Is the most emotional art also—as required by our thesis—the most dependent on physiological conditions? Yes, and if we wish to demonstrate this, facts are so numerous that the only difficulty is to choose between them. Let us leave aside every intellectual element, all representations, either vague or distinct, evoked by music; let us, further, avoid all metaphysical dissertations on its nature and its revelation of the Infinite, or its origin in the human species, in order to confine ourselves to its physical and affective aspect, and to grasp the connection. In the first place, we shall find that music has an effect on many animals. Although on this point many nursery tales and marvellous anecdotes have been handed down from antiquity, yet—having made deduction of all apocryphal stories—we find a large number of observations and experiments which must be considered accurate. They are to be found in the writings of various musicians or historians of music (Grétry, Fétis, etc.). Dogs, cats, horses, lizards, serpents, spiders, not to mention many birds, are the examples most frequently quoted. Experiments made at the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, particularly on the elephants, at the beginning of this century, have been many times referred to, and are both varied and conclusive.[73] Are we to conclude from them that these animals are melomaniacs? Some authors appear to have no doubt on this point, having a natural inclination to neglect the physical side of the phenomenon, and to interpret it in a quasi-human sense. It is much more probable that the sensations of sound and movement (animals being very sensitive to rhythm) act directly on the organism, and indirectly on the vital functions, and produce a physical state of pleasure or pain; perhaps in the highest, such as the elephant, a certain affective state approximating to emotion. In short, music acts like a burn, like heat, cold, or a caressing contact. I have on this point consulted writers of recognised competence in musical psychology. M. Dauriac writes to me: “Relative consonances and dissonances, composed of major or minor thirds, produce pleasurable or painful effects on the organism, independently of any impression or æsthetic judgment.” M. Stumpf has been kind enough to reply by a long letter, amply furnished with quotations from original authorities, whence he concludes that “der Grund hiervon dürfte ein rein physiologischer sein.” ----- Footnote 73: They will be found in Beauquier, _Philosophie de la musique_, p. 65. -----