[15.] Such is the deduction which I draw from recent theories of harmony. See in this connection Neue musikatische Theorien und Phantasien (Stuttgart, 1906), § 40. Also Louis and Thuille, Harmonielehre (1908), especially Pt. I., ch. 6. The idea can be traced back to Hauptmann.
Helmholtz has observed that there is much more in a musical sound than its mere timbre, and Wagner has noticed how every musical instrument has not only its vowel sound, or timbre, but also its peculiar consonant. We need not go so far as to connect the flute with an "f," the trumpet with a "t," etc., since the instrumental consonants need not conform exactly with those of the alphabet; it is enough that each instrument has its own characteristic way of attacking the tone. So we gain the idea of articulation; the point of its entry into the musical expression marks the beginning of language.
Hitherto the expression has been, as we have seen, purely lyric; the lower animals have no other. But as man rises out of his bestial condition and acquires reason his wants become more numerous and diverse. The mere expression of his inner feelings no longer suffices; he differentiates objects in the external world, and needs sounds--names--to express them. For this he utilizes the newly developed faculty of language. It is the most momentous crisis of his development, the point where he becomes a human being, severed by a wide gap from other animals, and incomparably above them. The mark of language has from the first rightly been made the crux of the theory of the evolution of man; it is the natural inevitable outcome of his developing the faculty of reason. Thus the need for communicating the perceptions of external objects calls forth epic expression.[[16]]
[16.] "Auf das was vor mir steht zeige ich; was in mir vorgeht drücke ich durch Töne und Gebehrden aus; was aber abwesend oder einst geschah bedarf, wenn es vernehmlich werden soll einer zusammenhangend geordneten Rede. So ward das Epos."--Herder, Kalligone.
We may now lay down a scheme of the three fundamental vehicles of human expression based on their historical development. We have
Emotional or subjective:
Gesture--obvious and material.
Music--warmer, deeper, and more spiritual.
Rational or objective:
Language.
But a warning must be added against pressing this classification unduly. All schemes of nature are only approximate; there are no such sharply divided compartments into which our notions may be pigeon-holed. Language may of course be intensely emotional, but we may notice that just in proportion as it becomes emotional it calls in the aid of music; the voice becomes melodious, it develops rhythm, accent, cadence, and ultimately becomes poetry, which is language united with a large element of music.
Students of economic science have of recent years given attention to ethnology, and their researches into the origin and primitive characteristics of labour have brought to light some facts which are very interesting to us. The familiar distinction between work and play has no root in nature. Animals do not look upon their labours as a painful task, only to be endured for a time and then to be rewarded by an interval of diversion; to the horse or the dog the day's work is the day's treat; and so with those men whom we contemptuously call "savages." It is the same with artists; no artist has mastered the technique of his work until it has become a pleasure and a plaything to him. There could not be a more significant comment on the unnaturalness of a civilization in which periods of leisure for the workman have to be wrung from the community by legislation. The true workman, like the true artist, is never happy unless he is at work; he needs no diversion.
Of the greatest interest to us are the results of the inquiries of economists into the relations between work, rhythm, and song amongst primitive people. Especially valuable is a treatise by Dr. Karl Bucher, professor of national economy in Leipzig, entitled Arbeit und Rhythmus, which ought to find many readers in England if it were translated. I know few modern books that are more fascinating, and it would be hard to say whether its charm lies more in its solid scientific method or in its admirable literary presentation and apt illustrations from the delicate verse-song of the most primitive peoples.
"Im Anfang war der Rhythmus." According to Dr. Bücher, all work, when efficient, tends to be rhythmic and each kind of work has its peculiar rhythm. This is especially the case when the labour is carried out in common by a number of people, and the rhythm is embodied in a song, or rhythmic word of command sung by the leader. Innumerable instances will at once occur to everybody--rowing, hauling, marching, sewing, mowing, etc. In primitive people the impulse to sing the rhythm is even more marked than it is among ourselves, with whom the pressure of civilization helps to suppress all natural expression of feeling, and the disturbance of so many cross rhythms tends to obliterate the primary pulsations. The rhythm is an essential part of the work, and not a mere ornamental adjunct; people sing, not to "keep their spirits up," but to help on the work; until the workman has acquired the rhythm he works imperfectly, and tires very quickly. Those forms of work which do not admit rhythm, such as adding figures, copying MSS., etc., are the most fatiguing. Still more so is labour where the natural rhythm is subject to frequent interruptions. Hence walking in the streets of a town is much more wearying than walking in the country; you have to break the rhythm at every few steps and never get the "swing." The constant interruptions of rhythm by goods in shop-windows, advertisements, etc., is, I am sure, largely the cause of nervous degeneracy in towns.