Myth and Science Part 13

[30] The ill.u.s.trious Du Bois Reymond delivered a lecture a few years ago, in which he made it clear that the Semitic idea of one Almighty G.o.d led to the later and modern conception of the unity of forces and the rational interpretation of the system of the universe. This important testimony of so able a man confirms the theory set forth some years ago in the work of which I have reproduced a part in the text.

[31] Some Jewish Christians of the Semitic race took refuge in a district of Syria, and retained their primitive faith without further development, under the name of Nazarenes or Ebionites. In the fourth century, Epiphanius and Jerome found these primitive Christians constant to the old dogma, while Aryan Christianity had made gigantic strides, both in its ideas and social organization. Among the Semites, even when they have partially accepted the dogma, it was and is unproductive.

[32] Aristot., _De anima_; Cic., _De legibus_; Diog., Lae.

[33] A new thought entered my mind, whence others, differing from the first, arose; and as I roamed from one to another I was tempted to close my eyes, and thought was changed into a dream.

[34] See the theory by Lotze of local signs in the formation of the idea of s.p.a.ce, completed and modified by Wundt and others.

[35] Sometimes the name of a person, or of some part of the human form, has been bestowed on a natural object without reference to their a.n.a.logy, but in this case the epithet has the converse effect of leading us to imagine that it possesses the features or limbs of the human form.

And this is of equal value for our present inquiry.

[36] While these sheets were pa.s.sing through the press, I was informed of Berg's work on the Enjoyment of Music. ("_Die l.u.s.t an der Musik._"

Berlin, 1879.) Berg, who is a realist, inquires what is the source of the pleasure we experience from the regular succession of sounds, which he holds to be the primary essence of music. He finds the cause in some of Darwin's theories and researches. Darwin observes that the epoch of song coincides with that of love in the case of singing animals, birds, insects, and some mammals; and from this Berg concludes that primitive men, or rather anthropoids, made use of the voice to attract the attention of females. Hence a relation was established between singing and the sentiments of love, rivalry, and pleasure; this relation was indissolubly fused into the nature by heredity, and it persisted even after singing ceased to be excited by its primitive cause. This applies to the general sense of pleasure in music. We have next to inquire why the ear prefers certain sounds to others, certain combinations to others, etc. Berg holds that it depends on negative causes, that the ear does not select the most pleasing but the least painful sounds. He relies on Helmholtz's fundamental theory of sounds. It seems to me that although Helmholtz's theory is true, that of Berg is erroneous, since he is quite unable to prove his a.s.sertion that the effect produced by music is a negative pleasure. Moreover, the Darwinian observations to which he traces the origin of the enjoyment of music, not only rely on an arbitrary hypothesis, but do not explain why males should derive any advantage from their voice, nor what pleasure and satisfaction females find in it. And this, as Reinach justly observes in the _Revue Philosophique_, is the point on which the problem turns.

Clark has recently suggested in the American Naturalist another theory worthy of consideration. A musical sound is never simple but complex; it consists of one fundamental sound, and of other harmonic sounds at close intervals; the first and most perceptible intervals are the 8th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd major. Each of the simple sounds which, taken together, const.i.tute the whole sound, causes the vibration of a special group of fibres in the auditory nerve. This fact, often repeated, generates a kind of organic predisposition which is confirmed by heredity. If from any cause one of these groups is set in motion, the other groups will have a tendency to vibrate. Therefore, if a singing animal, weary of always repeating the same note, wishes to vary its height, he will naturally choose one of the harmonic sounds of the first. The ultimate origin of the law of melody in organized beings is therefore only the simultaneous harmony, realized in sounds, of inorganic nature. This theory is confirmed by the a.n.a.lysis which has been often made of the song of some birds: the intervals employed by these are generally the same as those on which human melody is founded, the 8th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd major. Reinach, however, observes that Beethoven, who in his Pastoral Symphony has reproduced the song of the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the quail, makes their melodies to differ from those a.s.signed to them by Clark.

The method and direction of the theories proposed by these authors are excellent; but I do not believe that they have discovered the real origin of the sense of music and dancing. I think that the suggestion given in the text, although it requires development, is nearer the truth. Consciousness of the great law by which things exist in a cla.s.sified form seems to me to be the cause of the sense of graduated pleasure, which const.i.tutes the essence of all the arts.

[37] See Beauquier's "_Philosophie de la Musique_."

[38] Serv. on the aeneid. What the oracles sang was termed _carmentis_: the seers used to be called _carmentes_, and the books in which their sayings were inscribed were termed _carmentorios_.

[39] See Girard de Rialle: _Mythologie Comparee_. Vol. I. Paris, 1878. A valuable and learned work.

[40] The intense character of the worship of groves in Italy appears from Quintilia.n.u.s, who says, in speaking of Ennius: "_Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus_."

THE END.