of the Suite in which a number of distinct melodic movements are loosely chained together. Even the classic forms of the sonata and symphony themselves, illustrate in the comparative independence of their component structures, this endeavour to loosen the fetters of form so as to realize the fullest and richest variety of melody and harmony. Finally, we may observe in the most recent developments of instrumental music the results of an impulse to strike out new and freer forms of structure, which may afford, with a certain amount of unity and balance of parts, a larger variety of melodic and harmonic light and shade.

It appears, then, that music may be injuriously bound by rules of exact symmetry, so as to be impeded in the discovery of new toneshapes, in which exquisite combinations of sweet and strange impression, as yet undivined, may gladden and thrill the susceptible ear. Some degree of beauty of form is, of course, of the very essence of the art. Every movement is subject to laws of time and tonic unity. Yet provided these are satisfied, music has a large scope for free combination of distinct tonic phases. In the following essay we shall inquire how far this liberty in combining melody and harmony receives justification from a consideration of the nature. and conditions of musical representation.

ON THE NATURE AND LIMITS OF

MUSICAL EXPRESSION.

MUSIC, as I sought to show in a previous essay, affords three distinct orders of gratification. First of all, in its discrete tones, and in its melodic and harmonic combinations, it satisfies seemingly simple sensibilities of the ear. Further, in its arrangements of these tonic elements under certain forms of time, accented rhythm, key; and modulation of key, it presents numerous beauties of symmetry and unity, which gratefully employ the intellectual faculties. Finally, as most are agreed, it exercises a mysterious spell on the soul, stirring deep currents of emotion, and awakening vague ideas of the Infinite, the Tragic, and the Serene. We have been examining the first and second aspects of musical effect in the preceding essays, and we will now occupy ourselves with the third ingredient, confessedly the most subtle, and the one most fitted to elude scientific detection.

To define the precise functions of Music, and to fix its place in a scheme of Fine Arts, has proved one of the most intricate problems in that intricate science, first named by Baumgarten, Esthetics. And this difficulty may easily be seen to spring from the unique character of the art. While the arts of Painting, Sculpture, and Poetry are distinctly concerned with representing some facts or aspects of nature, material objects or events in human life, Music appears at first sight to have no such representative aim. Indeed one finds that some writers-for example, Zimmermann-have contended that the whole province of this art is to construct, in perfect freedom from ulterior claims, the most beautiful arrangements of tones and harmonies. A curious illustration of the perplexities to which the subject of the exact function of music has given rise may be found in the classification of the arts proposed by Schopenhauer. Setting out from his two fundamental conceptions, Will, the thing in itself or noumenon, and Idea, the immediate objectivity of Will in a particular stage, he ranks all the other arts according to the gradation of Idea which they severally represent. But as he could

not well fit music into this scheme of objectified Will, he resolved to accord to this form of art the dignity of imaging, not Idea, but Will itself.

At the same time, a deeper reflection has suggested that music, while superficially opposed to the imitative arts, has at bottom certain subtle affinities with them. So distant a thinker as Plato, though he discarded the idea of a musical art independent of poetry and dance, saw that it might be made an instrument of moral culture, because of the affinities existing between rhythmic and harmonic (melodic) movement and the motions of the soul. Aristotle, whose estimate of Art was so much higher than Plato's, sought to bring music under a conception of artistic imitation (uíunois) by attributing to it, apart from words, the power of representing human actions, dispositions (en), and feelings. Similarly, among many other modern writers on æsthetic subjects, Kant and Hegel have distinctly recognized that music has to embody and pourtray the subjective and emotional life of the mind.

Yet even now there is but little definite agreement with respect to the precise scope of musical representation. Not to dwell here on the question revived by the school of Wagner, whether music is capable of representing anything worthy and satisfying if divorced from words, I may point to the doctrine proclaimed by Weisse, that the art of tone is not concerned with imaging any definite activity, whether of material nature or of mind, but aims at symbolizing the universal relations of all activity; and to the courageous assertion of Hanslick, that while the art is wholly unable to represent feeling since every emotion rests on definite ideas and judgments-it is able to symbolize, by the analogy of audible figure, made up of the height, strength, rapidity, and rhythm of sequent tones, the visible movements of external nature.

