laws of regular form. Hence while admitting that instrumental music may faintly adumbrate definite varieties of feeling, one must conclude that its highest function is to suggest the more general aspects of our emotional life.

It should now be possible for us to appreciate the question, so hotly discussed in these days, whether independent instrumental music, or the union of instrumental and vocal music in the opera, must be ranked first in aesthetic merit. Herr Wagner in a series of eloquent works, assisted by numerous fervent disciples, has proclaimed the doctrine that the age of free instrumental music is past, and that the Music of the Future will involve the complete subordination of tone to definite poetic and dramatic expression. In order to approach this difficult æsthetic problem, it is necessary to recall the conclusions arrived at in the preceding essays. If we wish to estimate the whole æsthetic value of we must take into consideration all the ingredients of pleasure it potentially contains. Hence we may inquire what is the relative power of vocal and of instrumental music with respect to sensuous, intellectual and emotional delight.

department of art,

So far as sensuous quality is concerned, both departments appear to be pretty much on the same footing. If vocal tone is the richest and fullest mode of clang, the articulate ingredient in song is decidedly unmusical. On the other hand, if artificial instruments cannot rival the human voice in sweetness of tone, they supply in their extended scale of notes, as well as in their variety of timbre, a valuable addition to the sensuous enjoyment of music. But waiving this point, and turning to the second ground of artistic value, we find as a result of the preceding chapter, that the highest beauty of melodic and harmonic structure is attained in free instrumental music, where the art is unfettered by extraneous aims and may assume spontaneously the most impressive and lovely shapes. On the other hand, we observed that in vocal music, the impulse to realize this beauty of form is necessarily impeded. The needs of clear and accurate expression require, as we have seen, a certain order of change in the musical accompaniment, and thus the free development of melodic and harmonic movement is circumscribed.

Joining these conclusions respecting form with those of the present essay respecting expression, we appear to arrive at the following result. Vocal music, though offering a large scope for artistic construction, and for the ideal transformation of emotion, is unfitted to realize the highest attainments of these. A constant

necessity in this branch of the art is the embodiment of some particular sentiment with its many succeeding shades of colour and intensity. And this necessity serves to limit the attainment of the other æsthetic ends. Accordingly, vocal music is always a compromise between distinct and partially conflicting aims. However skilfully changes of melody and of harmony may be co-ordinated with changes of the passion to be depicted, it must sometimes happen either that the ideal beauty and grandeur of the form is sacrificed, or that some of the subtle developments of the passion want their musical expression. In enjoying a song of Schubert or an aria from Don Giovanni, one must not care to know all its verbal details. The music is said to perform its function if it transmits the most impressive phases and the ruling sentiment of the piece. On the other hand, in hearkening to one of Wagner's long quasirecitative rhapsodies, it is the uttered emotion, colouring and swaying as it does in so masterly a way all changes of tone, that engages the attention and absorbs the whole mind, while the musical form conveys no distinct impression and leaves no trace behind it in the hearer's memory. Each effect is fine and worthy, only they can never be perfectly reconciled and made to contribute to one and the same final end. Were it otherwise, we might safely admit that the apostles of the Zukunftsmusik are right in saying that the age of free instrumental music is past.

In contrast to this, instrumental music seeks, with the sacrifice of definite emotional expression, the highest attainable beauty of melodic and harmonic form, as well as the most ideal embodiment of generalized emotional expression. The severance of instrumental from vocal music seems, indeed, to be but a continuation of the process of transformation already commenced in the first genesis of music. Vocal melody disguises many of the actual phases of a passion, and transforms those it seeks to embody into new and grander shapes. Instrumental accompaniment does this in a still higher degree. The growth of independent instrumental music simply completes the suppression of the individual and peculiar in our emotional life, and the artistic elevation in its stead of the vast forces of emotion which lie deep down in the human soul. Would it then be very forced reasoning if one were to conclude that instrumental music is the highest and most perfect development of the art?

It does not become me to offer a simple categorical answer to this delicate question. I am well aware of the differences of individual

feeling with respect to this subject. To some minds, for example, to that of Lessing, the emotional effects of instrumental music require distinct explanation. Such persons are dissatisfied until they are able to refer every pulsation of feeling to some definite objective source. To other minds, again, the deepest delight of music involves this very sense of vagueness and the non-recognition of a definite exciting cause. Such natures realize an intense satisfaction in losing themselves, so to speak, in the swift current of unrecognizable emotion which sweeps over them as their ear follows the mystic wanderings of an orchestral movement.

