elsewhere in these "Studies"[71] recorded the case of a lady, entirely
normal in sexual and other respects, who is conscious of a considerable
degree of pleasurable sexual excitement in the presence of the smell of
leather objects, more especially of leather-bound ledgers and in shops
where leather objects are sold. She thinks this dates from the period
when, as a child of 9, she was sometimes left alone for a time on a high
stool in an office. A possible explanation in this case lies in the
supposition that on one of these early occasions sexual excitement was
produced by the contact with the stool (in a way that is not infrequent in
young girls) and that the accidentally associated odor of leather
permanently affected the nervous system, while the really significant
contact left no permanent impression. Even on such a supposition it might,
however, still be maintained that a real potency of the leather odor is
illustrated by this case, and this is likewise suggested by the fact that
the same subject is also sexually affected by various perfumes and odorous
flowers not recalling leather.[70]

It has been suggested to me by a lady that the odor of leather suggests
that of the sexual organs. The same suggestion is made by Hagen,[72] and I
find it stated by Gould and Pyle that menstruating girls sometimes smell
of leather. The secret of its influence may thus be not altogether
obscure; in the fact that leather is animal skin, and that it may thus
vaguely stir the olfactory sensibilities which had been ancestrally
affected by the sexual stimulus of the skin odor lies the probable
foundation of the mystery.

In the absence of all suggestion of personal or animal odors, in its most
exquisite forms in the fragrance of flowers, olfactory sensations are
still very frequently of a voluptuous character. Mantegazza has remarked
that it is a proof of the close connection between the sense of smell and
the sexual organs that the expression of pleasure produced by olfaction
resembles the expression of sexual pleasures.[73] Make the chastest woman
smell the flowers she likes best, he remarks, and she will close her eyes,
breathe deeply, and, if very sensitive, tremble all over, presenting an
intimate picture which otherwise she never shows, except perhaps to her
lover. He mentions a lady who said: "I sometimes feel such pleasure in
smelling flowers that I seem to be committing a sin."[74] It is really the
case that in many persons--usually, if not exclusively, women--the odor of
flowers produces not only a highly pleasurable, but a distinctly and
specifically sexual, effect. I have met with numerous cases in which this
effect was well marked. It is usually white flowers with heavy,
penetrating odors which exert this influence. Thus, one lady (who is
similarly affected by various perfumes, forget-me-nots, ylang-ylang,
etc.) finds that a number of flowers produce on her a definite sexual
effect, with moistening of the pudenda. This effect is especially produced
by white flowers like the gardenia, tuberose, etc. Another lady, who lives
in India, has a similar experience with flowers. She writes: A scent to
cause me sexual excitement must be somewhat heavy and _penetrating_.
Nearly all white flowers so affect me and many Indian flowers with heavy,
almost pungent scents. (All the flower scents are quite unconnected with
me with any individual.) Tuberose, lilies of the valley, and frangipani
flowers have an almost intoxicating effect on me. Violets, roses,
mignonette, and many others, though very delicious, give me no sexual
feeling at all. For this reason the line, 'The lilies and languors of
virtue for the roses and raptures of vice' seems all wrong to me. The lily
seems to me a very sensual flower, while the rose and its scent seem very
good and countrified and virtuous. Shelley's description of the lily of
the valley, 'whom youth makes so fair and _passion_ so pale,' falls in
much more with my ideas. "I can quite understand," she adds, "that
leather, especially of books, might have an exciting effect, as the smell
has this _penetrating_ quality, but I do not think it produces any special
feeling in me." This more sensuous character of white flowers is fairly
obvious to many persons who do not experience from them any specifically
sexual effects. To some people lilies have an odor which they describe as
sexual, although these persons may be quite unaware that Hindu authors
long since described the vulvar secretion of the _Padmini_, or perfect
woman, during coitus, as "perfumed like the lily that has newly
burst."[75] It is noteworthy that it was more especially the white
flowers--lily, tuberose, etc.--which were long ago noted by Cloquet as
liable to cause various unpleasant nervous effects, cardiac oppression and
syncope.[76]

