Page:Aesthetic Papers.djvu/35

Rh

class of persons seeks the soul of Music, and dwells in it; another, the laws which reign in its creations; and a third, the form in which it is embodied, the actual beauty as it charms the sense. To one it is a feeling, a sentiment, a passion; to another it is a science; to another, a sensible creation and enjoyment. The heart, the intellect, and the senses; the soul, the body, and the everlasting laws; the active prompting motive, the passive substance into which it pours its will, and the impersonal regulating reason mediating between will and action;—what more enters into our existence as a whole, or into any single experience or act of ours? At any moment, there is somewhat prompting us within; some thought, accompanying that prompting, to guide it to its end; and some passive instrument or object, endowed with motion or with form, in obedience to that prompting and that thought. We will, from inmost passion; we see, by light not our own; we go, as the world opens to receive us. Thus in life there are three forces:—Motives, which are first, and spring from within; secondly, guiding principles and laws, independent of us, yet involved in us and in every thing; thirdly, actions or expressions, which are the body or thing moved. And these are the three elements of music, as well as of our lives, presiding over all its grand and primary divisions.

In the history also of music, since music could be called an art, which is only in comparatively modern times, each of these three component elements of music has exercised ascendancy in turn. The scientific phase, that is, the learned style, came first in the order of development, with the Bachs; the music of expression, of sentiment, the grand deep poetry and soul of the art, came next, with Haydn and Mozart, Handel and Beethoven; the music of effect, the music of the senses, the age of Rossinis and instrumental virtuosos, has succeeded. Historic periods and scientific doctrine correspond part to part in a series of three terms.

To the three spheres of sentiment, of science, and of