extremely slowly, and it was not till special races had arrived at an advanced state of intellectuality that men began to pay any attention to the relations of notes to one another, or to notice that such abstractions could exist apart from the music. And it has even sometimes happened that races who have developed up to an advanced standard of intellectuality have not succeeded in systematising more than a very limited range of sounds.

But complete musical art has to be made definite in other respects besides mere melodic up and down motion. The successive moments had to be regulated as well as mere changes of pitch, and this was first made possible by the element of rhythm.

All musical expression may be broadly distributed into two great orders. On the one hand, there is the rhythmic part, which represents action of the nature of dance motions; and on the other, all that melodic part which represents some kind of singing or vocal utterance. Rhythm and vocal expression are by nature distinct, and in very primitive states of music are often found independent of one another. The rhythmic music is then defined only by the pulses, and has no change of pitch; while purely melodic music has change of pitch, but no definition or regularity of impulse. The latter is frequently met with among savage races, and even as near the homes of highest art as the out-of-the-way corners of the British Isles. Pure, unalloyed rhythmic music is found in most parts of the uncivilised globe; and the degree of excitement to which it can give rise, when the mere beating of a drum or tom-tom is accompanied by dancing, is well known to all the world. It is also a familiar fact that dancing originates under almost the same conditions as song or any other kind of vocal utterance; and therefore the rhythmic elements and the melodic elements are only different forms in which the same class of feelings and emotions are expressed.

All dancing is ultimately derived from expressive gestures which have become rhythmic through the balanced arrangement of the human body, which makes it difficult for similar actions to be frequently repeated irregularly. The evidence

of careful observers from all parts of the globe agrees in describing barbarous dances as being obvious in their intention in proportion to the low standard of intelligence of the dancers. Savages of the lowest class almost always express clearly in their dance gestures the states of mind or the circumstances of their lives which rouse them to excitement. The exact gestures of fighting and love-making are reproduced, not only so as to make clear to the spectator what is meant by the rhythmic pantomime, but even in certain cases so as to produce a frenzy in the mind of both spectators and performers, which drives them to deeds of wildness and ferocity fully on a par with what they would do in the real circumstances of which the dancing is merely an expressive reminiscence.

In these respects, dancing, in its earlier stages, is an exact counterpart of song. Both express emotions in their respective ways, and both convey the excitement of the performers to sympathetic listeners; and both lose the obvious traces of their origin in the development of artistic devices. As the ruder kinds of rhythmic dancing advance and take more of the forms of an art, the significance of the gestures ceases to be so obvious, and the excitement accompanying the perormance tones down. An acute observer still can trace the gestures and actions to their sources when the conventions that have grown up have obscured their expressive meaning, and when the performers have often lost sight of them; and the tendency of more refined dancing is obviously to disguise the original meaning of the performance more and more, and merely to indulge in the pleasure of various forms of rhythmic motion and graceful gesture. But even in modern times occasional reversions to animalism in depraved states of society revive the grosser forms of dancing, and forcibly recall the primitive source of the art.

In melodic or vocal music the process has been exactly analogous. The expressive cries soon began to lose their direct significance when they were formalised into distinct musical intervals. It is still possible to find among lowly organised savages examples of a kind of music which is so

little defined in detail that the impulsive cry or howl of expression is hardly disguised at all by anything which could be described as a definite interval. But the establishment of a definite interval of any sort puts the performer under restrictions, and every step that is made in advance hides the original meaning of the utterance more and more away under the necessities of artistic convention. And when little fragments of melody become stereotyped, as they do in every savage community sufficiently advanced to perceive and remember, attempts are made to alternate and contrast them in some way; and the excitement of sympathy with an expressive cry is merged in a crudely artistic pleasure derived from the contemplation of something of the nature of a pattern.

It is obvious that the rhythmic principle and the melodic principle begin very early to react upon one another. Savages all over the world combine their singing and their dancing; and they not only sing rhythmically when regular set dances are going on, but when they are walking, reaping, sowing, rowing, or doing any other of their daily labours and exercises which admit of such accompaniment. By such means the rhythmic and the melodic were combined, and it is no reckless inference that from some such form of combination sprung the original rhythmic organisation of poetry.

