Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/784

764 forms a notable exception to the usual mechanical action of the ear, yet in the life of the average man the time given to music is comparatively insignificant.

The eye is not only more active, but its action is more intelligent. It brings us into closer relations with the outer world. It gives us not a time series of single elements, but a constantly changing space series of numerous elements. It is the constant and normal interpreter of our outer life. By its means we select our food, recognize our friends, detect our enemies, guide our steps, and co-ordinate the movements of our arms and hands in eating, drinking, writing, reading, sewing, weaving, cooking, washing, plowing, planting, building, painting, drawing, driving, rowing, fencing, and in innumerable other manual dexterities. In all these movements our actions have become automatic—that is, they are directed reflexly by the muscular sense, but still always need some assistance from the higher senses, and the sense used in almost all cases is the sense of sight. For instance, with closed eyes we can write, but imperfectly. A practiced musician may play with closed eyes, but commonly, even in this art pertaining to the ear, the eye is busy, glancing at the keys and following intently the printed score. So far has our eye-mindedness gone that we use the word see not only for purely intellectual perception, but even for perception by the other senses. We say that we see the fallacy of an argument, or we see that the paper is smooth, or the orange sweet, or even that the piano is out of tune, when we mean that we understand, or fee], or taste, or hear.

Now, in the use and relative importance of the two higher senses there has been a marked change even in historic times. It is possible, indeed, to trace the evolution of the eye during the last two thousand years, and to discover some of the causes producing the change. The ancient Greeks, for example, were ear-minded. By this is not meant that the sense of hearing was at that time absolutely more prominent than the sense of sight, but relatively so. Notice, then, how the Greeks used the ear, with its complementary organ, the tongue, while we use the eye and the hand. They were a conversing people; we are a writing and reading people. With them poetry was sung or recited; with us it is read. They conducted politics in the Agora; we in the newspaper. Success in political affairs depended with them largely upon oratory; with us but slightly. The instrument of philosophy and discussion was with them conversation (dialectic); with us it is the monthly or quarterly review. With them music was the most prominent branch in popular education; with us it is least so. Although the principle of Greek education was harmony of all the physical and mental powers, we have only to