CHAPTER VIII. OF DREAMS, ILLUSIONS, NORMAL AND ABNORMAL HALLUCINATIONS,
DELIRIUM, AND MADNESS--CONCLUSION (CONTINUED...)
Doubtless the purest aesthetic sentiment was gratified in the productions
of the plastic arts and of design in general when civilization was at
its highest perfection, among people peculiarly alive to this sentiment.
At the same time, for the great majority of peoples in early and
subsequent ages down to our own time, there was and is the consciousness
of a _numen_, in the proper meaning of the word, within the statue or
effigy, and these were unconsciously entified by the same law which
leads to the entification of natural phenomena; the august presence of
the gods and an artificial symbol of the living organism of the world
were contained in the material form. While this sentiment took a higher
development in art, and was gradually emancipated from its mythical
bonds, it never altogether disappeared in artistic creations; and there
are still many who would, like some uncultured peoples of early and
modern times, cover up their images when they are about to commit some
action which might be displeasing to these idols of the gods or saints.
If we were to gauge the sentiments which really animate a man of the
people, even when he; looks at the statue of a great man, we should
find that in addition to his aesthetic satisfaction, he unconsciously
imagines that the spirit of the dead man is infused into the image and
is able to enjoy the admiration of the observers.
The-worship of images in all times and places is essentially founded on
this belief in the incarnation of spirits and the _numen_ of fetishes.
There is indeed no real difference between the superstitious adoration
of a savage, addressed to his fetish, and the worship of images in many
religions of modern civilization. Although people of culture, and the
scholastic theory of religions, may distinguish indirect and respectful
veneration from direct worship, yet it cannot be denied that the
majority of the faithful directly adore the image. The general belief in
relics, consisting of bones, hair, clothes, etc., is plainly an
evolution of the amulets and _gris-gris_ of savages. This fetishtic and
idolatrous sentiment has by a gradual and necessary development been
infused even into speech and writing, for written forms have been hung
on plants as fetishes and idols, or placed in the temples as the symbol
of perpetual prayer, and the Buddhists even erect prayer-mills. We have
analogous instances among ourselves, when texts of Scripture or the
words of some saint are rolled up into a kind of amulet and worn round
the neck. The same sentiment is shown in the costly offering of lamps
kept constantly burning before images as the means of obtaining help and
favor; and in the visits made to a given number of churches, thus
transforming number into a mysterious, entified, and efficacious power,
in the same way that every ancient people, whether barbarous or
civilized, mythically venerated certain numbers; the Peruvians, for
instance, and some other American peoples regarded the number "four" as
sacred.
In addition to the cherished remembrance always inspired by portraits of
those we love, a breathing of life, as if the dead or absent person were
communicating with us in spirit, is perhaps unconsciously infused into
the picture while we look at it. These are transient states of
consciousness, of which we are scarcely aware, although they do not
escape the notice of careful observers. Any dishonor or insult offered
to images, whether sacred or profane, deeply moves both the learned and
unlearned, both barbarous and civilized peoples, not merely as a base
and sacrilegious act against the person represented, but from an
instinctive and spontaneous feeling that he is actually present in the
image. Any one who analyzes the matter will find it impossible to
separate these two sentiments, and many disgraceful and sanguinary
scenes which have led to the gallows or the stake have actually resulted
from the identification of the image with the thing represented.
Even when a man of high culture and refined taste for beauty stands
before the canvas or sculpture of some great ancient or modern artist,
his spiritual and aesthetic enjoyment of these wonderful works is, as he
will find from the observation of his inmost emotions, combined with the
animation and personification of what he sees; he is so far carried away
by the beauty and truth of the representation that the passions
represented affect him as if they were those of real persons. This
relative perfection of a work of art, either in the way the objects
stand out, in the varied diffusion of light and shade, in the movement
and expression of figures, in the effect of the whole in its details and
background, is all heightened and confirmed by the underlying
entification of images. The process we have before described by which a
confused group of objects appear to us as a human form or phantasm is
also effected in this case in a more subtle way and with less effort of
memory; it is all ultimately due to the primitive fact of animal
perception. Our imagination can supply the resemblance, the limbs,
color, and design in a picture in which a face, figure, or landscape
are slightly sketched, or in a roughly chiseled statue. We often hear
the complaint that a work of art is too highly finished, and it wearies
and displeases us because it leaves nothing for the imagination to
supply. The remark reveals the fact, of which we are all implicitly
conscious, that we are ourselves in part the artificers of every
external phenomenon.
We need not stop to prove a truth well-known to all, that architecture
and all kinds of monuments lend themselves to a symbolism derived from
ancient and primitive popular ideas. This was the case in India,
Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Egypt, Judaea, Greece, Ancient and Christian
Rome, and in the ancient remains found in savage countries and in
America. The freemasons of the Middle Ages united the earliest and most
varied traditions with the symbols of Christianity. We unconsciously
carry on the same traditions, preserving some of their forms, although
the meaning of the symbol is lost. Tombs in the open air which enclosed
a spirit, and round which the shades roamed, were the first sacred
buildings, from which by an easy and intelligible evolution of ideas,
temples, with a similar orientation, and other works of architecture,
both religious and civil, were derived. If we follow, step by step, the
development of the tomb into the temple, the palace, and the triumphal
arch, we shall see how the outward form and the human and cosmic myth
were reciprocally enlarged. Ethnography, archaeology, and the history of
all peoples indicate their gradual evolution, so that it is only
necessary to allude to it; proofs abound for any intelligent reader.
