The medium of tone asserts itself as more cognate with the ideally simple essence of a content than the senuous material previously dealt with for this reason that tone instead of making itself secure in spatial form and coming to a halt as the varied presentment of juxtaposition and extension, is comprised in the ideal realm of Time, and for this reason does not progress to a condition under which simple ideality and concrete bodily shape and appearance are differentiated. And this is equally true of the form of the feeling of a content whose expression mainly falls upon the art of music. In other words in sense-perception and conception we have already, as in self-conscious thought, the necessary distinction between the perceiving, conceiving and thinking Ego and the object of perception, conception, and thought. In emotion, however, this distinction is resolved, or rather it is never propounded, but the content is interwoven with the inner life without such division. When consequently music is united as an art of accompaniment with poetry, or conversely poetry is united with music as an interpreter to its elucidation, in such a case music is unable to render conspicuous in an external form or to reflect with intention ideas and thoughts as they are thus apprehended by self-consciousness; it is obliged as stated either to offer the simple character of a content in true relations to feeling, as they are cognate with the ideal relation of this content, or to seek more nearly to express, by means of tones which accompany and give intensity to poetry, that feeling itself, which the content of perceptions and ideas can arouse in the spirit that is both sympathetic and imaginative.
(c) Following the course of these remarks it is possible in the third place to form an estimate of the unrivalled power which is thereby directly exercised by music on the soul, which is neither carried forward to the vision of reason, nor diverts consciousness in isolated points of view, but is accustomed to live within the ideal range and secluded depths of pure emotion. For it is precisely this sphere, the intimacy of soul-life, the abstract appropriation of its own realm, which is grasped by music, which thereby sets in movement the source of these ideal changes, namely, the heart and soul, which we may consider at this concentrated focus and centre of our entire manhood.
(α) In a particular sense sculpture endows its art products with a wholly independent subsistency, an objectivity essentially exclusive whether we regard it from the point of view of its content, or that of its external art-manifestation. Its content is the substantive being of the life of Spirit possessed no doubt with individual vitality, but along with this reposing in self-subsistent coherence on itself; its form is the material configuration under the condition of space. For this reason a work of sculpture retains as an object of sense-perception the highest degree of self-subsistency. A picture, as we have already pointed out in our consideration of the art of painting, comes into closer contact with the spectator. In part this is due to the essentially more subjective[415] content thereby depicted; in part it is referable to the fact that it is merely the show of reality which it displays, thereby making us aware that it is not a thing independently substantive, but rather essentially something intended for something else, and exclusively so, in other words for the human vision and soul. Yet even in the case of a picture we have still left us a freedom more independent it fails to absorb; even here we have still only to do with an object externally presented, which only reaches us through sense perception, and only thus excites our emotion and imagination. The spectator may consequently approach the work of art as he likes; he may observe this or that aspect of it; he may analyse the whole, as it throughout persists confronting him, may make it the object of various reflections, and in short remain throughout at liberty to continue his independent review of it.
