on the other; on one side materialism, on the other idealism.

We have traced the origin of the drum, pipe, and the voice in
music. It still remains for us to speak of the lyre and the
lute, the ancestors of our modern stringed instruments. The
relative antiquity of the lyre and the lute as compared with
the harp has been much discussed, the main contention against
the lyre being that it is a more artificial instrument than
the harp; the harp was played with the fingers alone, while the
lyre was played with a plectrum (a small piece of metal, wood,
or ivory). Perhaps it would be safer to take the lute as the
earliest form of the stringed instrument, for, from the very
first, we find two species of instruments with strings, one
played with the fingers, the prototype of our modern harps,
banjos, guitars, etc., the other played with the plectrum,
the ancestor of all our modern stringed instruments played by
means of bows and hammers, such as violins, pianos, etc.

However this may be, one thing is certain, the possession of
these instruments implies already a considerable measure of
culture, for they were not haphazard things. They were made for
a purpose, were invented to fill a gap in the ever-increasing
needs of expression. In Homer we find a description of the
making of a lyre by Hermes, how this making of a lyre from the
shell of a tortoise that happened to pass before the entrance to
the grotto of his mother, Maïa, was his first exploit; and that
he made it to accompany his song in praise of his father Zeus.
We must accept this explanation of the origin of the lyre,
namely, that it was deliberately invented to accompany the
voice. For the lyre in its primitive state was never a solo