Even in modern architecture the arrangement of parts, the general form,
the ornaments and symbols relating to mythical ideas, still persist,
although we are no longer conscious of their meaning; just as human
speech now makes use of a simple phonetic sign as if it were an
algebraic notation, in which the philologist can trace the primitive and
concrete image whence it proceeded. The arts also, like other human
products, follow the general evolution of myth in their historic course;
the primitive fetish is afterwards perfected by more explicit spiritual
beliefs, and is combined with cosmic myths; these are slowly transformed
into symbolic representations, which dissolve in their turn, and give
place to the expression of the truth and to forms which more fully
satisfy the natural sense of beauty and its adaptation to special ends.
The arts of singing and of instrumental music have the same origin and
evolution as the others. Vico, Strabo, and others have asserted that
primitive men spoke in song, and there is great truth in the remark.
Since gesture and pantomime help out the meaning of imperfect speech,
which was at first poor in the number of words and their relative forms,
and this is still the case among many peoples, so song, vocal
modulation, and the rhythmic expression of speech seem to stimulate
emotion. In truth, the mental and physiological effort which tends by
vocal enunciation to present the image or emotion in an external form,
is on the one hand not yet fully disintegrated, and on the other the
greater or less intensity of feeling involved in primitive languages a
corresponding vocal modulation to supplement it, just as it required
gesture and pantomime. Thus speech, gesture, and song, in the larger
sense of the word, had their origin together. This is also true of many
of the languages of modern savages, and of those of more civilized
peoples, such as the Chinese, which have not quite attained inflection;
in this case the frequent repetition of the same monosyllable conveys a
different meaning, not only from its relative position, but from the
modulation and tone in which it is uttered. The same thing may be
observed in children who are just beginning to talk.
Rhythm, or the graduated and alternate action and reaction with which a
vibration begins and ends, is a universal law in the manifestation and
movements of all natural phenomena; a law which is revealed on a grand
scale in all the recurring periods of nature, whether astral, telluric,
or meteorological, as well as in the form and manifold phases of
organisms and their modes of reproduction. This universal law also
applies to the whole mental and organic system of animals and men,
whenever they become conscious of their own existence. The same
universal rhythm constitutes the fundamental form of sound in the
vibration of metallic bars, or of strings, and becomes perceptible to
the external senses by means of our organ of hearing, as also by the
external and innate necessity slowly developed by our habits of
consciousness, which may be termed the external causes of its organic
evolution and constitution.
By these organic and cosmic tendencies, and by the intrinsic impulse
towards modulation of sound already explained, speech first issued from
the human breast in harmonious accents and rhythmic form, and these
became in their turn the causes and genesis of versification and metre.
The classic experiments of Helmholtz show that each note may be regarded
as a harmonic whole, owing to the complementary sounds which accompany
it in its complete development. With reference to our own race, the
genesis of the composition of verse and metre are shown by the
researches made by Westphal and others into the metrical system of the
Vedic Aryans, the Turanians, and the Greeks, since the fact that their
metres were the same implies a common origin. The demonstration is
complete, if we compare the iambic metre of Archilochus with that of the
Vedic hymns. There are in both three series of iambuses--the dimeter,
the cataleptic trimeter, and the acataleptic.[36]
This observation applies to the physical and physiological conditions of
the phenomenon, since primitive men could not speak without rhythmic
modulation of words. We are not quite without hope of discovering by
induction the origin of wind or stringed instruments which accompanied
the songs, after the specification of the modes of speech was so far
advanced as to distinguish singing--which had already become an
art--from the daily necessity of reciprocal communication in words. In
this research we must proceed step by step, aided by minute observation,
lest we should accept an hypothesis which does not correspond with the
facts.
Not only man, but some animals--among others a species of mouse found in
South Africa--naturally uses his limbs to moderate or strengthen the
light of vision. This mouse was observed to shade its eyes with its
forepaws in order to look at some distant object under a blazing sun, as
we should do in like conditions. In man, whose arms and hands are
readily adapted to this primitive art, the habit is common, even among
the rudest savages. Putting sight out of the question that we may
consider hearing, which is our present theme, reflex movements, either
casual or habitual, have certainly induced primitive men to place their
hands on the mouth, either so as to suppress the sound or to augment it
by using both hands as a kind of shell. It is easy to imagine the use of
shells or other hollow objects as a vehicle of sound, either for
amusement or some other cause, and these rude instruments might serve as
the first step to the invention of wind instruments. Reflection on these
spontaneous experiments would readily lead to the search for some mode
of prolonging or imitating the voice. In these attempts men might be
guided by their observation of the whistle and song of birds, whose
beaks may have served as a model for the construction of the flute and
reed-pipe. Pott traces the word for sound to the root _svar_, and hence,
after some natural phonetic changes, we have in Lithuanian _szwilpti_
for the song of birds. Of all natural objects, different kinds of reeds
and the hollow stalks of plants are, owing to their hollow and
cylindrical form, best adapted for the imitation of a bird's beak and
the sonorous transmission of breath. In many languages the word for a
flute is the same as that for a reed. In Sanscrit, _vanca_ and _venu_
mean a flute and bamboo; in Persian, _na_ and _nay_ mean a flute and
reed; in Greek [Greek: donas], and in Latin _calamus_, have the same
double meaning, and many more examples might be given.
