The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its ScopeCrampton, Henry Edward
Science
The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Basis and Its Scope
Crampton, Henry Edward
Evolution
Musical instruments seem to have had a multiple origin. The ram's horn of
the early Briton and the perforated conch-shell of the South Sea Islander
are natural trumpets; when they were copied in brass and other metals they
evolved rapidly to become the varied wind instruments typified to-day by
the cornet and the tuba. In the same way the reed of the Greek shepherd is
the ancestor of the flute and clarionet. Stringed instruments like the
guitar, zither, and violin form another class which begins with the bow
and its twanging string. The power of the note was intensified by holding
a gourd against the bow to serve as a resonance-chamber. When the musician
of early times enlarged this chamber, moved it to the end of the bow, and
multiplied the strings, he constructed the cithara of antiquity,--the
ancestor of a host of modern types, from the harp to the bass-viol and
mandolin.
The dance and the drama find their beginnings in the simple reenactment of
an actual series of events. Among Polynesians of to-day the dances still
retain the rhythmic beat of the war-tread measure, and many of the motions
of the arms are more or less conventionalized imitations of the act of
striking with a club, or hurling a spear, and other acts. To such elements
many other things have been added, but the fact remains that our own
formal dances, as well as the sun-dance of the Indian and the mad whirl of
the Dervish, are modern products which have truly evolved.
* * * * *
When we turn to science and philosophy and other intellectual attainments
of modern civilized peoples, it is easier to see how evolution has been
accomplished, because we possess a wealth of written literature which
explains the way that human ideas have changed from century to century. In
these cases there can be no question that such evidences provide accurate
instruments for estimating the mental abilities of the writers who
produced them. We shall take up the higher conceptions of mankind at a
later juncture, so at this point we need only to note that even these
mental possessions, like household culture and even the physical
structures of a human body, have changed and differentiated to become the
widely different interpretations of the world and supernature that are
held by the civilized, barbarous, and savage races of to-day.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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