It now behoves us to glance for a moment at the influence which the organ already began to exert upon music, or the art composition, and to show how the instrument became to show proofs of that right to the title, "king of instruments," in the sense I have adopted. It must be kept in mind that the veriest twilight dawn of the knowledge of harmony had scarcely begun. Yet what can be conceived more natural, than that the organist of that day, even, should stumble on the fact that different tones in conjunction were more agreeable to the ear than the bare unison, which was at first the only accompaniment of the choral song? This being noted, the next logical step was to try and produce the same approved effect with the voices themselves. In the "_History of the Modern Music of Western Europe_," by _Kiesewetter_, the following passage occurs. He is not speaking of the organ, but of the origin and development of the science of harmony. He says: "The union of different human voices which now occurred to their thoughts (the early harmonists), was an imitation not altogether happy, perhaps, of that which in various instances _they had discovered with the organ_!" Here the fact that the organ was even then beginning to assert itself, to mould the minds of the early writers, in fact, to claim its royal dues, is pretty conclusively shown. Time would altogether fail me in the scope that this lecture must necessarily occupy, to trace down this influence, once established, through the long cycle of years that followed; the theoretic science and practical application keeping pace with the mechanical development, until it found its full culmination and glory in the new-born science of Counterpoint. This science, which has given polish to the mightiest thoughts of the greatest masters of our art (and in totally different departments than mere organ-playing),--a science, without a satisfactory knowledge of which no man can call himself a thoroughly educated musician,--sprang from just this source. How often we hear the remark that contrapuntal treatment is best suited to the organ! True; but how many reflect that the organ, so to speak, first _dictated_ counterpoint to the world? An influence, which (the free forms being derived from the stricter) is carried clear down into the realm of Italian opera, _i.e._, when it is good of its kind. Is not, then, this influence, which the organ has indisputably exerted upon not merely its own literature, but the musical literature at large, an all-sufficient proof of its right to the royal title? It must be borne in mind that this absolutism, as in matters political (to carry out the simile), was possible at this stage of the world in matters musical, because not even the harpsichord, clavichord, spinet, or any of those presentiments of the modern pianoforte, by whatever name they were called, had as yet made their appearance. The organ was, for the time, the sole keyed instrument.