destined one day to sound," wrote Mazzini. Literature is rich in noble
definitions of the divine art.

From a matter of fact standpoint music consists of a vast concourse of
tones which are its raw materials and bear within themselves the
possibility of being moulded into form. Utterances and actions
illustrating these raw materials are common to all living creatures. A
dog, reiterating short barks of joy, or giving vent to prolonged howls
of distress, is actuated by an impulse similar to that of the human
infant as it uplifts its voice to express its small emotions. The sounds
uttered by primeval man as the direct expression of his emotions were
unquestionably of a like nature.

The tendency to manifest feeling by means of sound is universally
admitted, and sound, freighted with feeling, is peculiarly exciting to
human beings. The agitations of a mob may be increased by the emotional
tones of its prime movers, and we all know that the power of an orator
depends more on his skill in handling his voice than on what he says.

A craving for sympathy exists in all animate beings. It is strong in
mankind and becomes peculiarly intense in the type known as artistic.
The fulness of his own emotions compels the musician to utterance. To
strike a sympathetic chord in other sensitive breasts it becomes
necessary to devise forms of expression that may be unmistakably
intelligible.

Out of such elements the tone-language has grown, precisely as the
word-language grew out of men's early attempts to communicate facts to
one another. Its story records a slow, painstaking building up of
principles to control its raw materials; for music, as we understand it,