Thus in attempting to solve this æsthetic problem, ample allowance must be made for individual and subjective differences. At the same time, so far as one is free to determine the point by a purely objective method, one may reason as follows:-Music owes its vitality to the play of two sets of forces, the instinct for intense emotional expression, and the artistic sense of tonic beauty; and any form of music would seem to be justified which displays a large achievement in either of these directions. Hence, vocal music which attains the most distinct expression, and instrumental music which reaches the highest beauty of form, appear to be equally worthy. Yet it might be urged that these two aims are only to a certain extent separable, since the most passionate flood of tones requires to be controlled by laws of beautiful form, and since the most exquisite arrangements of tone and harmony are certain to whisper some tender, mysterious story of sorrow and joy. From this it might be reasoned that the highest attainment of music is the simultaneous realization of lofty beauty of form and of deep emotional expression, so far as they are susceptible of attainment in grateful unison. And certainly, if one must decide on an absolute best in music, this would appear to be it. But, if so, it seems a highly plausible conclusion that this highest attainable fusion of the two tendencies is to be found, not in the opera or any form of wordbound music, but in that free development of pure tone which has certainly reached a beauty and a splendour of power unattainable by song, and which nevertheless retains, in the folds of its own intimate structure, abundance of force for stimulating and satisfying the deepest emotional cravings of the human heart.

THE ESTHETIC ASPECTS OF

CHARACTER.

Ir may, perhaps, be assumed that whatever be the ultimate nature of the Beautiful, one of the distinguishing marks of beautiful objects is their fitness to minister a univeral mode of delight to thoughtful, contemplative minds. Things which please an individual mind because of some special and restricted relation, however beautiful they may be subjectively, lack the proper quality of objective beauty. Thus, for example, the association of some past pleasure with an object renders it beautiful only when the pleasurable experience and the recollection of it are common to an indefinite number of persons. A peasant's home is beautiful to him; a brooklet, flowing into the cool shades of a copse under a hot summer sun, is objectively beautiful.

Now it may be asked whether human character properly falls under the category of things objectively beautiful, as thus defined. It is evident that the aspects of a person's character which first of all attract our notice are those which involve close personal relations to ourselves. Our fellow-men, unlike the greater number of pleasing objects in inanimate nature, enter into special and restricted connections with us; and these relations might seem to disqualify them for affording us a proper æsthetic gratification. It is obvious, for example, that a mother's delight in the attractions of her child is no æsthetic feeling. That a person may minister this gratification, he must rise to a certain level of public notice, and present qualities of mind, which irrespectively of their direct or indirect bearings on the observer, delight him as a pure object of contemplation. That is to say, there must be, first of all, full opportunities of observing and studying character, and secondly, a general and impartial interest in human nature, by force of which all such exhibitions of character will attract quiet and thoughtful attention.

These conditions of an aesthetic interest in character, however completely realized to-day, belong to a very advanced state of society. In order that this interest may be widely diffused, the state of society must be favourable to a free intercourse of individuals, and

to a full observation of action and character. Our modern society provides these conditions, partly in its large area of public life, that is to say, in the number of individuals brought more or less under public observation; partly, in the choice of society offered to each individual, and finally, in the extension of a person's range of life and action, by which a far larger number of aspects of character become presented to observation. This last condition deserves, perhaps, special consideration, because of the doubt expressed by certain high authorities, respecting the tendency of social progress to promote a wider individual development of character. There can be no question that abundant scope for free, spontaneous action is an essential condition of the widest diversity of character, and, consequently, of the fullest æsthetic pleasure in the object. Thus, for example, excessive moral restraints may prove repressive to the free exhibition and enjoyment of character. In some cases, notably in the gradual emancipation of woman from a degrading seclusion, modern society has clearly enlarged the boundaries of individual spontaneity; and it is to be hoped that, in spite of the disposition of multitudes to tyrannize over minorities, there will be an increasing estimate of the value of individual liberty, not only because it is essential to the happiness of the subject himself, but also because it is the condition of an enlarged æsthetic enjoyment.

The

There seem to be two principal mental conditions of a general impartial interest in human character; namely, previous moral culture with its accompanying enlargement of sympathy; and secondly, a certain development of intellectual curiosity. necessity of the former influence will at once be recognized. The strongest mental impulse to a transference of our attention, from our immediate selves to our fellow-men, is sympathy. When this feeling is but slightly developed, as in a tribe whose only code of morals is fidelity to its chief and hostility to all outside, there is clearly no scope for a disinterested contemplation of character. And it must be admitted that even to-day national prejudice greatly circumscribes our æsthetic vision. Many a curious and charming trait of character is probably hidden in races and societies which still remain under the ban of antipathy of the civilized world.

The other chief psychological force in the production of this interest in character is of an intellectual kind. First of all, it is obvious that the mind must be capable of distinguishing between the inner and the outer aspects of human nature. So long as a person is incapable of thinking steadily of mental, as distinguished