To explore the beauties of Art and Music is to add those beauties, by expression and the power of memory, to the self. Thus we may grow more beautiful, just as surely as by thinking ever in terms of pounds, shillings, and pence, we grow more sordid and mercenary. It is a perfectly commonsense process. Furthermore, the appreciation of beauty and of artistic expression develops our power of keener appreciation. Evolution in music cannot stop, for spirit is behind it: and the spirit within must eventually find its way back to the universal source from which it came, just as water must find its own level. The present status of everything that we observe to-day is purely temporary: we are looking at one picture of a cosmic cinema film that stretches on to infinity. Just because we see only one static picture of a process which truly never stops moving, so we get a view of life that contains much of delusion. We have heard a Doctor of Music state in public his opinion that the age of the composition of musical masterpieces was for ever passed: so will others say that the age of inspiration and prophecy has also departed. These good people are mistaking the outer form which is transient, for the inner principle which is spirit and eternal. They have lost their bearings. Music must go on from development to development, and just as soon as it proves itself incapable of further development and expression along certain lines, the spirit within will rend the husk that can no longer contain it and will blossom forth in some new and more expansive guise. As with our own bodies, the outworn garb will be laid aside, and the spirit will find a finer form.
"Like Scriabin, Scott looks to Music as a means to carry further the spiritual evolution of the race, and believes that it has occult properties of which only a few enlightened people are aware."[31] There can be no doubt that this survival-value of Music lies in its power to assist spiritual unfoldment and progress, and if the serious practice of music involves a certain discipline of plain living and high thinking, are not these themselves adjuncts to a progressive evolution? Where the adequate interpretation of music involves a certain abnegation and unselfishness in the case of a soloist, and a large measure of team-play and co-operation in the case of concerted work, are not these again elements in inculcating an attitude that transcends self? Does not the simple appreciation of music tend to unlock the doors of imagination and set it free in regions far removed from the gross? And are not all these so many aids to higher ends?
If the inspiration that is in music and works through it serves to awaken us to the fact that the world of spirit is very close at all times, and that our knowledge of it and our communion therewith is solely limited by our capacity of fine response, it will have done something of incalculable value. If it arouses in us the desire to fit ourselves by aspiration and a high resolve to achieve that delicacy of sensitiveness whereby we ourselves may catch some of the spirit's tenuous message, it will have served to put us in touch with eternal influences. It should certainly assist in breaking down any leanings towards a gospel of materialism with all its naked selfishness, and in so doing "Art is calling us the 'children of the immortal,' and proclaiming our right to dwell in the heavenly worlds."[32]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Macpherson. "Music and its Appreciation."
[2] "Everyman and his Music." Scholes.
[3] Newlandsmith. "The Temple of Art."
[4] Balzac.
[5] James Rhoades.
[6] J. C. Hadden, "Modern Musicians."