Stringed instruments are a more elaborate invention, and may have been
suggested by the vibration of a bow-string when it is twanged. The bow
is common to all modern savages, and was also found among extinct
peoples and those which are now civilized, as well as in prehistoric
times. The Sanscrit word for a stringed instrument, _tata_ or _vitata_,
is derived from the root _tan_, to stretch. Pictet observes that one
name for a lute is _rudri_, from _rud_, to lament, that is, a plaintive
instrument; in Persian we have _rod_ for song, music, or a stringed
instrument. The etymology of _arcus_ is the same; the root _arc_ not
only means to hurl, but to sing or resound. Homer and Rannjana often
allude to the sonorousness of the bow and its string. Homer says in
speaking of the bow of Pandarus, "_stridit funis, et nervus valde
sonuit_." And when Ulysses drew his avenging bow, the cord emitted a
clear sound like the voice of a swallow. _Locaka_, another name for a
cord, also means one who speaks, from _loc_, _loqui_; and the Persian
_rud_, _roda_, a bow-string, also means a song. In the Veda the root
_arc'_ is used in speaking of the roaring wind, or of a long echoing
sound. Again _tavara_, a bow-string, is from _tan_, to stretch, to
sound. The Greek [Greek: tonos] must be referred to the same root, and
signifies, a bow-string, a sound, an accent, a tone. Benfey traces the
Greek [Greek: lura], in which this root is wanting, through [Greek:
ludra], or _rudra_. Kuhn confirms this transformation by the analogy
between the Vedic god _Rudra_ and the Greek Apollo, both of whom are
armed with a bow. Rudra, like Apollo, is a great physician; the former
is called _kapardin_, from his mode of wearing his long hair, and
_vanku_ from his tortuous gait as the god of storms; to the latter the
epithets of [Greek: achers echomes] and [Greek: loxias] are applied; the
mouse was sacred to Rudro, and Apollo had the surname of Smintheus, from
the mouse, [Greek: Smintha], which was his symbol.
These wind and stringed instruments were not, in their primitive forms,
at once used as an accompaniment to song. Before such use was possible,
there must have been considerable progress in the specification of
language, and special songs must have been disintegrated from common
speech, which was at first an inchoate song. Possibly some rude
instruments were invented for amusement or some other purpose before
this specification had taken place. At any rate the use of various
instruments for accompaniment was preceded by gesticulation, or the
spontaneous striking of some object which coincided with animated
speech, or which accompanied it in sonorous cadences.
The rhythm which stimulated primitive men to speak in song, also
impelled them to accompany it with gestures and movements of the body,
and this was the origin of the dance, which, when the body moved in
correspondence with cadenced utterances, was at first merely the
accompaniment of song. Tradition, modern ethnography, and the primitive
habits of children bear witness to this fact. In addition to the
rhythmic motion of all parts of the body, there is the practice of
spontaneously beating time with the hands and feet, which were doubtless
the first instruments used by man as a musical accompaniment. Hence,
owing to the facility of, construction, there arose percussion
instruments, which were at first made of stone or pieces of wood. So
that singing, dancing, accompaniment with the limbs or with some rudely
fashioned object arose almost simultaneously, as soon as the process of
specification had established a distinction between song and ordinary
speech. The first simple instruments which we have described only made
the song, shout, war-dance, or religious ceremony more effective.
When chanted speech was formulated in a fixed order by means of rhythm
and the modulations of the voice, it became verse, and the melody
itself, as the simple expression of the song which had been cast into
verse, or even into an inarticulate chant, was naturally evolved from
it. An artistic education is not needed in order to experience the
pleasure of rhythmic order in the succession of sound, for a
predisposition of the nervous system will suffice. Savages, children,
and even animals are sensible of rhythm, which is the order and symmetry
of sensations. The dance, as Beauquier justly observes, is the practical
form of rhythmic motion and the gesture of music. The motion impressed
by sound on the internal organism tends to manifest itself in external
gesture, and in fact, the rhythm of the music is repeated in dancing in
the limbs and in the whole body of the dancer. The rhythm, regarded in
its material cause, need not be accompanied by any very musical sound.
The percussion instruments were at first only used to mark and intensify
the rhythm.
Melody may be termed a fusion of rhythm and sounds of different pitches,
united in time, and assuming a regular and symmetrical form; melody, as
others also have observed, constitutes the whole of music, since
without it harmony itself is vague and indefinite. Notwithstanding the
numerous elements which may be discerned in melody, and the labor
implied in its analysis, it is the facile and spontaneous creation of
man, at any rate in its simplest expression; uneducated people, ignorant
of music, are able to invent very tolerable melodies, of which we have
instances in popular and national songs, which are generated by the
musical fancy of those unconscious of the laws of music. Melody has an
independent existence, while harmony serves to accentuate its form, and
conduces to its subsequent progress among peoples capable of developing
it in all its power.[37]
Music has a powerful influence upon all the senses. It has at all times
been supposed to have a healing power, and in the Middle Ages it was
believed to cure epilepsy, madness, convulsions, hysteria, and all forms
of nervous affections; while in our own time it is usefully employed in
cerebral diseases, since it has both a stimulating and soothing effect.
