i. p. 27. On the cooing
of pigeons, vol. i. pp. 154, 155.
[2] `Essays, Scientific, Political, and Speculative,' 1858.
`The Origin and Function of Music,' p. 359.
This remark holds good, whether we believe that the various
qualities of the voice originated in speaking under the excitement
of strong feelings, and that these qualities have subsequently been
transferred to vocal music; or whether we believe, as I maintain,
that the habit of uttering musical sounds was first developed,
as a means of courtship, in the early progenitors of man,
and thus became associated with the strongest emotions of which
they were capable,--namely, ardent love, rivalry and triumph.
That animals utter musical notes is familiar to every one, as we
may daily hear in the singing of birds. It is a more remarkable
fact that an ape, one of the Gibbons, produces an exact octave
of musical sounds, ascending and descending the scale by halftones;
so that this monkey "alone of brute mammals may be said to
sing."[3] From this fact, and from the analogy of other animals,
I have been led to infer that the progenitors of man probably
uttered musical tones, before they had acquired the power
of articulate speech; and that consequently, when the voice
is used under any strong emotion, it tends to assume,
through the principle of association, a musical character.
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