(αα) The musical work of art, on the contrary, no doubt, as such a work, posits in like manner the incipiency of a distinction between the work itself and the individual that enjoys it; that is to say in its actually resonant tones it receives a sensuous existence that is distinct from the soul of the listener. But on the one hand this opposition does not proceed, as in the case of the plastic arts, to an external subsistency in Space and the visibility of a mode of objectivity that coheres independently, but on the contrary makes its real existence vanish in the immediate passage through Time. On the other hand the art of music does not make the separation of its external material from its spiritual content in the same way that poetry does so, in which the aspect of idea is elaborated with more definite independence from the sound of speech[416], and more cut off as it is than any of the arts from this aspect of externality, issues as such in a unique progression of mental ideas constructed by the imagination. No doubt the observation may readily be made here that, agreeably with what I have already stated, the art of music is able to conversely to release tones from their content and thereby give them independent form; this liberation is, however, not that which really falls within Art's province, which on the contrary wholly consists in employing harmonious and melodic motion for the expression of the content originally selected and the emotions, which the same is qualified to excite. Inasmuch as, therefore, musical expression has for its content the inward life itself, the ideal significance of fact and emotion, and a tone-world which, at least in art, does not proceed to spatial configuration, and in its sensuous existence is wholly evanescent, it follows that music directly penetrates with its movements to the ideal habitat of all the fluctuations of soul-life. In other words it seizes on consciousness, where it is no longer confronted with an object, and in the loss of this freedom from the flood of tones as it streams on is itself whirled away with it[417]. Yet there is here, too, by reason of the divers directions which music may separately follow, an effect of varied character. In other words, when a more profound content, or, to put it generally, an expression more steeped in soul, is absent, we may find as a result that we experience on the one hand delight in the purely sensuous sound and harmony without any further emotional movement, or, on the other hand, we follow the course of the harmony and melody with our critical judgment, a progression by which the inmost heart of us is no further touched or affected. Or rather we may say that pre-eminently in the case of music there is such a purely critical analysis, for which there is nothing else presented in the work of art to evoke it beyond the skill of an expert in its laboured production[418]. If we, however, withdraw ourselves from this critical science, and give ourselves up unreservedly, we become entirely possessed with the musical composition and are carried with it quite independently of the power, which the art of it simply as art exercises upon us. And the peculiar power of music is an elementary force, that is to say it lies in the element of tone, in which the art here moves.
(ββ) The individual is not only carried away by this medium in virtue of the character of its exposition in any particular case, or simply drawn to it by the specific content thereof; but, viewed simply as self-conscious subject, the core and centre of his spiritual existence is interwoven with the work and himself placed in active relations with it. We have, for example, in the emphasis of the music's current rhythms, an opportunity to beat in time with it, or unite our voices with the melody, and in the case of dance-music at least, we may associate the movement of our legs. And, generally speaking, the claim is made upon us as distinct personalities. Conversely, in the case of purely methodical action, which, in so far as it is subject to time relations, is compatible with a distinct beat in virtue of its regularity and possesses no further content, we require on the one hand an expression of this regularity as such in order that this action shall be present to the individual under a mode that is itself subjective; and, on the other, we require a more intimate realization of this rhythm. Both requirements are supplied by the musical accompaniment. This is effected, for instance, by music as associated with the march of soldiers. Such arouses the soul to the rhythmical beat of the march, makes the individual full of the fact of his marching[419] and steeps him in the harmonious action of it. In something of the same sense the unregulated bustle of a table d'hôte and the unsatisfactory excitement it arouses annoys many people. Such feel that the moving up and down, the clatter and chatter should be subject to rule, and as we have in our eating and drinking an empty space of time to deal with, we should have that emptiness filled up for us. Such, therefore, is also an occasion among many others when music will help us considerably, suggesting as it does other thoughts, recreations, and ideas.
(γγ) In these instances we are made aware of the connection between the individual soul with Time simply, a condition in which the medium of music consists. In other words the inward life regarded as subjective unity is the active negation of the indifferent[420] juxtaposition in Space, and thereby negative unity. In the first instance, however, this identity remains in itself entirely abstract and void of content, and consists merely in this that it makes itself an object, though it then annuls this objectivity, which is itself of a wholly ideal type and of the same character which the subject of consciousness is, in order thereby to enforce itself as subjective unity. An ideal negative activity of the same kind in its sphere of externality is Time. For in the first place it effaces the indifferent co-extension of the spatial condition and concentrates the continuity of the same in the point of Time, the Now. The point of time, however, secondly, discloses itself at the same time as negation of itself; in other words this Now no sooner is than it annuls itself in another Now, and by doing this makes apparent its negative activity. Thirdly, we no doubt do not get, on account of externality[421], in whose element Time is in motion, the truly subjective unity of the first point of Time with the next, to which the Now by self-effacement proceeds, but the Now remains throughout in its change always the same[422]. For for every point of Time is a Now, and is as undifferentiated from the other Now, taken as the bare point of Time, as is the abstract Ego from the object, relatively to which it annuls itself[423], and in which it falls into self-coalescence, for the reason that this object is itself merely the empty Ego. The actual Ego itself, too, belongs yet more closely to Time, with which it coalesces, in so far as it is, if we abstract from the concrete content of consciousness and self-consciousness, nothing but this empty movement which posits itself as another and then cancels the exchange, in other words cancels itself, in order thereby to conserve the Ego and here only the abstract[424] Ego therein. Ego is in Time, and Time is the being of the conscious subject itself. Inasmuch, then, as Time and not the spatial condition as such supplies the essential element, in which tone secures existence in respect to its validity as music, and the time of tone is likewise that of the conscious subject, for this reason tone, by virtue of this fundamental condition of it, penetrates into the self of conscious life, seizes hold of the same in virtue of the most simple aspect of its existence, and places the Ego in movement by means of the motion in Time and its rhythm; while in addition to this the other configuration of tones, as the expression of emotions, brings yet further a more definite material to enrich the unity of consciousness, a wealth by which it is at once affected and carried forward.