When we are concerned with the fragrances of flowers it would seem that we
are far removed from the human sexual field, and that their sexual effects
are inexplicable. It is not so. The animal and vegetable odors, as,
indeed, we have already seen, are very closely connected. The recorded
cases are very numerous in which human persons have exhaled from their
skins--sometimes in a very pronounced degree--the odors of plants and
flowers, of violets, of roses, of pineapple, of vanilla. On the other
hand, there are various plant odors which distinctly recall, not merely
the general odor of the human body, but even the specifically sexual
odors. A rare garden weed, the stinking goosefoot, _Chenopodium vulvaria_,
it is well known, possesses a herring brine or putrid fish odor--due, it
appears, to propylamin, which is also found in the flowers of the common
white thorn or mayflower (_Cratægus oxyacantha_) and many others of the
_Rosaceæ_--which recalls the odor of the animal and human sexual
regions.[77] The reason is that both plant and animal odors belong
chemically to the same group of capryl odors (Linnæus's _Odores hircini_),
so called from the goat, the most important group of odors from the sexual
point of view. Caproic and capryl acid are contained not only in the odor
of the goat and in human sweat, and in animal products as many cheeses,
but also in various plants, such as Herb Robert (_Geranium robertianum_),
and the Stinking St. John's worts (_Hypericum hircinum_), as well as the
_Chenopodium_. Zwaardemaker considers it probable that the odor of the
vagina belongs to the same group, as well as the odor of semen (which
Haller called _odor aphrodisiacus_), which last odor is also found, as
Cloquet pointed out, in the flowers of the common berberry (_Berberis
vulgaris_) and in the chestnut. A very remarkable and significant example
of the same odor seems to occur in the case of the flowers of the henna
plant, the white-flowered Lawsonia (_Lawsonia inermis_), so widely used in
some Mohammedan lands for dyeing the nails and other parts of the body.
"These flowers diffuse the sweetest odor," wrote Sonnini in Egypt a
century ago; "the women delight to wear them, to adorn their houses with
them, to carry them to the baths, to hold them in their hands, and to
perfume their bosoms with them. They cannot patiently endure that
Christian and Jewish women shall share the privilege with them. It is very
remarkable that the perfume of the henna flowers, when closely inhaled, is
almost entirely lost in a very decided spermatic odor. If the flowers are
crushed between the fingers this odor prevails, and is, indeed, the only
one perceptible. It is not surprising that so delicious a flower has
furnished Oriental poetry with many charming traits and amorous similes."
Such a simile Sonnini finds in the _Song of Songs_, i. 13-14.[78]

The odor of semen has not been investigated, but, according to
Zwaardemaker, artificially produced odors (like cadaverin) resemble it.
The odor of the leguminous fenugreek, a botanical friend considers,
closely approaches the odor given off in some cases by the armpit in
women. It is noteworthy that fenugreek contains cumarine, which imparts
its fragrance to new-mown hay and to various flowers of somewhat similar
odor. On some persons these have a sexually exciting effect, and it is of
considerable interest to observe that they recall to many the odor of
semen. "It seems very natural," a lady writes, "that flowers, etc., should
have an exciting effect, as the original and by far the pleasantest way of
love-making was in the open among flowers and fields; but a more purely
physical reason may, I think, be found in the exact resemblance between
the scent of semen and that of the pollen of flowering grasses. The first
time I became aware of this resemblance it came on me with a rush that
here was the explanation of the very exciting effect of a field of
flowering grasses and, perhaps through them, of the scents of other
flowers. If I am right, I suppose flower scents should affect women more
powerfully than men in a sexual way. I do not think anyone would be likely
to notice the odor of semen in this connection unless they had been
greatly struck by the exciting effects of the pollen of grasses. I had
often noticed it and puzzled over it." As pollen is the male sexual
element of flowers, its occasionally stimulating effect in this direction
is perhaps but an accidental result of a unity running through the organic
world, though it may be perhaps more simply explained as a special form of
that nasal irritation which is felt by so many persons in a hay-field.
Another correspondent, this time a man, tells me that he has noted the
resemblance of the odor of semen to that of crushed grasses. A scientific
friend who has done much work in the field of organic chemistry tells me
he associates the odor of semen with that produced by diastasic action on
mixing flour and water, which he regards as sexual in character. This
again brings us to the starchy products of the leguminous plants. It is
evident that, subtle and obscure as many questions in the physiology and
psychology of olfaction still remain, we cannot easily escape from their
sexual associations.


FOOTNOTES:

[53] H. Beauregard, _Matière Médicale Zoölogique: Histoire des Drogues
d'origine Animate_, 1901.

[54] Professor Plateau, of Ghent, has for many years carried on a series
of experiments which would even tend to show that insects are scarcely
attracted by the colors of flowers at all, but mainly influenced by a
sense which would appear to be smell. His experiments have been recorded
during recent years (from 1887) in the _Bulletins de l'Académie Royale de
Belgique_, and have from time to time been summarized in _Nature_, e.g.,
February 5, 1903.

