The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) π
The Egyptians were islanders, cut off from the rest of the world by sand and sea. They were rooted in their valley; they lived entirely upon its fruits, and happily these fruits sometimes failed. Had they always been able to obtain enough to eat, they would have remained always in the semi-savage state.
It may appear strange that Egypt should have suffered from famine, for there was no country in the ancient world where food was so abundant and so cheap. Not only did the land produce enormous crops of corn; the ditches and hollows which were filled by the overflowing Nile supplied a harvest of wholesome and nourishing aquatic plants, and on the borders of the des
Read free book Β«The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) πΒ» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Winwood Reade
- Performer: -
Read book online Β«The Martyrdom of Man by Winwood Reade (mini ebook reader .TXT) πΒ». Author - Winwood Reade
the demeanour of those with whom they live. This instinct, when
adroitly managed, is a means of education; it is, in fact, the
first principle of progress. The Red Indians are not imitative,
and they have now nearly been destroyed; the negroes imitate
like monkeys, and what is the result? They are preachers,
traders, clerks, and artisans, all over the world, and there is
no reason to suppose that they will remain always in the
imitative stage. With respect to individuals it is the same.
Paradoxical as it may appear, it is only the imitative mind
which can attain originality, the artist must learn to copy
before he can create. Mozart began by imitating Bach; Beethoven
began by copying Mozart. Molière mimicked the Greek dramatists
before he learnt to draw from the world. The many-sided
character of Goetheβs mind, which has made him a marvel among
men, was based upon his imitative instincts; it has been said
that he was like a chameleon, taking the hue of the ground on
which he fed. What, in fact, is emulation but a noble form of
imitativeness? Michaelangelo saw a man modelling in clay in
the garden of Lorenzo, and was seized with the desire to become
a sculptor; and most men who have chosen their own vocation
could trace its origin in the same way to some imitative
impulse.
Among the primeval men this instinct, together with wonder and
the taste for beauty, explains the origin of art: The tendency
to reproduce with the hand whatever pleases and astonishes the
mind, undoubtedly begins at an early period in the history of
man; pictures were drawn in the period of the mammoth; I once
saw a boy from a wild bush tribe look at a ship with
astonishment and then draw it on the sand with a stick. It
frequently happens in savage life, that a man is seized with a
passion for representing objects, and such a Giotto is always
invited, and perhaps, paid, to decorate walls and doors. With
this wall-painting the fine arts began. Next the outlines were
engraved with a knife, making a figure in relief. Next came a
statue with the back adhering to the wall, and lastly the
sculptured figure was entirely detached. In the same manner
painting was also separated from the wall; and mural painting
was developed into another form of art. By means of a series of
pictures a story was told; the picture-writing was converted
into hieroglyphics, and thence into a system of alphabetical
signs. Thus the statue, the picture, and the book are all
descended from such figures as those which savages scrawl with
charcoal on their hut walls, and which seldom bear much
resemblance to the thing portrayed. The genius of art and the
genius of science are developed by means of priesthoods and
religion but when a certain point has been attained, they must
be divorced from religion, or they will cease to progress.
And now, finally, with respect to music. There is a science of
music; but music is not a science. Nor is it an imitative art.
It is a language.
Words at first were rather sung than spoken, and sentences were
rhythmical. The conversation of the primeval men was conducted
in verse and song; at a later period they invented prose; they
used a method of speech which was less pleasing to the ear, but
better suited for the communication of ideas. Poetry and music
ceased to be speech, and became an art, as pantomime, which
once was a part of speech, is now an art exhibited upon the
stage. Poetry and music at first were one; the bard was a
minstrel, the minstrel was a bard. The same man was composer,
poet, vocalist, and instrumentalist, and instrument-maker. He
wrote the music and the air; as he sang he accompanied himself
upon the harp, and he also made the harp. When writing came
into vogue the arts of the poet and the musician were divided,
and music again was divided into the vocal and the
instrumental, and finally instrument-making became a distinct
occupation, to which fact may partly he ascribed the
superiority of modern music to that of ancient times.
The human language of speech bears the same relation to the
human language of song as the varied bark of the civilised dog
to its sonorous howl. There seems little in common between the
lady who sings at the piano and the dog who chimes in with jaws
opened and nose upraised; yet each is making use of the
primitive language of its race the wild dog can only howl, the
wild woman can only sing.
Gestures with us are still used as ornaments of speech, and
some savage languages are yet in so imperfect a condition that
gestures are requisite to elucidate the words. Gestures are
relics of the primeval language, and so are musical sounds.
With the dog of the savage there is much howl in its bark: its
voice is in a transitional condition. The peasants of all
countries sing in their talk, and savages resemble the people
in the opera. Their conversation is of a βlibrettoβ character;
it glitters with hyperbole and metaphor, and they frequently
speak in recitative, chanting or intoning, and ending every
sentence in a musically sounded O! Often also in the midst of
conversation, if a man happens to become excited, he will sing
instead of speaking what he has to say; the other also replies
in song, while the company around, as if touched by a musical
wave, murmur a chorus in perfect unison, clapping their hands,
undulating their bodies, and perhaps breaking forth into a
dance.
