Human beings are quite equally sensitive to all forms of
expression. Even tricks of manner, and nervous gestures,
and facial distoitions are infectious ; and very sensitive and
sympathetic people are particularly liable to imitate uninten-
tional grimaces and fidgets. But sounds which are uttered
with genuine feeling are particularly exciting to human
creatures. The excitement of a mob grows under the influence
of the shouts its members utter; and takes up with equal
readiness the tone of joy, rage, and defiance. Boys in the
street drive one another to extravagances by like means ; and,
as Cicero long ago observed, the power of a great speaker often
depends not so much on what he says, as upon the skill with



6 THE ART OP MUSIC

which he uses the expressive tones of his voice. All such
utterances are music in the rough, and out of such elements
the art of music has grown, just as the elaborate arts of
human speech must have grown out of the grunts and whin-
ings of primeval savages. But neither art nor speech begins
till something definite appears in the texture of its material.
Some intellectual process must be brought to bear upon both
to make them capable of being retained in the mind ; and the
early steps of both are very similar. Just as among the early
ancestors of our species, speech would begin when the in-
definite noises which they first used to communicate with one
another, like animals, passed into some definite sound which
conveyed to the savage ear some definite and constant meaD*
ing ; so the indefinite cries and shouts which expressed thei>
feelings began to pass into music when a few definite note*
were made to take the place of vague, irregular shouting.