[55] David Sharp, _Cambridge Natural History: Insects_, Part II, p. 398.

[56] Mantegazza, _Fisiologia dell' Amore_, 1873, p. 176.

[57] Mantegazza (_L'Amour dans l'Humanité_, p. 94) refers to various
peoples who practice this last custom. Egypt was a great centre of the
practice more than 3000 years ago.

[58] Hagen, _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, 1901, p. 226. It has been suggested
to me by a medical correspondent that one of the primitive objects of the
hair, alike on head, mons veneris, and axilla, was to collect sweat and
heighten its odor to sexual ends.

[59] The names of all our chief perfumes are Arabic or Persian: civet,
musk, ambergris, attar, camphor, etc.

[60] Cloquet (_Osphrésiologie_, pp. 73-76) has an interesting passage on
the prevalence of the musk odor in animals, plants, and even mineral
substances.

[61] Laycock brings together various instances of the sexual odors of
animals, insisting on their musky character (_Nervous Diseases of Women_;
section, "Odors"). See also a section in the _Descent of Man_ (Part II,
Chapter XVIII), in which Darwin argues that "the most odoriferous males
are the most successful in winning the females." Distant also has an
interesting paper on this subject, "Biological Suggestions," _Zoölogist_,
May, 1902; he points out the significant fact that musky odors are usually
confined to the male, and argues that animal odors generally are more
often attractive than protective.

[62] R. Whytt, _Works_, 1768, p. 543.

[63] Lucretius, VI, 790-5.

[64] Mohammed, said Ayesha, was very fond of perfumes, especially "men's
scents," musk and ambergris. He used also to burn camphor on odoriferous
wood and enjoy the fragrant smell, while he never refused perfumes when
offered them as a present. The things he cared for most, said Ayesha, were
women, scents, and foods. Muir, _Life of Mahomet_, vol. iii, p. 297.

[65] H. ten Kate, _International Centralblatt für Anthropologie_, Ht. 6,
1902. This author, who made observations on Japanese with Zwaardemaker's
olfactometer, found that, contrary to an opinion sometimes stated, they
have a somewhat defective sense of smell. He remarks that there are no
really native Japanese perfumes.

[66] Moll: _Die Konträre Sexualempfindung_, third edition, 1890, p. 306.

[67] Moll: _Libido Sexualis_, bd. 1, p. 284.

[68] P. Näcke, "Un Cas de Fetichisme de Souliers," _Bulletin de la Société
de Médecine Mentale de Belgique_, 1894.

[69] _Psychopathia Sexualis_, English edition, p. 167.

[70] Philip Salmuth (_Observationes Medicæ_, Centuria II, no. 63) in the
seventeenth century recorded a case in which a young girl of noble birth
(whose sister was fond of eating chalk, cinnamon, and cloves) experienced
extreme pleasure in smelling old books. It would appear, however, that in
this case the fascination lay not so much in the odor of the leather as in
the mouldy odor of worm-eaten books; "_fætore veterum liborum, a blattis
et tineis exesorum, situque prorsus corruptorum_" are Salmuth's words.

[71] _Studies in the Psychology of Sex_, vol. iii, "Appendix B, History
VIII."

[72] _Sexuelle Osphrésiologie_, p. 106.

[73] Mantegazza, _Fisiologia dell' Amore_, p. 176.

[74] In this connection I may quote the remark of the writer of a
thoughtful article in the _Journal of Psychological Medicine_, 1851: "The
use of scents, especially those allied to the musky, is one of the
luxuries of women, and in some constitutions cannot be indulged without
some danger to the morals, by the excitement to the ovaria which results.
And although less potent as aphrodisiacs in their action on the sexual
system of women than of men, we have reason to think that they cannot be
used to excess with impunity by most."

[75] _Kama Sutra_ of Vatsyayana, 1883, p. 5.

[76] Cloquet, _Osphrésiologie_, p. 95.

[77] In Normandy the _Chenopodium_, it is said, is called "conio," and in
Italy erba connina (con, cunnus), on account of its vulvar odor. The
attraction of dogs to this plant has been noted. In the same way cats are
irresistibly attracted to preparations of valerian because their own urine
contains valerianic acid.

[78] Sonnini, _Voyage dans la Haute et Basse Egypte_, 1799, vol. i. p.
298.




V.

The Evil Effects of Excessive Olfactory Stimulation--The Symptoms of
Vanillism--The Occasional Dangerous Results of the Odors of
Flowers--Effects of Flowers on the Voice.


