FOOTNOTES:
[1] Long labor movements which are conceded to be slow emotion-making forces are not included.
[2] The Literary Digest, January 10, 1914.
[4] Reference is to hired bands, not made up of musicians trained for the purpose by the Federal Government. Such training, as in England, constitutes an important form of vocational training.
[5] Riddle of the Universe, by Ernst Haekel, p. 110.
[6] The highly prized originals of the foreign ministerial letters are preserved and in the writer’s possession.
PART I.
THE THESIS.
CHAPTER I.
Music as a Human Need.
Our thesis contemplates a new phase in psychological and sociological study, one wherein we must endeavor to estimate the part played in mental and environmental development, by vibration as the acting force.
In whatever direction we turn, Music is met with in one form or another. The undoubted fact that Music is not confined to the human species, but is a part of bird and other animal life, is strongly indicative that there is something more in Music, than its apparent pleasurable quality, and that beneath its array of superficial forms, there must lie some great fundamental necessity for its existence and functioning. Upon it may depend the preservation of the life of certain complex living organisms.
Darwin’s theory as expressed in “The Descent of Man”[7] seems to us not to touch the real source of the phenomenon, and in Spencer’s “Illustrations of Universal Progress,” the latter’s theory of the Origin and Function of Music[8] seems to us to omit the greatest factor in Music. Spencer’s idea is that all Music is an idealization of the natural language of passion, but the nature of passion does not in reality lend itself to Music, because passion’s spontaneity of action forever forbids the exercise of that control which is needed in the performance of Music. Wallaschek, in “Primitive Music,”[9] claims that Music is the result of the original rhythmical impulse in man. This last mentioned theory approaches more nearly the theory advanced by us in the present work, namely, that Music originates in man’s need of rhythmical sound-vibrations, for the re-establishment of rhythmical motion in his own nervous system, disturbed by the evolutionary increase of mental action not rhythmically employed.[10] In order to view the subject fully, and in all its implications, we must retrace the path of evolution to that point, where the living thing which later developed into the man of today, first found itself in possession of locomotion agencies and prehensile appendages, and first began to move about in search of energy materials, with which to satisfy an inward need of integration. The first thing that moved began to dissipate its motion, and to “need” corresponding integration. Rhythm marked this primitive inward action, undisturbed by ideas; rhythm also governed the external stimulus. This prehistoric atavus ate when hungry, or when he could get food, his need being rhythmical, at the time when fruit and nuts offered easy satisfaction of a rhythmic hunger; he awoke at daybreak, and slept with the sun; rhythmic at all times.
Now, therefore, this early man’s circulation and pulse must have been relatively rhythmic, yet there is no record of Music as an invention, until a new factor arose in his environment.[11] The needs of life began to suggest partnerships, children cemented parenthood groups, family groups met and associated with other family groups, still others were added and the Tribe was formed. Much of the Tribal life of prehistoric times is a matter of conjecture, but enough can be learned from the mores of later tribes, to suggest with reasonable probability some of the earliest tribal customs. Music is a late invention, but the elements out of which Music is fashioned—rhythm, motion and sound—constitute the first impulses, the first responses to stimuli in themselves rhythmic; and the oldest peoples exhibit traces of the love of sound in rhythmic action. The probability is that association, with man as with birds, developed a need of communication; from this need originated the acoustic formation of speech, and speech in turn brought the first conscious interchange of ideas. Intense mental action causes disturbed physical rhythm. Physical functions are not yet adapted to the physical disturbance caused by such mental action. The organs for the assimilation of the terrific stimuli of modern life, are still imperfectly developed, as is illustrated by the inability of the body to cope with increasing intellectuality, and the consequent alleged increase of insanity in modern times. As the eye has evolved from the sense of touch to its present power, and may progress to a capacity for still clearer vision, so has the nervous system evolved from its single cell, to its present cell multiplicity, and may develop new cell formations, with which to support changing degrees of added stimuli.
A departure from established belief will be noted at this point. Ideas were wonderful and powerful stimuli to the primitive mind. That extreme tension which causes modern minds to become unbalanced, is not proportionately more intense, than must have been the reaction of the primitive mind, to the very first question and answer of primitive speech. A new stimulus acting upon a new organ produced a new disturbance—a disturbance of a life heretofore purely rhythmic; and a part of the internal organic family became separated for independent motion, became differentiated with a rhythm of its own, differing as a matter of course, from that old established rhythm of the most ancient physical life. Right at this point of development, the need of more or less conscious readjustment was instinctively felt. Internal rhythm had been disturbed, and man immediately invented an artificial producer of rhythmic vibration: i. e.—percussion. This sent into his nervous system uncounted thousands of rhythmic impulses, which tended to reestablish his disturbed rhythmic motion. To hold that the first rhythmic inventions are to be looked for in war songs, in religious rites, or in festal diversions, seems to us to ignore, not only all of the immensely important prior steps by which such comparative complexity has been attained, but also to leave the phenomenon of rhythm-craving, before the invention of the most primitive instrument, entirely unaccounted for. When the war element enters into tribal life, there has already been some growth of institutionalization. Home life, marriage, inheritance, government—these we find already in a certain stage of development, in the very earliest tribes of which we have any positive knowledge. The life of these tribes, so similar in all parts of the world, produced certain disturbances within the original rhythmic bodily motion. The reaction to such disturbance was exactly expressed, in the rhythm producers instinctively devised at each stage. War was the only great disturber of habitual rhythm for ages, and consequently Music of a character to meet the need of this element was early invented.
