Essays On Education And Kindred Subjects (Fiscle Part- 11) by Herbert Spencer (best fiction novels to read TXT) 📕

Expiration Of    A Thousand Years, They Had Advanced To Their "Great

System" Of    The   Double Octave. Through All Which Changes There Of    Course

Arose A Greater Heterogeneity Of    Melody. Simultaneously There Came Into

Use The   Different Modes--Dorian, Ionian, Phrygian, Æolian, And

Lydian--Answering To Our Keys; And Of    These There Were Ultimately

Fifteen. As Yet, However, There Was But Little Heterogeneity In The   Time

Of Their Music.

Instrumental Music During This Period Being Merely The   Accompaniment Of

Vocal Music, And Vocal Music Being Completely Subordinated To Words, The

Singer Being Also The   Poet, Chanting His Own Compositions And Making The

Lengths Of    His Notes Agree With The   Feet Of    His Verses,--There

Unavoidably Arose A Tiresome Uniformity Of    Measure, Which, As Dr. Burney

Says, "No Resources Of    Melody Could Disguise." Lacking The   Complex

Rhythm Obtained By Our Equal Bars And Unequal Notes The   Only Rhythm Was

That Produced By The   Quantity Of    The   Syllables And Was Of    Necessity

Comparatively Monotonous. And Further, It May Be Observed That The   Chant

Thus Resulting, Being Like Recitative, Was Much Less Clearly

Differentiated From Ordinary Speech Than Is Our Modern Song.

Nevertheless, In Virtue Of    The   Extended Range Of    Notes In Use, The

Variety Of    Modes, The   Occasional Variations Of    Time Consequent On

Changes Of    Metre, And The   Multiplication Of    Instruments, Music Had,

Towards The   Close Of    Greek Civilisation, Attained To Considerable

Heterogeneity--Not Indeed As Compared With Our Music, But As Compared

With That Which Preceded It. As Yet, However, There Existed Nothing But

Melody: Harmony Was Unknown. It Was Not Until Christian Church-Music Had

Reached Some Development, That Music In Parts Was Evolved; And Then It

Came Into Existence Through A Very Unobtrusive Differentiation.

Difficult As It May Be To Conceive _À Priori_ How The   Advance From

Melody To Harmony Could Take Place Without A Sudden Leap, It Is None The

Less True That It Did So. The   Circumstance Which Prepared The   Way For It

Was The   Employment Of    Two Choirs Singing Alternately The   Same Air.

Afterwards It Became The   Practice--Very Possibly First Suggested By A

Mistake--For The   Second Choir To Commence Before The   First Had Ceased;

Thus Producing A Fugue.

With The   Simple Airs Then In Use, A Partially Harmonious Fugue Might Not

Improbably Thus Result: And A Very Partially Harmonious Fugue Satisfied

The Ears Of    That Age, As We Know From Still Preserved Examples. The   Idea

Having Once Been Given, The   Composing Of    Airs Productive Of    Fugal

Harmony Would Naturally Grow Up; As In Some Way It _Did_ Grow Up Out Of

This Alternate Choir-Singing. And From The   Fugue To Concerted Music Of

Two, Three, Four, And More Parts, The   Transition Was Easy. Without

Pointing Out In Detail The   Increasing Complexity That Resulted From

Introducing Notes Of    Various Lengths, From The   Multiplication Of    Keys,

From The   Use Of    Accidentals, From Varieties Of    Time, And So Forth, It

Needs But To Contrast Music As It Is, With Music As It Was, To See How

Immense Is The   Increase Of    Heterogeneity. We See This If, Looking At

Music In Its _Ensemble_, We Enumerate Its Many Different Genera And

Species--If We Consider The   Divisions Into Vocal, Instrumental, And

Mixed; And Their Subdivisions Into Music For Different Voices And

Different Instruments--If We Observe The   Many Forms Of    Sacred Music,

From The   Simple Hymn, The   Chant, The   Canon, Motet, Anthem, Etc., Up To

The Oratorio; And The   Still More Numerous Forms Of    Secular Music, From

The Ballad Up To The   Serenata, From The   Instrumental Solo Up To The

Symphony.