The reality of the olfactory influences with which we have been concerned,
however slight they may sometimes appear, is shown by the fact that odors,
both agreeable and disagreeable, are stimulants, obeying the laws which
hold good for stimulants generally. They whip up the nervous energies
momentarily, but in the end, if the excitation is excessive and prolonged,
they produce fatigue and exhaustion. This is clearly shown by Féré's
elaborate experiments on the influences of odors, as compared with other
sensory stimulants, on the amount of muscular work performed with the
ergograph.[79] Commenting on the remark of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, that
"man uses perfumes to impart energy to his passion," Féré remarks: "But
perfumes cannot keep up the fires which they light." Their prolonged use
involves fatigue, which is not different from that produced by excessive
work, and reproduces all the bodily and psychic accompaniments of
excessive work.[80] It is well known that workers in perfumes are apt to
suffer from the inhalation of the odors amid which they live. Dealers in
musk are said to be specially liable to precocious dementia. The symptoms
generally experienced by the men and women who work in vanilla factories
where the crude fruit is prepared for commerce have often been studied and
are well known. They are due to the inhalation of the scent, which has all
the properties of the aromatic aldehydes, and include skin eruptions,[81]
general excitement, sleeplessness, headache, excessive menstruation, and
irritable bladder. There is nearly always sexual excitement, which may be
very pronounced.[82]

We are here in the presence, it may be insisted, not of a nervous
influence only, but of a direct effect of odor on the vital processes. The
experiments of Tardif on the influence of perfumes on frogs and rabbits
showed that a poisonous effect was exerted;[83] while Féré, by incubating
fowls' eggs in the presence of musk, found repeatedly that many
abnormalities occurred, and that development was retarded even in the
embryos that remained normal; while he obtained somewhat similar results
by using essences of lavender, cloves, etc.[84] The influence of odors is
thus deeper than is indicated by their nervous effects; they act directly
on nutrition. We are led, as Passy remarks, to regard odors as very
intimately related to the physiological properties of organic substances,
and the sense of smell as a detached fragment of generally sensibility,
reacting to the same stimuli as general sensibility, but highly
specialized in view of its protective function.

The reality and subtlety of the influence of odors is further
shown, by the cases in which very intense effects are produced
even by the temporary inhalation of flowers or perfumes or other
odors. Such cases of idiosyncrasy in which a person--frequently
of somewhat neurotic temperament--becomes acutely sensitive to
some odor or odors have been recorded in medical literature for
many centuries. In these cases the obnoxious odor produces
congestion of the respiratory passages, sneezing, headache,
fainting, etc., but occasionally, it has been recorded, even
death. (Dr. J.N. Mackenzie, in his interesting and learned paper
on "The Production of the so-called 'Rose Cold,' etc.," _American
Journal of Medical Sciences_, January, 1886, quotes many cases,
and gives a number of references to ancient medical authors; see
also Layet, art. "Odeur," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des
Sciences Médicales_.)

An interesting phenomenon of the group--though it is almost too
common to be described as an idiosyncrasy--is the tendency of the
odor of certain flowers to affect the voice and sometimes even to
produce complete loss of voice. The mechanism of the process is
not fully understood, but it would appear that congestion and
paresis of the larynx is produced and spasm of the bronchial
tube. Botallus in 1565 recorded cases in which the scent of
flowers brought on difficulty of breathing, and the danger of
flowers from this point of view is well recognized by
professional singers. Joal has studied this question in an
elaborate paper (summarized in the _British Medical Journal_,
March 3, 1895), and Dr. Cabanès has brought together (_Figaro_,
January 20, 1894) the experiences of a number of well-known
singers, teachers of singing, and laryngologists. Thus, Madame
Renée Richard, of the Paris Opera, has frequently found that when
her pupils have arrived with a bunch of violets fastened to the
bodice or even with a violet and iris sachet beneath the corset,
the voice has been marked by weakness and, on using the
laryngoscope, she has found the vocal cords congested. Madame
Calvé confirmed this opinion, and stated that she was specially
sensitive to tuberose and mimosa, and that on one occasion a
bouquet of white lilac has caused her, for a time, complete loss
of voice. The flowers mentioned are equally dangerous to a number
of other singers; the most injurious flower of all is found to be
the violet. The rose is seldom mentioned, and artificial perfumes
are comparatively harmless, though some singers consider it
desirable to be cautious in using them.


FOOTNOTES:

[79] Féré, _Travail et Plaisir_, Chapter XIII.

