The theories of the earlier musical philosophers of the nineteenth century were not so unlike these legends as they seemed at the time. These men had a limited historical outlook and were inclined to discredit, when they did not ignore, the music preceding that of Palestrina, just as the historians of painting before Ruskin’s time tended to regard all Italian painting before Raphael as mere experimental bungling. To these earlier philosophers music was a thing _discovered_ rather than a thing _evolved_. In their view music had always existed in a sort of secret treasure house instituted by a beneficent creator for the edification of men. All melodies and harmonies were piled in there awaiting the explorations of musicians. The explorations were undertaken by the ‘inspired’ artists, those who had been endowed with finer ears and more daring imaginations. All musical history was a story of the development of music from its imperfect state among the primitives to its perfect state with Beethoven. This description may be exaggerated, but it is certain that the earlier theorists considered music as a self-existent thing, with its own laws and its own principles of beauty--laws and principles which must be discovered by the elect among artists instead of being evolved by the peoples. As to the impulse to song and to artistic creation in general they laid it to that mysterious thing, ‘inspiration.’ Schopenhauer’s theory has a modern ring and is excellent poetry even though it can hardly rank as science. He says that while the other arts--painting, sculpture, and architecture--represent the Idea, which is the reflection of the Will, music represents the Will itself. It is pure energy, the nearest thing that exists among men to the essence of reality. With Darwin all this kind of speculation changed and the theories of musical origins became more a matter of biology than of music. Darwin traced the impulse to song to the love-making of animals and primitive man. He showed how in Nature beauty is continually being made the adjunct and servant of love--how the bird sings or the insect dances to attract its mate. Many theorists have sought to explain the whole of art as originating in the sexual impulse. But in this theory, as in all, there are data on both sides of the question and the explanation is interesting rather than valuable.