Women, since they are generally more nervous and sensitive than men, are
more especially affected by music. Animals as well as man are influenced
by it, as it has been shown by exact and numerous experiments. Every one
knows that many birds can be taught airs, which they sing with taste and
lively satisfaction. The major key, with its regular proportions, its
full and gradual sounds, arouses in man a sense of life and joy, while
the minor key excites languor and invincible sadness, and animals are
affected in the same way.
It is evident that the formation of the scale, the essential foundation
of music, varies with, the epoch, climate, habits, and physiological
conditions of the different races which have successively adopted the
diatonic, the major, and minor scales. The music of the Chinese differs
from our own, and while it is equally elaborate, it does not quite
please us, and the same may be said of the music of the Indians, of the
ancient Egyptians, and others. Undoubtedly our scale is more convenient
and conformable to art, setting aside the physiological conditions of
race, since the notes separated by regular intervals form a more
spiritual and independent, in short a more artistic system.
Such are briefly the characteristics of the genesis of song and of
music, the actual conditions which make them possible, and their effect
on man and animals. We must now consider the subject from the mythical
point of view, as we have done in the case of the other arts. We know
that the image and emotions are mythically personified by us, and this
fanciful reality is afterwards infused into the words used in its
expression. It follows from this that speech is not only spontaneously
and unconsciously personified as the material covering of the idea or
emotion enclosed in it, but that the same thing occurs in language as a
whole, at first vaguely, but afterwards in a definite and reflective
manner, in consequence of intellectual development. Among all civilized
peoples, whether extinct or still in existence, speech is not only
personified in the complex idea or language, but it is deified. It is
well known that this is the case in all phases of Eastern Christianity,
and that the other Christian churches have since identified the
Graeco-Eastern idea of the Logos with the Messianic ideas engrafted upon
it. If among the prehistoric peoples which most resemble modern savages,
speech was personified by the necessity of the perceptive faculty, a
vague power was certainly ascribed to it, and even a simple murmur or
whisper was supposed to have a direct and personal influence on things,
men, and animals. Magic, which is the primitive expression of fetishtic
power, embodied in a man, had its most efficacious form in the utterance
of words, cries, whispers, or songs, referring to the malign or to the
healing and beneficent arts, and it was employed to arouse or to calm
storms, to destroy or improve the harvest, or for like purposes.
Beginning with the traditions of our race, even prior to its dispersion,
there are plain proofs that words and songs were originally employed for
exorcisms and magic in various diseases, and for incantations directed
against men or things. _Kar_ means to bewitch, as in German we have
_einem etwas anthun_, in low Latin _facturare_, in Italian
_fattucchiere_, and from _Kar_ we have _carmen_, a song or magic
formula. The goddess _Carmenta_, who was supposed to watch over
childbirth, derived her name from _carmen_, the magic formula which was
used to aid the delivery. The name was also used for a prophetess, as
_Carmenta_, the mother of Evander. Servio tells us that the augurs were
termed _carmentes_.[38] The Sanscrit _maya_, meaning magic or illusion
and, in the Veda, wisdom, is derived from _man_, to think or know; from
_man_ we have _mantra_, magic formula or incantation; in Zend, _manthra_
is an incantation against disease, and hence we have the Erse _manadh_,
incantation or juggling, and _moniti_ in Lithuanian. The linguistic
researches of Pictet, Pott, Benfey, Kuhn, and others show that in
primitive times singing, poetry, hymns, the celebration of rites, and
the relation of tales, were identical ideas, expressed in identical
forms, and even the name for a nightingale had the same derivation. So
also the names of a singer, poet, a wise man, and a magician, came from
the same root.
Among all historic and savage peoples it was the general practice to use
exorcism by means of magic formulas and incantations, combined with the
noise of rude instruments; this was part of the pathology, meteorology,
and demonology which dated from the beginning of speech, and the first
rude ideas of fetishes and spirits have persisted in various forms down
to our days. We have a plain proof of this in a work dedicated to Pius
IX. by M. Gaume, in which he sets forth the virtue of holy water against
the innumerable powers of evil which, as he declares, still people the
cosmic spaces, and similar rites may be traced in the liturgies of all
modern religions. This belief is directly founded on the fanciful
personification and incarnation of a power in speech itself, in song,
and in sound. David had similar ideas of dancing and its accessories,
and the walls of Jericho are said to have fallen at the sound of the
trumpets, as if these contained the spirit of God. The Patagonians, to
quote a single instance from among savages, drive away the evil spirits
of diseases with magic songs, accompanied by drums on which demons are
painted. To these mythical ideas we must refer the worship of trees,
which involves that of birds, so far as they whistle and sing.
The worship of trees and groves is universal: peculiar trees, groves,
and woods are worshipped in Tahiti, in the Fiji Islands, and throughout
Polynesia; in barbarous Asia, in Europe, America, and the whole of
Africa. Cameron, Schweinfurth, Stanley, and other modern travelers in
Africa give many instances of this. Schweinfurth describes such a
worship among the Niam-Niam, who hold that the forest is inhabited by
invisible beings. This worship is naturally combined with that of birds,
which become the confidants of the forest, repeat the mysteries of
mother earth, and sometimes become interpreters and prophets to man.