[80] _Travail et Plaisir_, p. 175. It is doubtless true of the effects of
odors on the sexual sphere. Féré records the case of a neurasthenic lady
whose sexual coldness toward her husband only disappeared after the
abandonment of a perfume (in which heliotrope was apparently the chief
constituent) she had been accustomed to use in excessive amounts.

[81] It is perhaps significant that many colors are especially liable to
produce skin disorders, especially urticaria; a number of cases have been
recorded by Joal, _Journal de Médecine_, July 10, 1899.

[82] Layet, art. "Vanillisme," _Dictionnaire Encyclopédique des Sciences
Médicales_; cf. Audeoud, _Revue Médicale de la Suisse Romande_, October
20, 1899, summarized in the _British Medical Journal_, 1899.

[83] E. Tardif, _Les Odeurs et Parfums_, Chapter III.

[84] Féré, _Société de Biologie_, March 28, 1896.




VI.

The Place of Smell in Human Sexual Selections--It has given Place to the
Predominance of Vision largely because in Civilized Man it Fails to Act at
a Distance--It still Plays a Part by Contributing to the Sympathies or the
Antipathies of Intimate Contact.


When we survey comprehensively the extensive field we have here rapidly
traversed, it seems not impossible to gain a fairly accurate view of the
special place which olfactory sensations play in human sexual selection.
The special peculiarity of this group of sensations in man, and that which
gives them an importance they would not otherwise possess, is due to the
fact that we here witness the decadence of a sense which in man's remote
ancestors was the very chiefest avenue of sexual allurement. In man, even
the most primitive man,--to some degree even in the apes,--it has declined
in importance to give place to the predominance of vision.[85] Yet, at
that lower threshold of acuity at which it persists in man it still bathes
us in a more or less constant atmosphere of odors, which perpetually move
us to sympathy or to antipathy, and which in their finer manifestations we
do not neglect, but even cultivate with the increase of our civilization.

It thus comes about that the grosser manifestations of sexual allurement
by smell belong, so far as man is concerned, to a remote animal past which
we have outgrown and which, on account of the diminished acuity of our
olfactory organs, we could not completely recall even if we desired to;
the sense of sight inevitably comes into play long before it is possible
for close contact to bring into action the sense of smell. But the latent
possibilities of sexual allurement by olfaction, which are inevitably
embodied in the nervous structure we have inherited from our animal
ancestors, still remain ready to be called into play. They emerge
prominently from time to time in exceptional and abnormal persons. They
tend to play an unusually larger part in the psychic lives of neurasthenic
persons, with their sensitive and comparatively unbalanced nervous
systems, and this is doubtless the reason why poets and men of letters
have insisted on olfactory impressions so frequently and to so notable a
degree; for the same reason sexual inverts are peculiarly susceptible to
odors. For a different reason, warmer climates, which heighten all odors
and also favor the growth of powerfully odorous plants, lead to a
heightened susceptibility to the sexual and other attractions of smell
even among normal persons; thus we find a general tendency to delight in
odors throughout the East, notably in India, among the ancient Hebrews,
and in Mohammedan lands.

Among the ordinary civilized population in Europe the sexual influences of
smell play a smaller and yet not altogether negligible part. The
diminished prominence of odors only enables them to come into action, as
sexual influences, on close contact, when, in some persons at all events,
personal odors may have a distinct influence in heightening sympathy or
arousing antipathy. The range of variation among individuals is in this
matter considerable. In a few persons olfactory sympathy or antipathy is
so pronounced that it exerts a decisive influence in their sexual
relationships; such persons are of olfactory type. In other persons smell
has no part in constituting sexual relationships, but it comes into play
in the intimate association of love, and acts as an additional excitant;
when reinforced by association such olfactory impressions may at times
prove irresistible. Other persons, again, are neutral in this respect, and
remain indifferent either to the sympathetic or antipathetic working of
personal odors, unless they happen to be extremely marked. It is probable
that the majority of refined and educated people belong to the middle
group of those persons who are not of predominantly olfactory type, but
are liable from time to time to be influenced in this manner. Women are
probably at least as often affected in this manner as men, probably more
often.

On the whole, it may be said that in the usual life of man odors play a
not inconsiderable part and raise problems which are not without interest,
but that their demonstrable part in actual sexual selection--whether in
preferential mating or in assortative mating--is comparatively small.


FOOTNOTES:

[85] Moll has a passage on this subject, _Untersuchungen über die Libido
Sexualis_. Bd. I, pp. 376-381.




HEARING.

I.

