The Greeks undoubtedly had an elaborate system of music; but there was no evidence of its practical application to the extent that would have been supposed. Indeed, Pythagoras states that “the intervals in music are rather to be judged intellectually, through numbers, than sensibly through the ear.” The view taken of music by the scholars was demonstrative, and purely on the ground of mathematics. It was altogether apart from popular practice of the art, vocal and instrumental. The philosophers regarded music from the side of morals. In the same way, the Chinese had attained a high degree of knowledge of music in its demonstrable relations, upon which they in their learned treatises eloquently discourse. In demonstrations of the laws of pipes, and in theoretical development of the system of equal temperament, they have displayed their mental grasp; but beyond that the acquired knowledge seems to have made little practical impression. Their philosophers likewise talked of the beneficial influences of music in controlling the passions, and doing other “et cetera” work. My long tarrying with the musical instruments of Celestials has tended to bring very forcibly before me the great resemblance between the Chinese and the Greek systems of music. Wide asunder as these people are racially, yet in their development of the musical art they seem to have some close kinship, some common source of idea; and little traits of primitive lore constantly give suggestions of some early centre whence the two have diverged, or of some point where in the crossing of the pathways they have supplied themselves from the same fountain, although each traversed in a different direction its appointed course. The possibilities, however, that I have in mind are of some far earlier impressions from intercourse, how and when constituting the problem; for the Greeks in their prime were but the infants of a day in comparison with the peoples under the great monarchies of Chaldæa, Assyria, Egypt, and China, whose rulers could be traced back two, three, four—aye five—thousand years before the first block was hewn for the foundation of the Parthenon, or ever a Venus stept in marble. Van Aalst states that “the first invaders of China were a band of immigrants fighting their way among the aborigines, and supposed to have come from the south of the Caspian Sea” and the question remains, where was the earlier track of their wanderings? Is it not also curious that one of the early mythical Kings of ancient Persia had the name Houscheng? It was in his reign that the Persians became Fire Worshippers, adoring flame as the symbol of God.