I now present a few examples. First, as regards the optical perception
of movement. “When I am in good physical condition,” says Stricker,
“and take my stand at some distance from an exercise ground so that
I can watch the company with ease but not catch the word of command,
I feel certain muscular sensations quite as strongly as if I stood
under the command and attempted to follow it. When the troop marches,
I keep time with them in the sensations of my lower limbs; when they
go through the arm exercise, I have quite intense muscular feelings
in my upper arm; when they turn, I feel the same in my back.” (B) The
following passage shows that the same individual can experience also
other symbolic sensations of movement: “From the exercise ground I
went to the theatre to see the gymnasts, and first watched one using
a springboard. At the moment when he leaped from it I had a distinct
sensation in my chest, and the feeling, too, of motion in the muscles
of my eyes.”[610] In poetic art inner imitation of movements must
also be given due weight.[611] Lessing’s requirements for a poet
depend largely on this, for on its subjective side poetic enjoyment
is connected with memory pictures, and movement is conspicuous in
these.[612]
All this is true in a higher degree of the enjoyment of musical
movement. Herder said once: “The passionate part of our nature
(τὸ θυμικόν) rises and falls, it throbs or glides softly. Now it sweeps us
along, now holds us back; it is now weak, now strong; its own movement,
its step, as it were, varies with every modulation, with every strong
accent and vanishes as the tone varies. Music strikes a chord in our
innermost nature.”[613] In all this we find not only the effect of
association, but actual motor processes in our own bodies, which extend
from the rhythmical movements, visible for others, to the most delicate
(and invisible) associations in the inner part of our body. The process
which I tried to characterize in the section on hearing-play is with
me connected with breathing movements and tensions of the throat and
mouth muscles, and is thus symbolic in both directions. Those who play
much on some instrument commonly find that with them the tension is of
those muscles which they most use—this is apt to be especially the case
in recalling a remembered melody. We must avoid a too free assumption
of “internal song,” as well as of throat movements. Baldwin says,[614]
“I am able with the greatest ease to hold aloud an ā sound at ć,
say, and at the same time cause a whole tune—say Yankee Doodle—to run
its course ‘in my ear.’” I, too, can do this, though not with ease; the
remembered tune is literally “in the head”—that is to say, I have the
sensations of movement which represent this melody clearly in my mind,
where they are difficult to locate, but are actual sensations, not mere
memories. I can observe this process to better advantage by holding
my breath and drumming on the table, hearing a melody in the rhythmic
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