The Physiological Basis of Rhythm--Rhythm as a Physiological Stimulus--The
Intimate Relation of Rhythm to Movement--The Physiological Influence of
Music on Muscular Action, Circulation, Respiration, etc.--The Place of
Music in Sexual Selection among the Lower Animals--Its Comparatively Small
Place in Courtship among Mammals--The Larynx and Voice in Man--The
Significance of the Pubertal Changes--Ancient Beliefs Concerning the
Influence of Music in Morals, Education, and Medicine--Its Therapeutic
Uses--Significance of the Romantic Interest in Music at Puberty--Men
Comparatively Insusceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of
Music--Rarity of Sexual Perversions on the Basis of the Sense of
Hearing--The Part of Music in Primitive Human Courtship--Women Notably
Susceptible to the Specifically Sexual Influence of Music and the Voice.


The sense of rhythm--on which it may be said that the sensory exciting
effects of hearing, including music, finally rest--may probably be
regarded as a fundamental quality of neuro-muscular tissue. Not only are
the chief physiological functions of the body, like the circulation and
the respiration, definitely rhythmical, but our senses insist on imparting
a rhythmic grouping even to an absolutely uniform succession of
sensations. It seems probable, although this view is still liable to be
disputed, that this rhythm is the result of kinæsthetic
sensations,--sensations arising from movement or tension started reflexly
in the muscles by the external stimuli,--impressing themselves on the
sensations that are thus grouped.[86] We may thus say, with Wilks, that
music appears to have had its origin in muscular action.[87]

Whatever its exact origin may be, rhythm is certainly very deeply
impressed on our organisms. The result is that, whatever lends itself to
the neuro-muscular rhythmical tendency of our organisms, whatever tends
still further to heighten and develop that rhythmical tendency, exerts
upon us a very decidedly stimulating and exciting influence.

All muscular action being stimulated by rhythm, in its simple form or in
its more developed form as music, rhythm is a stimulant to work. It has
even been argued by Bücher and by Wundt[88] that human song had its chief
or exclusive origin in rhythmical vocal accompaniments to systematized
work. This view cannot, however, be maintained; systematized work can
scarcely be said to exist, even to-day, among most very primitive races;
it is much more probable that rhythmical song arose at a period antecedent
to the origin of systematized work, in the primitive military, religious,
and erotic dances, such as exist in a highly developed degree among the
Australians and other savage races who have not evolved co-ordinated
systematic labor. There can, however, be no doubt that as soon as
systematic work appears the importance of vocal rhythm in stimulating its
energy is at once everywhere recognized. Bücher has brought together
innumerable examples of this association, and in the march music of
soldiers and the heaving and hoisting songs of sailors we have instances
that have universally persisted into civilization, although in
civilization the rhythmical stimulation of work, physiologically sound as
is its basis, tends to die out. Even in the laboratory the influence of
simple rhythm in increasing the output of work may be demonstrated; and
Féré found with the ergograph that a rhythmical grouping of the movements
caused an increase of energy which often more than compensated the loss of
time caused by the rhythm.[89]

Rhythm is the most primitive element of music, and the most fundamental.
Wallaschek, in his book on _Primitive Music_, and most other writers on
the subject are agreed on this point. "Rhythm," remarks an American
anthropologist,[90] "naturally precedes the development of any fine
perception of differences in pitch, of time-quality, or of tonality.
Almost, if not all, Indian songs," he adds, "are as strictly developed out
of modified repetitions of a motive as are the movements of a Mozart or a
Beethoven symphony." "In all primitive music," asserts Alice C.
Fletcher,[91] "rhythm is strongly developed. The pulsations of the drum
and the sharp crash of the rattles are thrown against each other and
against the voice, so that it would seem that the pleasure derived by the
performers lay not so much in the tonality of the song as in the measured
sounds arrayed in contesting rhythm, and which by their clash start the
nerves and spur the body to action, for the voice which alone carries the
tone is often subordinated and treated as an additional instrument." Groos
points out that a melody gives us the essential impression of a _voice
that dances_;[92] it is a translation of spatial movement into sound, and,
as we shall see, its physiological action on the organism is a reflection
of that which, as we have elsewhere found,[93] dancing itself produces,
and thus resembles that produced by the sight of movement. Dancing, music,
and poetry were primitively so closely allied as to be almost identical;
they were still inseparable among the early Greeks. The refrains in our
English ballads indicate the dancer's part in them. The technical use of
the word "foot" in metrical matters still persists to show that a poem is
fundamentally a dance.

