NOISE AND CIVILISATION
What is the cause of the folding of the margin of the human ear, which distinguishes it from that of all other animals? Darwin remarks that it “appears to be in some manner connected with the whole external ear being permanently pressed backwards;” but this does not explain the mysterious phenomenon. After many hours of profound meditation on this subject I have come to the conclusion that this slight folding of the ear’s margin is the beginning of a new phase of human evolution. In course of time—this cannot be disproved—the fold of the margin will become larger and larger, until finally the shells of the ear will have been transformed into mobile lids for shutting out at will disagreeable noises, even as the eyelids have been developed to shut out glaring light. This would account for the providential preservation of the rudimentary ear-muscles referred to above. When this process of evolution is completed men coming home late will no longer have to listen to curtain-lectures. The innovation will tend to make them polite, for instead of telling the lecturer to “shut up,” they will shut up themselves.
Seriously speaking, such movable ear-lids are very much needed in this transition stage of civilisation. The present age of steam will by future historians be classified as the age of noise. It is almost impossible to find a place within ten miles of a city where one can rest without having one’s sleep constantly disturbed, or at least deprived of its refreshing depth, by the blowing of railway and factory whistles. Both are unnecessary, inasmuch as railway signals would be quite as effective if not so murderously loud and prolonged, while factory whistles are either blown at the moment when the operatives go to work, when a simple bell would do as well, or they are blown an hour earlier to wake up the workmen,—a most outrageous proceeding, as everybody else sleeping within a radius of a mile or more is thus waked up at six o’clock.
The fact that these nuisances have so long been tolerated shows how primitive is as yet the æsthetic development of the average human ear. Some people even smile at you for being so “nervous,” and boast of their indifference to such hideous, brain-racking noises. The Esquimaux and Chinese would doubtless assume a similar attitude regarding their indifference to noisome stenches. In mediæval times, Europeans in general were quite as indifferent to the emanations from their gutters as they still are to the hideous noises in the streets. It has often been noted with surprise that the death-rate in London and the general aspect of health should be so much more favourable than that of continental cities, which are free from the depressing London fogs. The reason, doubtless, lies chiefly in the facts that there are no vile sewer odours in London to poison the atmosphere, and that the pavement of the streets is of such a nature that one can sleep soundly at night, provided there are no steam whistles near. London, too, does not tolerate the brutal whip-cracking which transforms French, German, and Swiss towns and cities into Bedlams of noise. In this respect New York resembles London; but here the comparison ends. New York pavements are the noisiest, roughest, and dirtiest in the world. I have known of invalids who were advised to drive in the Central Park, but could not do so because they could not bear on their way to drive even up Fifth Avenue,—a street lined with the houses of millionaires. And to walk on Broadway for twenty minutes, talking to a friend, makes one as hoarse as delivering a two-hour lecture.
There can be no doubt that a horror of useless noise grows with the general refinement of the senses and the mind. Goethe’s aversion to noise, especially at night, is well known. It led him to poison dogs that disturbed him. The delicate hearing of Franz, the great song composer, was ruined by the whistle of a locomotive. And Schopenhauer has put the whole matter into a nutshell in these admirable words: “Intellectual persons, and all in general who have much esprit, cannot endure noise. Astounding, on the other hand, is the insensibility of ordinary people to noise. The quantity of noise which any one can endure without annoyance is really related inversely to his mental endowments, and may be regarded as a pretty accurate measure of them.”