ir turn the causes and genesis of versification and metre.
The classic experiments of Helmholtz show that each note may be regarded
as a harmonic whole, owing to the complementary sounds which accompany
it in its complete development. With reference to our own race, the
genesis of the composition of verse and metre are shown by the
researches made by Westphal and others into the metrical system of the
Vedic Aryans, the Turanians, and the Greeks, since the fact that their
metres were the same implies a common origin. The demonstration is
complete, if we compare the iambic metre of Archilochus with that of the
Vedic hymns. There are in both three series of iambuses--the dimeter,
the cataleptic trimeter, and the acataleptic.[36]

This observation applies to the physical and physiological conditions of
the phenomenon, since primitive men could not speak without rhythmic
modulation of words. We are not quite without hope of discovering by
induction the origin of wind or stringed instruments which accompanied
the songs, after the specification of the modes of speech was so far
advanced as to distinguish singing--which had already become an
art--from the daily necessity of reciprocal communication in words. In
this research we must proceed step by step, aided by minute observation,
lest we should accept an hypothesis which does not correspond with the
facts.

Not only man, but some animals--among others a species of mouse found in
South Africa--naturally uses his limbs to moderate or strengthen the
light of vision. This mouse was observed to shade its eyes with its
forepaws in order to look at some distant object under a blazing sun, as
we should do in like conditions. In man, whose arms and hands are
readily adapted to this primitive art, the habit is common, even among
the rudest savages. Putting sight out of the question that we may
consider hearing, which is our present theme, reflex movements, either
casual or habitual, have certainly induced primitive men to place their
hands on the mouth, either so as to suppress the sound or to augment it
by using both hands as a kind of shell. It is easy to imagine the use of
shells or other hollow objects as a vehicle of sound, either for
amusement or some other cause, and these rude instruments might serve as
the first step to the invention of wind instruments. Reflection on these
spontaneous experiments would readily lead to the search for some mode
of prolonging or imitating the