Birds, by their power of moving through the air as lords of the aerial
space, by their arts of building, by the beauty of their plumage, their
secret haunts in the forests and rocks, by their frequent appearance
both by day and night, and by the variety of their songs, must
necessarily have excited the fetishtic fancy of primitive men. The
worship of birds was therefore universal, in connection with that of
trees, meteors, and waters. They were supposed to cause storms; and the
eagle, the falcon, the magpie, and some other birds brought the
celestial fire on the earth. The worship of birds is also common in
America, and in Central America the bird voc is the messenger of
Hurakau, the god of storms. The magic-doctors of the Cri, of the
Arikari, and of the Indians of the Antilles, wore the feathers and
images of the owl as an emblem of the divine inspiration by which they
were animated. Similar beliefs are common in Africa and Polynesia.[39]
It is well known that the Egyptians worshipped the ibis, the hawk, and
other birds, and that the Greeks worshipped birds and trees at Dodona,
in consequence of a celebrated oracle. In Italy the lapwing and the
magpie became Pilumnus and Picus, who led the Sabines into Picenus.
Divination by eagles and other birds was practiced at Rome, and German,
Slav, and Celtic traditions abound in similar myths.[40] Nor are they
wanting in the Bible itself, in which we hear of the trees of knowledge
and of life, of some celebrated trees in the times of the patriarchs, of
the raven and the dove sent out as messengers. The Old Testament speaks
of the worship of groves at Ashtaroth in Canaan, of sacrifices under the
green trees, and we know that such worship occurred in the Semitic races
of Numidia and elsewhere.
The simultaneous elaboration of myths relating to trees and birds as
objects of worship, as beneficent or malign powers, and as the
transmitters of oracles, necessarily confirmed and extended the
personifications of speech and song, and were fused through many sources
into a whole, which represented a supernatural agent, endowed with the
power of a mediator, of a good or evil spirit or idol. This ultimately
led to a universal conception of the efficacy of sound, considered as
the manifestation of occult powers. In this mythically spiritual
atmosphere, all peoples formerly lived and in great part still continue
to live.
As the innate impulse led to the entification of speech and of the
singing of men and animals, so it also led to the mythical
personification of dancing and instrumental music, in which nearly all
peoples have recognized a demoniac and deliberate power. For this
reason, dancing and the noise of rude instruments generally accompanied
solemn religious and civil ceremonies, and any remarkable cosmic,
astral, or meteorological fact; and in polytheistic times the deities of
poetry, dancing, and music served to accentuate and classify ideas.
The instrument became a fetish, and was invested with a mysterious power
resembling that which was supposed to exist in all utterances of the
animal world. Indeed, instruments were, and still are among savages,
regarded as sacred and as an integral part of public worship, so that
each had its definite function and office. This need not surprise us,
since for such men every object is a fetish, which contains a soul. The
Karens, a tribe in Burmah, believe that their arms, knives, utensils,
etc., have all a _kelap_ or soul, which is termed a _wong_ by the
negroes of West Africa. The same belief is found in a more explicit form
among the Algonquins, the Fijians, and the aforesaid Karens, whose
beliefs are characteristic of all peoples which have reached this stage
of mythical conceptions. The different objects belonging to a dead man,
and his instruments, arms, and utensils, are laid in his tomb, or burnt
with his body, and this is owing to the belief that the souls of these
objects follow their possessor into another life. The same custom
unfortunately extends to persons, and there are instances of this evil
practice among relatively civilized nations; the massacre which takes
place at the death of a king of Dahomey is well known, and is revolting
from the number of victims and from the mode of their sacrifice. It is
therefore easy to imagine the way in which musical instruments and the
sounds produced by them were personified, since these manifestations
seemed to approximate more closely to those of animals.
Fetishtic beliefs concerning magic songs or sounds were, as we have
seen, confirmed by the influence naturally exerted on men and animals in
their normal or abnormal state by rhythmic and musical sounds, however
rude and unformed they may be. Theophrastus tells us that blowing a
flute over the affected limb was supposed to cure gout; the Romans
recited _carmina_ to drive away disease and demons: the old Slav word
for physician, _vraci_, comes from a root which means to murmur; in
Servian, _vrac_ is a physician, and _balii_, an enchanter or physician.
The use of incantations as a remedy prevailed among the Greeks in
Homer's time. The Atarva-Veda retains the old formula of imprecation
against disease, and the Zendavesta divides physicians into three
classes, those which cure with the knife, with herbs, and with magic
formulas. Kuhn believes that the Latin word _mederi_ refers to these
proceedings, comparing with it the Sanscrit _meth_, _medh_, to oppose or
curse. Pictet traces the meaning of exorciser in another Sanscrit word
for a physician: _Bhisag_ from _sag_, _sang_, tojurbo gate.
As the civilization of the historic races advanced, poetry, singing, and
musical instruments became more perfect, and were classified as reflex
arts. Among the more intellectual classes the earlier fetishtic ideas
connected with them almost disappeared, while in the case of the common
people, the fetish was idealized, but not therefore lost; it persisted,
and still persists, under other forms. Polytheism, modified to suit the
place, time, and race, and yet essentially the same, offers us a more
ideal form of the arts, each of which was personified as a god, and
taken together they formed a heavenly company, which generated and
presided over the arts. The greatest poets and philosophers of antiquity
retained a sincere belief in the inspiration of every creation of art;
and this was only a more noble and intellectual form of the first rude
and indefinite conception by which the arts were embodied in a material
shape.