But the tendency to revert to primitive conditions is frequently to be met with even in the most advanced stages of art; and an antagonism, which it is one of the problems of the art to overcome, is persistent throughout its history. In very quick music the rhythmic principle has an inevitable tendency to predominate, and in very slow music the melodic principle most frequently becomes prominent. But it must be remembered that the principle which represents vocal expression applies equally to instrumental and to vocal music, and that rhythmic dance music can be sung. The difference of principle between melodic quality and rhythmic quality runs through the whole art from polka to symphony; and, paradoxical as it may seem, the fascination which some modern sensuous dance-tunes exercise is derived from a distinctly canta.

bile treatment of the tune, which appeals to the dance instinct through the languorous, sensuous, and self-indulgent side of people's natures.

The antagonism shows itself as much in men as in the art itself. Dreamers and sentimentalists tend to lose their hold upon rhythmic energy; while men of energetic and vigorous habits of mind set little store by expressive cantabile. Composers of a reflective and romantic turn of mind like Schumann excel most in music which demands cantabile expression; and men like Scarlatti, in rhythmic effect. This rule applies even to nations. Certain branches of the Latin race have had a very exceptional ability for singing, and have often shown themselves very negligent of rhythmic definiteness; while the Hungarians manifest a truly marvellous instinct for what is rhythmic; and the French, being a nation particularly given to expressing themselves by gesticulation, have shown a most singular predilection for dance rhythm in all branches of art. In the very highest natures the mastery of both forms of expression is equally combined; and it is under such conditions, with musicians who have both methods of expression well under command, that music rises to its highest perfection; as the use of the two principles supplies the basis of the widest contrast of which the art is capable.

In this respect the two contrasting principles of expression are types of a system of contrasts which is the basis of all mature musical design; and when the ultimate origin of all music, as direct expression of feeling and an appeal to sympathetic feeling in others, is considered, it is easy to see that the nature of the human creature makes contrast universally inevitable. Fatigue and lassitude are just as certain to follow from the exercise of mental and emotional faculties as from he exercise of the muscles; and fatigue puts an end to the full enjoyment of the thing which causes it. It is absolutely indispensable in art to provide against it, and it is the instinct of the artist who gauges human sensibilities most justly in such respects that enables him to reach the highest artistic perfection in subtlety as well as scope of design. The mind first wearies and then suffers pain from over-much reiteration of a

single chord, or of an identical rhythm, or of a special colour, or of a special fragment of melody; and even of a thing so abstract as a principle. In some of these respects the reason is easily found in some obvious physiological fact, such as exhaustion of nervous force or waste of tissue; but it appears certain that the only reason why a similar explanation cannot be enunciated in connection with the more intangible departments of human phenomena is that the more refined and subtle properties of organised matter are not yet perfectly understood But it holds good, as a mere matter of observation, that the laws which apply in cases where the physiological reasons are clear apply also in less obviously physical cases. It is perfectly obvious that when any part of the organism is exhausted, its energy can only be renewed by rest. But rest does not necessarily imply complete lassitude of all the faculties. It is a very familiar experience of hard-worked men that the best way to recover from the exhaustion of a prolonged strain is to change entirely the character of their work. Many of the phenomena of art are explicable on this principle. Up to a certain point the human creature is capable of being more and more excited by a particular sound or a particular colour; but the excitement must be succeeded by exhaustion, and exhaustion by pain, if the exciting cause is continued. If the general excitement of the whole being is to be maintained, it must be by rousing the excitable faculties of other parts or centres of the organism; and it is while these other faculties or nerve-centres are being worked upon that the faculties which have been exhausted can recover their tone. From this point of view a perfectly balanced musical work of art may be described as one in which the faculties or sensibilities are brought up to a certain pitch of excitation by one method of procedure, and when exhaustion is in danger of supervening, the general excitation of the organism is maintained by adopting a different method, which gives opportunity to the faculties which were getting jaded to recover; and when that has been effected, the natural instinct is to revert to that which first gave pleasure; and the renewal of the first form of excitation is enhanced by the consciousness of memory, together with that sense of