suppositions might be comprehended the power and
significance of music which must otherwise remain a mystery. The
progress of musical culture, he thought, could not be too much applauded
as a noble means of ministering to human welfare. Mr. Spencer's theory
has of late led to much controversy. Its author has been censured for
setting forth no explanation of the place of harmony in modern music,
and for not realizing what a musical composition is. In his last volume,
"Facts and Comments," which contains many valuable thoughts not
previously published, he declares that his critics have obviously
confounded the origin of a thing and that which originates from it.
"Here we have a striking example of the way in which an hypothesis is
made to appear untenable by representing it as being something which it
does not profess to be," he says. "I gave an account of the origin of
music, and now I am blamed because my conception of the origin of music
does not include a conception of music as fully developed. If to some
one who said that an oak comes from an acorn it were replied that he had
manifestly never seen an oak, since an acorn contains no trace of all
its complexities of form and structure, the reply would not be thought a
rational one;" but he believes it would be quite as rational as to
suppose he had not realized what a musical composition is because his
theory of the origin of music says nothing about the characteristics of
an overture or a quartet.

Of the music of primeval man we can form an estimate from the music of
still existing uncivilized races. As the vocabulary of their speech is
limited, so the notes of their music are few, but expressive gestures
and modulations of the voice supplement both. With advancing
civilization the emotions of which the human heart are capable become
more complex and demand larger means of expression. Some belief in the
healing, helpful, uplifting power of music has always prevailed. It
remains for independent, practical, modern man to present the art to the
world as a thing of law and order, whose ineffable beauty and
beneficence may reach the lives of the average man and woman.

Without the growth of the individual, music cannot grow; without freedom
of thought, neither the language of tones nor that of words can gain
full, free utterance. Freedom is essential to the life of the indwelling
spirit. Wherever the flow of thought and fancy is impeded, or the
energies of the individua