Yet the company of music lovers is great. Music is the most universal avocation. This has been true of all races throughout all times and at all culture levels. Only a fraction of one per cent of persons who hear music or practice it do so vocationally. We, the people, preserve it primarily as an avocation, an activity purely for pleasure and cultural enrichment. The love of music abounds at our time and in our country; yet we are but at the beginnings of a dawning musical era. The increase of leisure time, high educational level, and the astounding invention of instruments for the production and transmission of musical sounds forecast its rise. Why then do we love music? Among other things we love it because it creates a physiological well-being in our organism; it is built from materials which are beautiful objects in themselves; it carries us through the realms of creative imagination, thought, actions, and feelings in limitless art forms; it is self-propelling through natural impulses, such as rhythm; it is the language of emotion, a generator of social fellowship; it takes us out of the humdrum of life and makes us live in play with the ideal; it satisfies our cravings for intellectual conquest, for isolation in the artistic attitude of emotion, and for self-expression for the joy of expression. THOUGHT REVIEW General Principles (1) Music is pursued primarily for the pleasure of the pursuit without ulterior purpose. (2) When music renders service, this service is essentially the giving of pleasure. (3) The depth and the quality of a person's affection for music vary significantly with the degree and kind of musical inheritance. (4) If the natural urge toward music is there, it will be readily molded through training and facilitation of the environment. (5) It is psychologically possible to present a natural history of the origin and development of the love of music in terms of its objects and motives. (6) The inceptive psychology of musical experience and behavior can be pursued in the laboratory and the studio through experiment and measurement. (7) There is a charm in knowing _that_ we love music but even more so, _why_ and _how_. (8) It is also worth knowing why some people _do_ not and others _cannot_ love music. Questions to Consider (1) Is the play attitude in music opposed to hard work? (2) Why is high intelligence essential to the composer? (3) Can a moron love music genuinely? (4) Is the musical temperament essential for the love of music? (5) How can the adrenal glands affect the love of music? (6) Is the love of rhythm primarily inherited or acquired? (7) What hereditary factors may block the development of the love of music? (8) What factors in musical talent are most telling for the development of the love of music?