Of all the Aryan peoples, Greece represented her Olympus in the most
glorious mythical form, set forth by all the arts of description. From
the polytheistic point of view, nothing can be aesthetically more perfect
than the myths of Apollo and the Muses, which personify harmony in
general, and whatever is peculiar to the arts. Such conceptions, by
which the arts of speech, song, vocal and instrumental music were
embodied in myths, did not disappear as time went on, but were
perpetuated in another form. Music, which was always becoming more
elaborate, continued to be the highest inspiration, a divine power, an
external and harmonious manifestation of celestial beings, of eternal
life, and the order of the world. This conception was shadowed forth in
the Pythagorean theory of the mythical harmony of the spheres: that
school regarded the world as a musical system, an harmonious dance of
planets.
The fetishtic and mythical origin common to all the arts is clearly
shown by the fact that at a period relatively advanced, but still very
remote, they were formulated in the temple, a symbolic representation of
their deities, to be found even among the most primitive peoples. The
evolution of the arts towards a more rational conception, divested of
mythical and religious influence, took the form of releasing each art
from bondage to the temple, and enabling it to assume a more distinct,
free, and secular personality, an evolution which was however somewhat
difficult and slow in the case of vocal and instrumental music. Although
in our own time it has achieved a field for itself, yet in oratorios and
ecclesiastical music the old conception remains.
The joys of the Elysian fields and of Paradise, as rewards of the good
and faithful after death, varying in details with the moral and mythical
beliefs of various peoples, were heightened by concerts and musical
symphonies, as, owing to natural evolution and the introduction of
Oriental ideas, if appears even in the Christian conception of Paradise.
For the great majority of believers, earthly music is only an echo of
that celestial music, and participates in its divine efficacy. In the
Christian Paradise there were saints to preside over the instruments,
the singing, and music; the visions of the ecstatic, the hallucinations
of the mystic, and the precious memories and images of the dead, are
often combined with sweet and heavenly music, and this completes the
fetishtic idea which enters into every phenomenon with which man has to
do. For if inanimate objects and instruments were supposed by the
primitive savage to have a soul which followed the shade of the dead man
into the mythical abode beyond the grave, in modern religions the
earthly instruments, the fanciful idols of the common people and of
mystics, also resound in Elysium and the heavens, touched and inspired
by choirs of angels and by seraphic powers.
The deep and sonorous music of bells, of organs, and other
ecclesiastical instruments, the chants which resound through vaulted
roofs amid the assembled worshippers, ecclesiastical lights, and the
fumes of incense, inspire many Christians with a deep and aesthetic sense
of the divine presence; and at such moments their vivid faith joins
heaven and earth in the same harmonious emotion. The music, chants, and
harmony, combined with other solemn rites, are unconsciously embodied
by us, entering into our hearts as they circle round the church, and
they become the mysterious language of celestial powers. We are once
more immersed in the world of fancy and of myth, purified however by the
evolution it has undergone. This exalted state of mind is also
experienced by those who listen to profane music, since the harmony and
modulation of sound, and the expression given to it by the combination
of various instruments, immediately affect the soul of the listener as a
whole, without the aid of reflection, and a substantial entity which
deliberately fulfils its spontaneous cycle of development is thus
created; in a word, the harmonies they hear are unconsciously
personified. Any one who makes a deep and careful analysis of his states
of consciousness in these circumstances will admit the truth of this
assertion.
The ordinary modes of expression respecting music, which are in use not
only among uneducated people, but among those who are educated and
civilized, display the earlier and innate belief in the mythical
representations of this art. The expressions may be often heard: What
divine music! What angelic harmony! This song is really seraphic! and
the like. Such expressions not only bear witness to the old mythical
sentiment, and to the ultimate development of its form, but they also
indicate the actual sentiments of the speaker. The personifying power of
the human intelligence is such as to recur spontaneously, even in one
who has abandoned these ancient illusions, if he surrenders himself for
a while to his natural instinct. It has often happened that a man who
listens to a melodious and beautiful piece of music is gradually aroused
and excited by its sweet power, so as to be carried away into a world of
new sensations, in which all our sentiments and affections, our deepest,
tenderest, and dearest aspirations blossom afresh in our memory, and are
fused into and strengthened by these harmonies; we seem to be
transported into ethereal regions, and unconsciously surrender ourselves
to their influence. This kind of natural ecstasy is not produced merely
by the physiological effects of music on the organism, by the education
of our sense of beauty, and of our reminiscences of earlier mythical
emotions, but also by the innate impulse which still persists, leading
us to idealize and vivify all natural phenomena, and also our own
sensations.
