Myth and Science / An Essay

[22] Michel Bréal: Hercule et Cacus.

[23] We are not here concerned with a priori metaphysics, but with the psychical and organic dispositions slowly produced by evolution and by consciousness in its cosmic relations. The organic nature of these reflex phenomena is due to the fact that in the long course of ages their exercise has, through physiological evolution, first become voluntary or spontaneous, and then unconscious.

[24] The double meaning is projected into objects. The primitive meaning of dexter was fitting, capable, and it was then applied to the side of the material body. Sansc. dacs, to hasten. Ascoli, Studi linquistici.

[25] A careful reader will not hold this repetition to be unnecessary, since it explains from another point of view the fundamental fact of perception and its results. It is here considered with reference to the three elements which constitute this fact.

[26] This great truth was observed by Vico, the most advanced of modern psychologists, in his views of primitive psychology.

[27] In Chinese, for example, and in many other languages, there are many words to indicate the tail of a fish, a bird, etc., but no word for a tail in general. Even an intelligent savage does not accurately distinguish between the subjective and the objective, between the imaginary and the real; this is the most important result of a scientific education. Tylor, Primitive Culture; Steinhauser, Religion des Nègres; Brinton, Myths of the World. The objective form of conceptions and emotions, which are subsequently transformed into spirits, are found among the superior races of our day, in the Christian hierarchy of angels, in popular tradition, and in spiritualism.

[28] Fetishism may be observed in the civilized Aryan races, but still more plainly among the Chinese and cognate races, among the Peruvians, Mexicans, etc. Castren, in his Finnische Mythologie says that we find extraordinary instances of the lowest stage of fetishism among the Samoeides, who directly worship all natural objects in themselves. The Finns, who are comparatively civilized heathens, have attained to a higher phase of belief. But numerous examples, in every part of the world, will occur to the intelligent reader.

[29] Numen really means the manifestation of power, from nuere. Varro makes Attius say: "Multis nomen vestrum numenque ciendo." In Lucretius we have mentis numen, and also Numen Augusti. An inscription discovered by Mommsen runs as follows:

"P. Florus, etc. Dianae numine jussu posuit."

[30] The illustrious Du Bois Reymond delivered a lecture a few years ago, in which he made it clear that the Semitic idea of one Almighty God led to the later and modern conception of the unity of forces and the rational interpretation of the system of the universe. This important testimony of so able a man confirms the theory set forth some years ago in the work of which I have reproduced a part in the text.

[31] Some Jewish Christians of the Semitic race took refuge in a district of Syria, and retained their primitive faith without further development, under the name of Nazarenes or Ebionites. In the fourth century, Epiphanius and Jerome found these primitive Christians constant to the old dogma, while Aryan Christianity had made gigantic strides, both in its ideas and social organization. Among the Semites, even when they have partially accepted the dogma, it was and is unproductive.

[32] Aristot., De anima; Cic., De legibus; Diog., Lae.

[33] A new thought entered my mind, whence others, differing from the first, arose; and as I roamed from one to another I was tempted to close my eyes, and thought was changed into a dream.

[34] See the theory by Lotze of local signs in the formation of the idea of space, completed and modified by Wundt and others.

[35] Sometimes the name of a person, or of some part of the human form, has been bestowed on a natural object without reference to their analogy, but in this case the epithet has the converse effect of leading us to imagine that it possesses the features or limbs of the human form. And this is of equal value for our present inquiry.

[36] While these sheets were passing through the press, I was informed of Berg's work on the Enjoyment of Music. ("Die Lust an der Musik." Berlin, 1879.) Berg, who is a realist, inquires what is the source of the pleasure we experience from the regular succession of sounds, which he holds to be the primary essence of music. He finds the cause in some of Darwin's theories and researches. Darwin observes that the epoch of song coincides with that of love in the case of singing animals, birds, insects, and some mammals; and from this Berg concludes that primitive men, or rather anthropoids, made use of the voice to attract the attention of females. Hence a relation was established between singing and the sentiments of love, rivalry, and pleasure; this relation was indissolubly fused into the nature by heredity, and it persisted even after singing ceased to be excited by its primitive cause. This applies to the general sense of pleasure in music. We have next to inquire why the ear prefers certain sounds to others, certain combinations to others, etc. Berg holds that it depends on negative causes, that the ear does not select the most pleasing but the least painful sounds. He relies on Helmholtz's fundamental theory of sounds. It seems to me that although Helmholtz's theory is true, that of Berg is erroneous, since he is quite unable to prove his assertion that the effect produced by music is a negative pleasure. Moreover, the Darwinian observations to which he traces the origin of the enjoyment of music, not only rely on an arbitrary hypothesis, but do not explain why males should derive any advantage from their voice, nor what pleasure and satisfaction females find in it. And this, as Reinach justly observes in the Revue Philosophique, is the point on which the problem turns.

Clark has recently suggested in the American Naturalist another theory worthy of consideration. A musical sound is never simple but complex; it consists of one fundamental sound, and of other harmonic sounds at close intervals; the first and most perceptible intervals are the 8th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd major. Each of the simple sounds which, taken together, constitute the whole sound, causes the vibration of a special group of fibres in the auditory nerve. This fact, often repeated, generates a kind of organic predisposition which is confirmed by heredity. If from any cause one of these groups is set in motion, the other groups will have a tendency to vibrate. Therefore, if a singing animal, weary of always repeating the same note, wishes to vary its height, he will naturally choose one of the harmonic sounds of the first. The ultimate origin of the law of melody in organized beings is therefore only the simultaneous harmony, realized in sounds, of inorganic nature. This theory is confirmed by the analysis which has been often made of the song of some birds: the intervals employed by these are generally the same as those on which human melody is founded, the 8th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd major. Reinach, however, observes that Beethoven, who in his Pastoral Symphony has reproduced the song of the nightingale, the cuckoo, and the quail, makes their melodies to differ from those assigned to them by Clark.

The method and direction of the theories proposed by these authors are excellent; but I do not believe that they have discovered the real origin of the sense of music and dancing. I think that the suggestion given in the text, although it requires development, is nearer the truth. Consciousness of the great law by which things exist in a classified form seems to me to be the cause of the sense of graduated pleasure, which constitutes the essence of all the arts.

[37] See Beauquier's "Philosophie de la Musique."

[38] Serv. on the Æneid. What the oracles sang was termed carmentis: the seers used to be called carmentes, and the books in which their sayings were inscribed were termed carmentorios.

[39] See Girard de Rialle: Mythologie Comparée. Vol. I. Paris, 1878. A valuable and learned work.

[40] The intense character of the worship of groves in Italy appears from Quintilianus, who says, in speaking of Ennius: "Ennium sicut sacros vetustate lucos adoremus."