Aristotle seems to have first suggested that rhythm and melodies
are motions, as actions are motions, and therefore signs of
feeling. "All melodies are motions," says Helmholtz. "Graceful
rapidity, gravel procession, quiet advance, wild leaping, all
these different characters of motion and a thousand others can be
represented by successions of tones. And as music expresses these
motions it gives an expression also to those mental conditions
which naturally evoke similar motions, whether of the body and
the voice, or of the thinking and feeling principle itself."
(Helmholtz, _On the Sensations of Tone_, translated by A. J.
Ellis, 1885, p. 250.)

From another point of view the motor stimulus of music has been
emphasized by Cyples: "Music connects with the only sense that
can be perfectly manipulated. Its emotional charm has struck men
as a great mystery. There appears to be no doubt whatever that it
gets all the marvelous effects it has beyond the mere pleasing of
the ear, from its random, but multitudinous summonses of the
efferent activity, which at its vague challenges stirs
unceasingly in faintly tumultuous irrelevancy. In this way, music
arouses aimlessly, but splendidly, the sheer, as yet unfulfilled,
potentiality within us." (W. Copies, _The Process of Human
Experience_, p. 743.)

The fundamental element of transformed motion in music has been
well brought out in a suggestive essay by Goblot ("La Musique
Descriptive," _Revue Philosophique_, July, 1901): "Sung or
played, melody figures to the ear a successive design, a moving
arabesque. We talk of _ascending_ and _descending_ the gamut, of
_high_ notes or _low_ notes; the; higher voice of woman is called
_soprano_, or _above_, the deeper voice of man is called _bass_.
_Grave_ tones were so called by the Greeks because they seemed
heavy and to incline downward. Sounds seem to be subject to the
action of gravity; so that some rise and others fall. Baudelaire,
speaking of the prelude to _Lohengrin_, remarks: 'I felt myself
_delivered from the bonds of weight_.' And when Wagner sought to
represent, in the highest regions of celestial space, the
apparition of the angels bearing the Holy Grail to earth, he uses
very high notes, and a kind of chorus played exclusively by the
violins, divided into eight parts, in the highest notes of their
register. The descent to earth of the celestial choir is rendered
by lower and lower notes, the progressive disappearance of which
represents the reascension to the ethereal regions.

"Sounds seem to rise and fall; that is a fact. It is difficult to
explain it. Some have seen in it a habit derived from the usual
notation by which the height of the note corresponds to its
height in the score. But the impression is too deep and general
to be explained by so superficial and recent a cause. It has been
suggested also that high notes are generally produced by small
and light bodies, low notes by heavy bodies. But that is not
always true. It has been said, again, that high notes in nature
are usually produced by highly placed objects, while low notes
arise from caves and low placed regions. But the thunder is heard
in the sky, and the murmur of a spring or the song of a cricket
arise from the earth. In the human voice, again, it is said, the
low notes seem to resound in the chest, high notes in the head.
All this is unsatisfactory. We cannot explain by such coarse
analogies an impression which is very precise, and more sensible
(this fact has its importance) for an interval of half a tone
than for an interval of an octave. It is probable that the true
explanation is to be found in the still little understood
connection between the elements of our nervous apparatus.

"Nearly all our emotions tend to produce movement. But education
renders us economical of our acts. Most of these movements are
repressed, especially in the adult and civilized man, as harmful,
dangerous, or merely useless. Some are not completed, others are
reduced to a faint incitation which externally is scarcely
perceptible. Enough remain to constitute all that is expressive
in our gestures, physiognomy, and attitudes. Melodic intervals
possess in a high degree this property of provoking impulses of
movement, which, even when repressed, leave behind internal
sensations and motor images. It would be possible to study these
facts experimentally if we had at our disposition a human being
who, while retaining his sensations and their motor reactions,
was by special circumstances rendered entirely spontaneous like a
sensitive automaton, whose movements were neither intentionally
produced nor intentionally repressed. In this way, melodic
intervals in a hypnotized subject might be very instructive."

A number of experiments of the kind desired by Goblot had already
been made by A. de Rochas in a book, copiously illustrated by
very numerous instantaneous photographs, entitled _Les
Sentiments, la Musique et la Geste_, 1900. Chapter III. De Rochas
experimented on a single subject, Lina, formerly a model, who was
placed in a condition of slight hypnosis, when various simple
fragments of music were performed: recitatives, popular airs, and
more especially national dances, often from remote parts of the
world. The subject's gestures were exceedingly marked and varied
in accordance with the character of the music. It was found that
she often imitated with considerable precision the actual
gestures of dances she could never have seen. The same music
always evoked the same gestures, as was shown by instantaneous
photographs. This subject, stated to be a chaste and well-behaved
girl, exhibited no indications of definite sexual emotion under
the influence of any kind of music. Some account is given in the
same volume of other hypnotic experiments with music which were
also negative as regards specific sexual phenomena.

