ished; but as soon as they can be called
either speech or music, they become unlike and increase in dissimilarity
in proportion as they develop. The cry and the imitative sound become,
on the one hand, a word which, however rude, begins to have an arbitrary
meaning, and, on the other hand, a song which, however uncouth, has no
positive meaning; the word, as it develops, acquires a more precise and
abstract signification, becomes more and more of a symbol; the song, as
it develops, loses definite meaning, becomes more and more a complete
unsymbolical form, until at length the word, having become a thing for
use, a mere means of communication, ceases to require vocal utterance,
and turns into a written sign; while the song, having become an object
of mere pleasure, requires more and more musical development, and is
transported from the lips of man to the strings of an instrument. But
while speech and music are thus diverging, while the one is becoming
more and more of an arbitrary symbol conveying an abstract idea, and the
other is growing more and more into an artistic form conveying no idea,
but pleasing the mind merely by its concrete form--while this divergence
is taking place, a corresponding movement accompanies it which removes
both speech and music farther and farther from their common origin: the
cry of passion and the imitative sound. The Rhone and the Rhine are
becoming not only less like each other, but as the one becomes green and
the other blue, so also are both losing all trace of the original dull
white of the snow water. In the word, the cry and the imitation are
being effaced by arbitrary, symbolical use, by that phonetic change
which shows how little a word as it exists for us retains of its
original character; in the song they are being subdued by constant
attempts at obtaining a more distinct and symmetrical shape, by the
development of the single sounds and their arrangement with a view to
pleasing the ear and mind. Yet both retain the power of resuming to a
limited extent their original nature; but in proportion as the word or
the song resumes the characteristics of the cry or of the imitation does
each lose its own slowly elaborated value, the word as a suggester of
thought, the song as a presenter of form. Now, in so far as the word is
a word, or the song a song, its effect on the emotions is comparatively
small: the word can awaken emotion only as a symbol, that is, indirectly
and merely suggestive