In view of this general uncertainty as to the precise significance of musical sounds, if indeed there be any such significance, it might well appear a little rash to attempt a new solution of the problem. Yet a reason for doing so may, perhaps, be found in the fact that a more promising direction has recently been given to the inquiry by the attempts of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin to connect musical effects with a long series of ancestral experiences, human and, probably, pre-human, the results of which are now transmitted to the new-born individual as deeply organized associations. What the exact amount of truth may be in the particular mode of derivation resorted to by each of these distinguished biologists, need not now

concern us. * It is sufficient to say that in the conception of musical effect as a psychological product, in the growth of which vocal phenomena play the most conspicuous part, a new and sure road seems opened up by which one may reach a scientific basis for this interesting aesthetic problem.

On first reflection, one may fail to find anything suggestive in a long sustained musical tone or chord; and certainly these sounds are sufficiently unlike the common every-day voices of nature. It was said, indeed, by Lucretius that music distinctly imitates birds; and one can readily imagine a child's mind impressed by the few faint analogies which music and spontaneous vocal sound so obviously offer. Yet the fact that the resemblance between musical tones and natural sounds is so slight and superficial is not so detrimental to the art as might at first appear. By leaving comparatively unoccupied the perceptive activities which employ themselves on objective facts, the elements of tone offer more scope for the play of the subjective and emotional nature. This may be illustrated by contrasting tones and colours. Some writers, Kant among others, have supposed that it is possible to construct a colour-art (Farbenkunst), analogous to the tone-art; and, indeed, a certain abbé actually attempted, in the beginning of the last century, to invent an instrument, after the manner of the piano, for giving a rythmical and harmonious sequence of colour. Without denying the possibility of such an art, one may call attention to the fact that artistic colours, being for the most part perfect copies of natural tints, would, in such combinations as are here proposed, necessarily convey to the mind more or less distinct suggestions of objects, and consequently would make too large a demand on the percipient, and leave too little room for the sentient activities of the mind, to supply an aesthetic impression perfectly analogous to musical effect.

In music, then, the intellectual activities are not called away to objective realities underlying the impressions, and have to find their satisfaction in observing those formal aspects of the impressions themselves, of which I have given an account in the foregoing essay. Hence the comparatively subjective character of this art, and the peculiar depth of emotional delight which it is commonly said

* Mr. Darwin attributes the deep emotional effects of music to associations which have grown up with vocal expression during the interchanges of sexual feeling, whereas Mr. Spencer would connect them with the vocal utterance of emotion in general.

to minister. This subjective effect, moreover, is not so simple as it might at first appear. Every strong and full sensation not only involves an intense element of feeling in itself, but, acting as a stimulus to the cerebral activities, produces indirect emotional effects. Thus, a powerful and sudden flash of light affords, together with a visual sensation, a wide emotional agitation, which is betrayed by numerous movements of the trunk and limbs. In addition to the intense but limited consciousness implied in the sensation, there is the diffused consciousness implied in the general excitement following. In the case of music this double effect is easily recognizable. A powerful and sustained tone, a full chord, and a rapid series of such chords, illustrate a rising scale both of sensational and of general emotional intensity. It is not simply quantity of sound which determines the range and duration of this secondary effect. The peculiar timbre of some instruments, as, for example, the violin, appears to aid this result. There are certain tones of this potent instrument which, without awakening any distinguishable variety of emotion in my mind, always seem to "go through me," as the common expression well describes it.*

This double aspect of sensuous pleasure is the first and fundamental fact in the explanation of the unique influences of music. Without it there does not seem any mode of accounting for the deep range and mysterious vagueness of its effects. But this is only one step towards the needed solution. A second question arises as to the particular direction in the emotional and ideal regions of the mind which these secondary waves of tonic effect are likely to take. Are there, it may be asked, any facts in the peculiar construction of the human mind which would point to definite channels for this diffused stream of mental activity? In order to solve this point, it is simply needful to recall the general physiologico-psychological truth, that streams of nervous influence, wherever set up, tend to rush with greatest force into channels which lie in the closest organic connection with the initial channels, and that mental agitation, however stimulated, tends to transform itself into definite feelings which are most intimately associated with the original feeling.

The reader will have anticipated that this line of inquiry brings us to the vocal phenomena made so prominent in Mr. Spencer's

* Hence Mr. Spencer hardly seems quite exact in affirming without qualification that the human voice is necessarily the most effective of instruments.