ly; the song can awaken emotion only inasmuch as
it yet partakes of the nature of the brute cry or rude imitation. Thus,
while language owes its emotional effects to the ideas arbitrarily
connected with it, music owes its power over the heart to its sensuous
elements as given by nature. But music exists as an art, that is to say,
as an elaboration of the human mind, only inasmuch as those sensuous
brute elements are held in check and measure, are made the slaves of an
intellectual conception. The very first step in the formation of the art
is the subjection of the emotional cry or the spontaneous imitation to
a process of acoustic mensuration, by which the irregular sound becomes
the regular, definite _note_; the second step is the subjection of this
already artificial sound to mensuration of time, by which it is made
rhythmical; the third step is the subjection of this rhythmical sound to
a comparative mensuration with other sounds, by which we obtain harmony;
the last step is adjustment of this artificially obtained note and
rhythm and harmony into that symmetrical and intellectually appreciable
form which constitutes the work of art, for art begins only where the
physical elements are subjected to an intellectual process, and it
exists completely only where they abdicate their independence and become
subservient to an intellectual design.

Music is made up of two elements: the intellectual and the sensuous on
the one hand, of that which is conceived by the mind and perceived by
the mind (for our ears perceive only the separate constituent sounds of
a tune, but not the tune itself); on the other hand, of that which is
produced by the merely physical and appreciated by the merely physical,
by the nerves of hearing, through which it may, but only indirectly,
affect the mind. Now if, from an artistic point of view, we must protest
against any degradation of the merely sensuous part, it is because such
a degradation would involve a corresponding one in the intellectual
part, because the physical basis must be intact and solid before we can
build on it an intellectual structure, because the physical element
through which mentality is perceived must be perfect in order that the
mental manifestation be equally so; but the physical must always remain
a mere basis, a mere vehicle for the mental. The enjoyment obtainable
from the purely physical part may indeed be very great and very
valuable, but it is a mere physical enjoyment