d found that
it gave forth a sound peculiar to itself, when he found a
hollow log and filled up the open ends, first with wood,
and then--possibly getting the idea from his hide-covered
shield--stretched skins across the two open ends, then he had
completed the first musical instrument known to man, namely,
the drum. And such as it was then, so is it now, with but
few modifications.

Up to this point it is reasonable to assume that primeval man
looked upon the world purely subjectively. He considered himself
merely a unit in the world, and felt on a plane with the other
creatures inhabiting it. But from the moment he had invented the
first musical instrument, the drum, he had created something
outside of nature, a voice that to himself and to all other
living creatures was intangible, an idol that spoke when it
was touched, something that he could call into life, something
that shared the supernatural in common with the elements. A
God had come to live with man, and thus was unfolded the
first leaf in that noble tree of life which we call religion.
Man now began to feel himself something apart from the world,
and to look at it objectively instead of subjectively.

To treat primitive mankind as a type, to put it under one head,
to make one theorem cover all mankind, as it were, seems almost
an unwarranted boldness. But I think it is warranted when we
consider that, aside from language, music is the very first
sign of the dawn of civilization. There is even the most
convincingly direct testimony in its favour. For instance:

In the Bay of Bengal, about six hundred miles from the Hoogly
mouth of the Ganges, lie the Andaman Islands. The savages
inhabiting these islands have the unenviable reputation
of being, in common with several other tribes, the nearest
approach to primeval man in existence. These islands and their
inhabitants have been known and feared since time immemorial;
our old friend Sinbad the Sailor, of "Arabian Nights" fame,
undoubtedly touched there on one of his voyages. These savages
have no religion whatever, except the vaguest superstition,
in other words, fear, and they have no musical instruments
of any kind. They have reached only the _rhythm_ stage, and
accompany such dances as they have by clapping their hands
or by stamping on the ground. Let us now look to Patagonia,
some thousands of miles distant. The Tierra del Fuegians have
precisely the same characteristics, no religion, and no musical