We find, then, that the fundamental ground for the elementary might of the art of music is of this nature.
(β) In order, however, that music may exercise its full effect we must have something more than the purely abstract tone in its movement in Time. The further aspect we have to attach to it is a content, an emotional wealth steeped in spirit presented to the soul, and the expression, the soul of this content in tones.
We have no right, then, to entertain any exaggerated[425] opinion of the sovereign might of music simply as music, about which ancient writers, both sacred and profane, have told us so many fabulous tales. If we go back to the miracles which Orpheus performed as a pioneer of civilization we find indeed that tones and their movements spread their influence to the wild creatures, which encircled him shorn of their wildness, but they did not extend to humankind, who required the content of a nobler strain. It is something of this latter kind that we must attach to the hymns ascribed to Orpheus, which, in the form we have received from tradition, even though it be not their original one, support mythological and other ideas. In a similar way, too, the warlike songs of Tyrtaeus are famous, by means of which, so we are told, the Lacedaemonians, after long and fruitless conflicts, were stirred up to an irresistible enthusiasm and finally were wholly victorious over the Messenians. In this case, too, the content of the ideas which these elegies excited was the main thing, although pre-eminently in the case of barbaric peoples and in times of deeply moved passions we cannot deny that the musical aspect of them exercised a real force and effect. The pipes of the Highlanders contribute essentially to the animation of their courage, and the power of the Marseillaise as sung in the French Revolution is undeniable. The real source of enthusiasm is, however, to be looked for in the definite idea, in the true interest of the Spirit with which a nation is steeped, and which can be exalted to a more direct and living feeling when the notes of music, the rhythm and the melody carry along whoever may give himself up to them. In our own days, however, we can hardly hold that music is capable by itself of evoking such a courageous temper and contempt of death. Almost all armies nowadays have excellent regimental music, which calls the soldiers to their duties, releases them from such, gives life to the march and incites them to the attack. No one, however, dreams of beating the enemy with such means. The courage of the field of battle does not come with the blast of trumpets and the beat of drums, and it will indeed take a host of trombones before a fort will tumble in ruin at their blast like the walls of a Jericho. It is the enthusiasm born of ideas, cannon, and the genius of generals which are the main thing now rather than music, and this can only act as a support of the forces which have already filled and taken hold of the soul.
(γ) In conclusion, we may point out in respect to the personal effect of musical sound there is an aspect which is referable to the particular manner in which the musical work of art approaches us in its distinction from other works of art. In other words, inasmuch as musical tones do not as buildings of construction, statues, and pictures possess independently a permanent objective consistency, but vanish in the act of passing by the musical work of art requires in virtue of the fact of this purely momentary existence a continuously repeated reproduction. And what is more, the necessity of such a renewal of life points to a further more profound significance. For, in so far as it is the personal soul itself, which music accepts for its content with the object, to make manifest itself not as external form and objectively subsistent product, to this extent the expression of it must also assert itself immediately in the form of a communication disclosed by a living person, in which that person reposes his entire and unique personality. This is to the fullest extent the case in the song of the human voice, but it is relatively so in all instrumental music, which can only be executed by means of a practised artist and his living and spiritual no less than technical powers as such.