, 171 
 Vowels, compound sounds, 317 
 
 W 
 
 Work and rhythm, 135-44 ; of 
 primitive people and others, 
 137, 138, 140-3 
 
 A. A. S. 
 
 WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD, 
 PRINTERS. PLYMOUTH