Thus we find that the negative evidence confirms the positive, and that, taken together, they furnish strong proof.  We have seen that there is a physiological relation, common to man and all animals, between feeling and muscular action; that as vocal sounds are produced by muscular action, there is a consequent physiological relation between feeling and vocal sounds; that all the modifications of voice expressive of feeling are the direct results of this physiological relation; that music, adopting all these modifications, intensifies them more and more as it ascends to its higher and higher forms, and becomes music simply in virtue of thus intensifying them; that, from the ancient epic poet chanting his verses, down to the modern musical composer, men of unusually strong feelings prone to express them in extreme forms, have been naturally the agents of these successive intensifications; and that so there has little by little arisen a wide divergence between this idealised language of emotion and its natural language:  to which direct evidence we have just added the indirect—­that on no other tenable hypothesis can either the expressiveness or the genesis of music be explained.

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And now, what is the function of music?  Has music any effect beyond the immediate pleasure it produces?  Analogy suggests that it has.  The enjoyments of a good dinner do not end with themselves, but minister to bodily well-being.  Though people do not marry with a view to maintain the race, yet the passions which impel them to marry secure its maintenance.  Parental affection is a feeling which, while it conduces to parental happiness, ensures the nurture of offspring.  Men love to accumulate property, often without thought of the benefits it produces; but in pursuing the pleasure of acquisition they indirectly open the way to other pleasures.  The wish for public approval impels all of us to do many things which we should otherwise not do,—­to undertake great labours, face great dangers, and habitually rule ourselves in a way that smooths social intercourse:  that is, in gratifying our love of approbation we subserve divers ulterior purposes.  And, generally, our nature is such that in fulfilling each desire, we in some way facilitate the fulfilment of the rest.  But the love of music seems to exist for its own sake.  The delights of melody and harmony do not obviously minister to the welfare either of the individual or of society.  May we not suspect, however, that this exception is apparent only?  Is it not a rational inquiry—­What are the indirect benefits which accrue from music, in addition to the direct pleasure it gives?

But that it would take us too far out of our track, we should prelude this inquiry by illustrating at some length a certain general law of progress;—­the law that alike in occupations, sciences, arts, the divisions that had a common root, but by continual divergence have become distinct, and are now being separately developed, are not truly independent, but severally act and react on each other to their mutual advancement.  Merely hinting thus much, however, by way of showing that there are many analogies to justify us, we go on to express the opinion that there exists a relationship of this kind between music and speech.