But if among the common people, the devout, and occasionally also among
people of culture, this highest art is not divested of its mythical
environment, which still persists, although in a more ideal form, yet it
has followed and still follows the general evolution of human ideas. The
art of music was identified with song and with the mythical personality
ascribed to it, of which these instruments were the extrinsic and
harmonious echo; at first, like the other arts, it, was a religious
conception and entity pertaining to the Church, but it gradually
assumed a character of its own, was dissociated from the Church, and
became a secular art, diverging more and more from the mythical ideas
with which it had before been filled. When instruments increased in
number, and became more perfect in quality; when harmony, strictly so
called, was developed and became more efficient, instrumental music
still continued to be the servant of vocal music, and was employed to
give emphasis, relief, warmth, and color to the art of song, which
continued to be supreme. Song had its peculiar musical character, and
the human voice, alone or in a chorus, might be regarded as the type of
instrumental music, rendered more effective by the words which expressed
the ideas and sentiments of such songs by harmonizing the various vocal
instruments in accordance with their tones and varying _timbre_.
Instrumental music, by the melodious harmony of artificial sounds, had
however a vast field peculiar to itself, and an existence independent of
the human voice. This was and is, in addition to its release from the
bonds of myth, the necessary result of the evolution of this highest
art.
Instrumental music, considered in itself, with the symphony as its
highest expression, has been declared by a learned writer to be the
grandest artistic creation, and the ultimate form of art in which the
vast cycle of all things human will find its development. A symphony is
an architectural construction of sounds, mobile in form, and not
absolutely devoid of a literary meaning. Yet we must not seek in
instrumental music for that which it cannot afford, such as the ideas
contained in words. Any one must admit the futility of the attempt to
give a dramatic interpretation or language to instrumental music, who
reads the description attempted by Lenz and other writers of some of
Beethoven's sonatas. Instrumental music does not lend itself to these
interpretations, since it is an art with an independent existence. We
have observed that in its first development it was used as an
accompaniment to the voice, or associated with the movements of the
body, or with the dance, and consequently had not the independence which
was gradually achieved, until it culminated in the symphony.
Instrumental music adds nothing to literature, nor to the expression of
ideas and sentiments, but in it pure music consists, and it is the very
essence of the art. Literature and poetry belong to a definite order of
ideas and emotions; music is only able to afford musical ideas and
sentiments. Instrumental music has its peculiar province as the supreme
art which composes its own poems by means of the order, succession, and
harmony of sounds; it delights, ravishes, and moves us by exciting the
emotional part of our nature, and thus arouses a world of ideas which
may be modified at pleasure, and which may, by the powerful means at its
disposal, produce effects of which instruments merely used for
accompanying the voice are incapable. When instrumental music was
released from all servitude to other arts, as well as from all positive
sense of religious emotions or mythical and symbolic prejudice, thought
was able to create the art of sounds, which contains in itself a special
aim and meaning.
We have thus reached the term of our arduous and fatiguing journey. We
flatter ourselves that a truth has been gleaned from it, and this
conviction is not, due to a presumptuous reliance on our powers, but on
the conscientious honesty of our researches, combined with a great yet
humble love of truth. Others, who are better endowed with genius and
learning will judge of our success, and we shall willingly submit to
their criticism and correction, so long as they are fair and
unprejudiced and only aim at the truth. From animal perception, and the
mental and physical fact into which it is to be resolved, we have traced
the root which in man's case grows into a mighty tree; the first germ of
all the mythical ideas of every people upon earth. The subjectivity of
which animals and man are spontaneously conscious in every internal and
external phenomenon, the subsequent entification of ideas, even after
thought has attained to these more rational forms, are the great factors
of myth in all its forms, of superstitions, of religions, and also of
science. We have reduced all the normal and abnormal sources of these
fanciful ideas to that single source which we have just indicated.
Penetrating below the kingdom of man into that of animals, we have there
discovered where the germ was formed, and this completes the doctrine of
evolution and bears witness to its truth. The evolution of myth went
through the regular process, by which it was formulated and simplified,
until it was resolved into all the sciences and rational arts, and was
thus transformed into a positive science, passing through an ulterior
stage of myth and science before it took the definitive form of a purely
intellectual conception.
We have seen that the source of myth is the same as that of science,
since perception is the condition of both, and the process pursued is
identical, although the subject on which the faculty of thought is
exercised is changed. Therefore the problem of myth, which includes
every achievement of the human understanding, and fills all sociology,
is transformed into the problem of civilization. Thought has run its
course in the vast evolution from myth to science, which is rendered
possible by the permanence and duration of a powerful and vigorous race,
and hence came the gradual transition from the illusions which involve
the ignorance and servitude of the majority of the people to truth and
liberty, since these are released from their earlier wrappings, and the
human race rises to a sense of its nobility and highest good. We have
considered this evolution as a whole and in its details, and have seen
that every achievement of the human understanding passes through the
same phases, and reaches the same goal. We have adduced witnesses to
confirm our own observation from history and ethnography in general,
apart from any bias for a religious and scientific system. We believe
that in this way alone there can be any true progress in the science
which we have undertaken to consider in this essay.