It must be noted that, as a physiological stimulus, a single musical note
is effective, even apart from rhythm, as is well shown by Féré's
experiments with the dynamometer and the ergograph.[94] It is, however,
the influence of music on muscular work which has been most frequently
investigated, and both on brief efforts with the dynamometer and prolonged
work with the ergograph it has been found to exert a stimulating
influence. Thus, Scripture found that, while his own maximum thumb and
finger grip with the dynamometer is 8 pounds, when the giant's motive from
Wagner's _Rheingold_ is played it rises to 8¾ pounds.[95] With the
ergograph Tarchanoff found that lively music, in nervously sensitive
persons, will temporarily cause the disappearance of fatigue, though slow
music in a minor key had an opposite effect.[96] The varying influence on
work with the ergograph of different musical intervals and different keys
has been carefully studied by Féré with many interesting results. There
was a very considerable degree of constancy in the results. Discords were
depressing; most, but not all, major keys were stimulating; and most, but
not all, minor keys depressing. In states of fatigue, however, the minor
keys were more stimulating than the major, an interesting result in
harmony with that stimulating influence of various painful emotions in
states of organic fatigue which we have elsewhere encountered when
investigating sadism.[97] "Our musical culture," Féré remarks, "only
renders more perceptible to us the unconscious relationships which exist
between musical art and our organisms. Those whom we consider more endowed
in this respect have a deeper penetration of the phenomena accomplished
within them; they feel more profoundly the marvelous reactions between the
organism and the principles of musical art, they experience more strongly
that art is within them."[98] Both the higher and the lower muscular
processes, the voluntary and the involuntary, are stimulated by music.
Darlington and Talbot, in Titchener's laboratory at Cornell University,
found that the estimation of relative weights was aided by music.[99]
Lombard found, when investigating the normal variations in the knee-jerk,
that involuntary reflex processes are always reinforced by music; a
military band playing a lively march caused the knee-jerk to increase at
the loud passages and to diminish at the soft passages, while remaining
always above the normal level.[100]

With this stimulating influence of rhythm and music on the neuro-muscular
system--which may or may not be direct--there is a concomitant influence
on the circulatory and breathing apparatus. During recent years a great
many experiments have been made on man and animals bearing on the effects
of music on the heart and respiration. Perhaps the earliest of these were
carried out by the Russian physiologist Dogiel in 1880.[101] His methods
were perhaps defective and his results, at all events as regards man,
uncertain, but in animals the force and rapidity of the heart were
markedly increased. Subsequent investigations have shown very clearly the
influence of music on the circulatory and respiratory systems in man as
well as in animals. That music has an apparently direct influence on the
circulation of the brain is shown by the observations of Patrizi on a
youth who had received a severe wound of the head which had removed a
large portion of the skull wall. The stimulus of melody produced an
immediate increase in the afflux of blood to the brain.[102]

In Germany the question was investigated at about the same time by
Mentz.[103] Observing the pulse with a sphygmograph and Marey tambour he
found distinct evidence of an effect on the heart; when attention was
given to the music the pulse was quickened, in the absence of attention it
was slowed; Mentz also found that pleasurable sensations tended to slow
the pulse and disagreeable ones to quicken it.

Binet and Courtier made an elaborate series of experiments on the action
of music on the respiration (with the double pneumograph), the heart, and
the capillary circulation (with the plethysmograph of Hallion and Comte)
on a single subject, a man very sensitive to music and himself a cultured
musician. Simple musical sounds with no emotional content accelerated the
respiration without changing its regularity or amplitude. Musical
fragments, mostly sung, usually well known to the subject, and having an
emotional effect on him, produced respiratory irregularity either in
amplitude or rapidity of breathing, in two-thirds of the trials. Exciting
music, such as military marches, accelerated the breathing more than sad
melodies, but the intensity of the excitation had an effect at least as
great as its quality, for intense excitations always produced both
quickened and deeper breathing. The heart was quickened in harmony with
the quickened breathing. Neither breathing nor heart was ever slowed. As
regards the capillary pulsation, an influence was exerted chiefly, if not
exclusively, by gay and exciting melodies, which produced a shrinking.
Throughout the experiments it was found that the most profound
physiological effects were exerted by those pieces which the subject found
to be most emotional in their influence on him.[104]