Again, The   Same Truth Is Seen On Comparing Any One Sample Of    Aboriginal

Music With A Sample Of    Modern Music--Even An Ordinary Song For The

Piano; Which We Find To Be Relatively Highly Heterogeneous, Not Only In

Respect Of    The   Varieties In The   Pitch And In The   Length Of    The   Notes,

The Number Of    Different Notes Sounding At The   Same Instant In Company

With The   Voice, And The   Variations Of    Strength With Which They Are

Sounded And Sung, But In Respect Of    The   Changes Of    Key, The   Changes Of

Time, The   Changes Of    _Timbre_ Of    The   Voice, And The   Many Other

Modifications Of    Expression. While Between The   Old Monotonous

Dance-Chant And A Grand Opera Of    Our Own Day, With Its Endless

Orchestral Complexities And Vocal Combinations, The   Contrast In

Heterogeneity Is So Extreme That It Seems Scarcely Credible That The   One

Should Have Been The   Ancestor Of    The   Other.

Were They Needed, Many Further Illustrations Might Be Cited. Going Back

To The   Early Time When The   Deeds Of    The   God-King, Chanted And

Mimetically Represented In Dances Round His Altar, Were Further Narrated

In Picture-Writings On The   Walls Of    Temples And Palaces, And So

Constituted A Rude Literature, We Might Trace The   Development Of

Literature Through Phases In Which, As In The   Hebrew Scriptures, It

Presents In One Work Theology, Cosmogony, History, Biography, Civil Law,

Ethics, Poetry; Through Other Phases In Which, As In The   Iliad, The

Religious, Martial, Historical, The   Epic, Dramatic, And Lyric Elements

Are Similarly Commingled; Down To Its Present Heterogeneous Development,

In Which Its Divisions And Subdivisions Are So Numerous And Varied As To

Defy Complete Classification. Or We Might Trace Out The   Evolution Of

Science; Beginning With The   Era In Which It Was Not Yet Differentiated

From Art, And Was, In Union With Art, The   Handmaid Of    Religion; Passing

Through The   Era In Which The   Sciences Were So Few And Rudimentary, As To

Be Simultaneously Cultivated By The   Same Philosophers; And Ending With

The Era In Which The   Genera And Species Are So Numerous That Few Can

Enumerate Them, And No One Can Adequately Grasp Even One Genus. Or We

Might Do The   Like With Architecture, With The   Drama, With Dress.

But Doubtless The   Reader Is Already Weary Of    Illustrations; And Our

Promise Has Been Amply Fulfilled. We Believe We Have Shown Beyond

Question, That That Which The   German Physiologists Have Found To Be The

Law Of    Organic Development, Is The   Law Of    All Development. The   Advance

From The   Simple To The   Complex, Through A Process Of    Successive

Differentiations, Is Seen Alike In The   Earliest Changes Of    The   Universe

To Which We Can Reason Our Way Back; And In The   Earliest Changes Which

We Can Inductively Establish; It Is Seen In The   Geologic And Climatic

Evolution Of    The   Earth, And Of    Every Single Organism On Its Surface; It

Is Seen In The   Evolution Of    Humanity, Whether Contemplated In The

Civilised Individual, Or In The   Aggregation Of    Races; It Is Seen In The

Evolution Of    Society In Respect Alike Of    Its Political, Its Religious,

And Its Economical Organisation; And It Is Seen In The   Evolution Of    All

Those Endless Concrete And Abstract Products Of    Human Activity Which

Constitute The   Environment Of    Our Daily Life. From The   Remotest Past

Which Science Can Fathom, Up To The   Novelties Of    Yesterday, That In

Which Progress Essentially Consists, Is The   Transformation Of    The

Homogeneous Into The   Heterogeneous.

And Now, From This Uniformity Of    Procedure, May We Not Infer Some

Fundamental Necessity Whence It Results? May We Not Rationally Seek For

Some All-Pervading Principle Which Determines This All-Pervading Process

Of Things? Does Not The   Universality Of    The   _Law_ Imply A Universal

_Cause_?

