ABSTRACT
Herbert Spencer’s notion of developmental progress in nature and society owed much to pre-Darwinian theories of evolution, notably those of French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Painful sensations, being mostly far more intense than pleasurable ones, cause muscular actions of a much more decided kind. All speech is compounded of two elements, the words and the tones in which they are uttered – the signs of ideas and the signs of feelings. It will scarcely be expected that much direct evidence in support of this conclusion can be given. Probably most will think that the function here assigned to music is one of very little moment. The strange capacity which the people have for being so affected by melody and harmony, may be taken to imply both that it is within the possibilities of our nature to realize those intenser delights they dimly suggest, and that they are in some way concerned in the realization of them.