Just as the articulate or conventional speech has been
developed into rich and varied tongues, by means of which
abstract ideas and delicate emotions can be expressed in
appropriate terms, so the inarticulate or musical speech, the
true, the primitive language of our race, has been developed
with the aid of instruments into a rich and varied language of
sound in which poems can be composed. When we listen to the
sublime and mournful sonatas of Beethoven, when we listen to
the tender melodies of Bellini, we fall into a trance; the
brain burns and swells; its doors fly open; the mind sweeps
forth into an unknown world where all is dim, dusky,
unutterably vast; gigantic ideas pass before us; we attempt to
seize them, to make them our own, but they vanish like shadows
in our arms. And then, as the music becomes soft and low, the
mind returns and nestles to the heart; the senses are steeped
in languor; the eyes fill with tears; the memories of the past
take form; and a voluptuous sadness permeates the soul, sweet
as the sorrow of romantic youth when the real bitterness of
life was yet unknown.
What, then, is the secret of this power in music? And why
should certain sounds from wood and wire thus touch our very
heart strings to their tune? It is the voice of Nature which
the great composers combine into harmony and melody; let us
follow it downwards and downwards in her deep bosom, and there
we discover music, the speech of passion, of sentiment, of
emotion, and of love; there we discover the divine language in
its elements; the sigh, the gasp, the melancholy moan, the
plaintive note of supplication, the caressing murmur of
maternal love, the cry of challenge or of triumph, the song of
the lover as he serenades his mate.
The spirit of science arises from the habit of seeking food;
the spirit of art arises from the habit of imitation, by which
the young animal first learns to feed; the spirit of music
arises from primeval speech, by means of which males and
females are attracted to each other. But the true origin of
these instincts cannot be ascertained: it is impossible to
account for primary phenomena. There are some who appear to
suppose that this world is a stage-play, and that if we pry
into it too far, we shall discover ropes and pulleys behind the
scenes, and that so agreeable illusions will be spoiled. But
the great masters of modern science are precisely those whom
Nature inspires with most reverence and awe. For as their minds
are wafted by their wisdom into untravelled worlds, they find
new fields of knowledge expanding to the view; the firmament
ever expands, the abyss deepens, the horizon recedes. The
proximate Why may be discovered; the ultimate Why is
unrevealed. Let us take, for instance, a single law. A slight
change invigorates the animal; and so the offspring of the pair
survive the offspring of the single individual. Hence the
separation of the sexes, desire, affection, family love,
combination, gregariousness, clan-love, the Golden Rule,
nationality, patriotism, and the religion of humanity, with all
those complex sentiments and emotions which arise from the fact
that one animal is dependent on another for the completion of
its wants. But why should a slight change invigorate the
animal? And if that question could be answered; we should find
another why behind.
Even when science shall be so far advanced that all the
faculties and feelings of men will be traced with the
precision of a mathematical demonstration to their latent
condition in the fiery cloud of the beginning, the luminous
haze, the nebula of the sublime Laplace: even then the origin
and purpose of creation, the How and the Why, will remain
unsolved. Give me the elementary atoms, the philosopher will
exclaim; give me the primeval gas and the law of gravitation,
and I will show you how man was evolved, body and soul, just as
easily as I can explain the egg being hatched into a chick.
But, then, where did the egg come from? Who made the atoms and
endowed them with the impulse of attraction? Why was it so
ordered that reason should be born of refrigeration, and that a
piece of white-hot star should cool into a habitable world, and
then be sunned into an intellectual salon, as the earth will
some day be? All that we are doing, and all that we can do, is
to investigate secondary laws; but from these investigations
will proceed discoveries by which human nature will be
elevated, purified, and finally transformed.
The ideas and sentiments, the faculties and the emotions,
should be divided into two classes; those which we have in
common with the lower animals, and which therefore we have
derived from them; and those which have been acquired in the
human state. Filial, parental, and conjugal affection, fellow-feeling and devotion to the welfare of the community, are
virtues which exist in every gregarious association. These
qualities, therefore, were possessed by the progenitors of man
before the development of language, before the separation of
the foot and the hand. Reproduction was once a part of growth:
animals, therefore, desire to perpetuate their species from a
natural and innate tendency inherited from their hermaphrodite
and animalcule days. But owing to the separation of the sexes,
this instinct cannot be appeased except by means of co-operation. In order that off spring may be produced, two
animals must enter into partnership; and in order that
offspring may be reared, this partnership must be continued for a
considerable time. All living creatures of the higher grade are
memorials of conjugal affection and parental care; they are
born with a tendency to love, for it is owing to love that they
exist. Those animals that are deficient in conjugal desire or
parental love produce or bring up no offspring, and are blotted
out of the book of Nature. That parents and children should
consort together is natural enough; and the family is
multiplied into the herd. At first the sympathy by which the
herd is united is founded only on the pleasures of
Comments (0)