That We Can Fathom Such Cause, Noumenally Considered, Is Not To Be

Supposed. To Do This Would Be To Solve That Ultimate Mystery Which Must

Ever Transcend Human Intelligence. But It Still May Be Possible For Us

To Reduce The   Law Of    All Progress, Above Established, From The   Condition

Of An Empirical Generalisation, To The   Condition Of    A Rational

Generalisation. Just As It Was Possible To Interpret Kepler's Laws As

Necessary Consequences Of    The   Law Of    Gravitation; So It May Be Possible

To Interpret This Law Of    Progress, In Its Multiform Manifestations, As

The Necessary Consequence Of    Some Similarly Universal Principle. As

Gravitation Was Assignable As The   _Cause_ Of    Each Of    The   Groups Of

Phenomena Which Kepler Formulated; So May Some Equally Simple Attribute

Of Things Be Assignable As The   Cause Of    Each Of    The   Groups Of    Phenomena

Formulated In The   Foregoing Pages. We May Be Able To Affiliate All These

Varied And Complex Evolutions Of    The   Homogeneous Into The   Heterogeneous,

Upon Certain Simple Facts Of    Immediate Experience, Which, In Virtue Of

Endless Repetition, We Regard As Necessary.

The Probability Of    A Common Cause, And The   Possibility Of    Formulating

It, Being Granted, It Will Be Well, Before Going Further, To Consider

What Must Be The   General Characteristics Of    Such Cause, And In What

Direction We Ought To Look For It. We Can With Certainty Predict That It

Has A High Degree Of    Generality; Seeing That It Is Common To Such

Infinitely Varied Phenomena: Just In Proportion To The   Universality Of

Its Application Must Be The   Abstractness Of    Its Character. We Need Not

Expect To See In It An Obvious Solution Of    This Or That Form Of

Progress; Because It Equally Refers To Forms Of    Progress Bearing Little

Apparent Resemblance To Them: Its Association With Multiform Orders Of

Facts, Involves Its Dissociation From Any Particular Order Of    Facts.

Being That Which Determines Progress Of    Every Kind--Astronomic,

Geologic, Organic, Ethnologic, Social, Economic, Artistic, Etc.--It Must

Be Concerned With Some Fundamental Attribute Possessed In Common By

These; And Must Be Expressible In Terms Of    This Fundamental Attribute.

The Only Obvious Respect In Which All Kinds Of    Progress Are Alike, Is,

That They Are Modes Of    _Change_; And Hence, In Some Characteristic Of

Changes In General, The   Desired Solution Will Probably Be Found. We May

Suspect _À Priori_ That In Some Law Of    Change Lies The   Explanation Of

This Universal Transformation Of    The   Homogeneous Into The   Heterogeneous.

Thus Much Premised, We Pass At Once To The   Statement Of    The   Law, Which

Is This:--_Every Active Force Produces More Than One Change_--_Every

Cause Produces More Than One Effect_.

Before This Law Can Be Duly Comprehended, A Few Examples Must Be Looked

At. When One Body Is Struck Against Another, That Which We Usually

Regard As The   Effect, Is A Change Of    Position Or Motion In One Or Both

Bodies. But A Moment's Thought Shows Us That This Is A Careless And Very

Incomplete View Of    The   Matter. Besides The   Visible Mechanical Result,

Sound Is Produced; Or, To Speak Accurately, A Vibration In One Or Both

Bodies, And In The   Surrounding Air: And Under Some Circumstances We Call

This The   Effect. Moreover, The   Air Has Not Only Been Made To Vibrate,

But Has Had Sundry Currents Caused In It By The   Transit Of    The   Bodies.

Further, There Is A Disarrangement Of    The   Particles Of    The   Two Bodies In

The Neighbourhood Of    Their Point Of    Collision; Amounting In Some Cases

To A Visible Condensation. Yet More, This Condensation Is Accompanied By

The Disengagement Of    Heat. In Some Cases A Spark--That Is,

Light--Results, From The   Incandescence Of    A Portion Struck Off; And

Sometimes This Incandescence Is Associated With Chemical Combination.

Thus, By The   Original Mechanical Force Expended In The   Collision, At

Least Five, And Often More, Different Kinds Of    Changes Have Been

Produced. Take, Again, The   Lighting Of    A Candle. Primarily This Is A

Chemical Change Consequent On A Rise Of    Temperature. The   Process Of

Combination Having Once Been Set Going By Extraneous Heat, There Is A

Continued Formation Of    Carbonic Acid, Water, Etc.--In Itself A Result

More Complex Than The   Extraneous Heat That First Caused It. But

Accompanying This Process Of    Combination There Is A Production Of    Heat;

There Is A Production