figure to figure, we are indulging in intellectual exercise. If this
be a condition precedent to the enjoyment of a picture (and it plainly
is), how much more so is it in the case of music, which is intangible
and evanescent, which cannot pause a moment for our contemplation
without ceasing to be?

[Sidenote: _Comparison with a model not possible._]

There is another reason why we must exercise intelligence in
listening, to which I have already alluded in the first chapter. Our
appreciation of beauty in the plastic arts is helped by the
circumstance that the critical activity is largely a matter of
comparison. Is the picture or the statue a good copy of the object
sought to be represented? Such comparison fails us utterly in music,
which copies nothing that is tangibly present in the external world.

[Sidenote: _What degree of knowledge is necessary?_]

[Sidenote: _The Elements._]

[Sidenote: _Value of memory._]

It is then necessary to associate the intellect with sense perception
in listening to music. How far is it essential that the intellectual
process shall go? This book being for the untrained, the question
might be put thus: With how little knowledge of the science can an
intelligent listener get along? We are concerned only with his
enjoyment of music or, better, with an effort to increase it without
asking him to become a musician. If he is fond of the art it is more
than likely that the capacity to discriminate sufficiently to