For domestic rhythm-disturbing crises, Music—sound—was often employed by the tribes. The ancient Chinese[12] used to “sound” the house of a newly wedded couple, under the impression that in this way the bride and groom would enter a home “cleared of evil demons”. Here we have a sub-conscious recognition of the actual driving force of rhythmic vibration. So, in ancient Japan, war songs were the old expressions of national agitation. These, accompanied as they invariably were, by high sentiments of loyalty and patriotism, steadied the rage of war-fever to a good fighting point, and prevented impulsive, or too reckless charging.
The Hindus[13] believe their musical scale is an inspiration from Heaven. Their Music is an expression of religious rather than military agitation.
When we think of how primitive man at first must have wondered at all the unknown forces about him, is it not possible to believe that religious, rather than warlike emotion, was the first to intensely agitate all early tribes?
The ancient peoples of Aryan stock seem to have been highly gifted musically. Probably because of their roving habits, their warlike spirit, or their pursuit of culture, the Aryans developed early and highly, this greater need of rhythmic stimulus in percussion.
Persian agitation took the form of occultism, as is shown in the devices on the walls of their fire temples. Their Music was held to be symbolic. They believed, for example, that Music was like a tree, and that its tones were representative of fire, water, air and earth, of the signs of the zodiac, of the planets and even of day and night.[14]
Music becomes combined with ideas in the expression of rhythm, in direct proportion to the development of ideas in the culture of the several races. When war ceased to be the chief factor in the disturbance of bodily rhythm, and still later, when periods of rest became usual between long wars, the impetus already given to tribes by the decisive occupations of warfare, and the consequent increased molecular motion of the organs, turned tribal attention in times of rest to thoughts of love, decoration and poetry, but chiefly to the thought of recording the stirring deeds of their heroes in music of some kind. The Indians have probably sung their deeds ever in rhythm, though often with an instrumental accompaniment in a differing rhythm, which common practice must have filled the need of a mental state “disturbed” by the stimuli of ever present danger.[15]
Rhythmic music considered as a creation of mind and as a need of the body, the measurement of the effect of musical vibrations upon human action, is sure to lead the way to a surprising fund of new knowledge. The number of vibrations caught by the ear in the simplest drum performance must be enormous, and when it is realized that these vibrations represent a live force striking the tense nerves, and that the effects are quantitatively measurable in a psycho-physiological laboratory, a significant development of psychiatry may be confidently predicted. It would be interesting to study the differing results of the same musical environment, upon the nervous reactions of partially deaf, and of normal beings, to find out how far the subjective and conscious awareness of certain sounds, affects the objective physical results of the vibratory force producing them.
Animals are known to be sensitive to the sounds of Music, and birds even create that which is called Music; this creation on the part of birds, seems to us nothing more than their instinctive effort to re-establish disturbed internal rhythmic action.[16] At any rate, vibration is the fundamental element of Music as of life, and where Music exists there has ever been an antecedent excitement of some sort.
Complicated intellectual stimuli being absent in tribal life, the general rhythm was at most periods moderately easy to maintain. Events of sufficient newness to be exciting were rare. Tribal wars were felt to be the usual occupation of ordinary existence. So that whether polygamy or monogamy characterized the marriage relation, whether woman or man ruled the home life, whether human or animal sacrifices were offered to one or to several gods, the stimuli met in daily experiences were very similar in their monotony, and very much the same in all tribes. Customs were handed down from one generation to another, and carried from one part to another of the earth’s surface, but ordinary experiences varied little until, under the stimulation of steam-driven engines and machines, nations developed the industrial fever, which seems to characterize modern times. Even today in localities where newspapers and railroads do not penetrate, life tends to revert to primitive ideals. The interests of the tribes lay in the raising of cattle, in the birth of male offspring, in the division of labor into the search for, and the preparation of, food, and in the unification of a strong group hostile to all other groups. These occupations coexisted with a simplicity of environment, unexciting to the reposeful sense organs, amid a scenic surrounding ever untouched by artificiality; where village scenes of little variety took place; where no reason existed to cause abnormal quickness of eye movements; where occurred only rare shocks to the regular rhythm of the nerve cell motions. Thus there was little or no need of complicated rhythm in Music. It will be remembered that Music is a need for that part of humanity or of any living organism which through reason of its prior reception of irregular stimuli, has disturbed the natural internal and independent rhythmic motion, imparted by the mother in the birth process. An augmented heart action is not harmful at times, even if it be above the normal, but a heart action which is ever changing its beat, now fast, now slow, now weak, now strong, tends to derange the normal rhythmic life motion of the cells, a result caused by modern multiplicity of irregular stimuli, and observable in modern civilized man. Great multiplicity of stimuli the tribal man rarely experienced. His percussive Music was not complex, because the life stimuli were not complex; the nervous system of the savage was disturbed by but few mental processes—the simple results of the few and unvarying stimuli offered by his tribal life.
Approaching modern times, let us see what role was assumed by Music in the tribal life of the early Germanic races. In those times of war excitement, when tribes fought like wild animals, and the war spirit held full sway, the Germans on their march to battle, helmets decorated with the heads of animals, their big bodies clothed in the simple sagum, chanted their war songs, and kept up a rhythmic beating upon their shields. This ever visible trend toward rhythmic sound indicates a subconscious need of it, a need which often annoys us in our children’s craving for the noise of percussion,—a noise, it may have been observed by long-suffering parents, which they love beyond all other diversions. So long as war and religion alone occupied mankind, and before the human need of rhythmic sound became so pronounced, as to create the very complicated idea of producing vibratory impulse, from pleasurable sound intervals, combined with word pictures of human emotions—so long was mere rhythm in Music sufficient to re-establish disturbed internal motion.
The Gauls advanced a step beyond the Germans toward musical organization, by their maintenance of “bands of barders,” who were described by Tacitus as accompanying the Gallic armies in order to cheer the warriors.