Note 55 — HERBERT SPENCER AND THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC

It does not seem to have occurred to Spencer that if savages have melodies, however tiny and primitive, it can hardly be true that they are only in the recitative stage. The plain fact is that his use of the term recitative was wholly unscientific. He never saw that there is a vast æsthetic distinction between recitative in the sense of more sonorous and more formal speech—as in the case of an orator or a preacher—and recitative in the musical sense. In the latter case the distinctively musical appetite comes into play; in the former it does not. The one is an intensification of ordinary speech, but never becomes more than speech; the other is music, even though restricted music. They spring from different faculties and appeal to different organs of enjoyment.