The result of the inquiry shows that by a slow yet inevitable evolution
man rose from his primeval condition of error, illusion, and servitude
to his fellow man, to that degree of truth and liberty of which he is
capable: he was so made that he necessarily advanced to the grand height
which has been attained by the most laborious and intelligent of the
human race. He rises higher, and is more sensible of his own dignity, in
proportion as he becomes, within the limits of his nature, the artificer
of his own greatness and civilization. While many peoples have become
extinct, others have, owing to their natural incapacity, remained in a
savage and barbarous condition, while others again have attained to a
certain amount of civilization, but their mental evolution has stopped
short. Our own race, originally, as I believe, Aryo-Semitic, for it is
possible that these two powerful branches were derived from a common
stock, has persisted without interruption in spite of many adversities
and revolutions, and has displayed in successive generations the
progress of general civilization, and the goal which man is able to
reach in his highest perfection of mind and body, favored by the
physical and biological conditions of climate. In this race, whether
with respect to myth and science or to civilization, the theory of
evolution has practically been carried out in all its phases and
degrees.
Science and freedom were the great factors of civilization, or of
progress in every kind of conceptions, sentiments, and social
conditions: the first dissolved and destroyed the matrix of myth in
which the intelligence was at first enveloped, and liberty, which was
wholly due to science, made steady progress a matter of certainty. So
that it may be said that the whole web of human history, so far as it
consists in civilization or the progress of all good things, of the
arts, and of every intellectual and material achievement, was the
conflict of science, and her offspring freedom, against ignorance, and
the despotism which results from ignorance, under all the social forms
in which they are manifested. So that all good and wise men, sincere
lovers of the dignity of mankind and of the welfare of society and of
the individual, ought to feel a deep reverence and love for these two
powers, and to be ready to give up their lives to them. For if--which in
the present condition of the world is an impossible hypothesis--they
were to fail, the human race would be irretrievably lost, since these
are our real liberators from barbarism, which have upheld mankind in the
struggle against it, under whatever name these principles have
appeared.
I am aware that my theory will meet with many obstinate and zealous
opponents in Italy, since I use the simple terms of reason and science,
unqualified by other arguments, and I maintain the absolute independence
of free thought. Opposition is the more likely since science and freedom
have been held responsible for sectarian intemperance, for the
disturbances of the lower orders, for the inevitable disasters, the
social and intellectual aberrations both of the learned and of the
common peoples: science and freedom are held to have repeated the wiles
of the serpent in Eden. But I am not uneasy at the thought of such
opposition, since the progress of the human race has been owing to the
fact that men convinced of the truth took no heed of the superstitious
and interested war waged against them, sometimes from ignorance of
things in general and of the law which governs civilization, sometimes
from honest conviction.
The falsity of the accusation so generally made against science and
freedom will appear if we consider that all the benefits we now enjoy,
civil, scientific, and material, and which are especially enjoyed by the
men who inveigh most strongly against these two factors, are solely
derived from science and freedom. Without them we should be in the
civil, intellectual, and material condition of the kingdom of Dahomey,
and in the savage and barbarous state of all primitive peoples. If the
misunderstanding of truth or an imperfect science is injurious, it must
not therefore be rejected. Science is the constant and vigilant
generator of all social improvement, and the most formidable enemy of
the tyranny of a despot, of an oligarchy, or of the multitude, whether
it take a religious or secular form. Since sharp instruments are
powerful aids to civilization and material prosperity, they are not to
be altogether set aside because some persons die miserably by them. As I
have always maintained, and now repeat with still stronger conviction,
science and freedom, the ever watchful guardians of the human race, are
and must always remain the sole remedies for the evils which threaten
us. I do not dispute the beneficent influence of other factors combined
with these, but, taken alone, they would be powerless, and if science
were eclipsed they would be transformed into fresh causes of servitude
and ignorance, as it has often appeared in past times when the laws of
science and of freedom have been set at nought. I therefore declare
science and freedom to be the portion of all, and they should be as
widely diffused as possible, since the way to knowledge and a worthy
life is open to all men. It is a blasphemy against heaven and earth to
presume, in the so-called interest of civil order, to keep the majority
of the people in the ignoble servitude of ignorance, and men do not
perceive that they thus become ready for any disturbance, and the tools
of rogues and agitators.
I hope and pray that reverence for science and freedom may ever
increase in Italy. It will be an evil day for her if such reverence be
lost, and she will become with every other people in like case a
wretched spectacle, and will fall into such abject misery as to become
the laughing-stock of every civilized nation. It will be understood that
I do not erect science and liberty into fetishes to be generally adored:
they are only sacred means to a more sacred end, namely, to enable men
to practice and not merely to apprehend the truth, which in other words
is goodness. Science and freedom are valuable only so far as they teach,
persuade, and enable us to improve ourselves and others; to exercise
every private and public virtue; to claim only what is due to ourselves,
while making the needful sacrifice to the common good; to have a respect
for humanity, and to venerate knowledge only so far as it is combined
with virtue; to attempt in every way to alleviate the miseries of
others, to deliver their minds from ignorance and error; to do right for
its own sake without coveting rewards in heaven or on earth; to submit
to no dictation but that of truth and goodness.
With these sacred objects in view, whatever may be said to the contrary,
we shall, in addition to the ineffable fruition of truth for its own
sake, ever draw nearer to the ideal of the human race, and the time will
come when an apparent Utopia shall be actually realized, in accordance
with the mode and process of growing civilization. Not by excesses,
tumults, and folly, but by unshaken firmness and tenacity we shall
promote science and freedom. If this modest essay has done anything to
show the necessity of such culture, and in what way science and freedom,
and these two factors only, have brought forth fruit throughout the
history of the human race, my labor will be richly rewarded, and I may
say with satisfaction--_dies non perdidi! |
