So Saul was refreshed,
and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him."
The preceding facts sufficiently illustrate the effects of music on
the emotions and morals of ancient and primitive nations. Now, within
the Christian era music has made enormous strides in its evolution as
an art, and it seems therefore reasonable to infer that its emotional
and moral power has also increased. Yet, strange to say, a tendency
has manifested itself of late, in many quarters, to flatly deny the
emotional and moral potency of music. The late Richard Grant White,
for instance, in a series of articles on the Influence of Music, in
"The Atlantic Monthly," comes to the conclusion that "a fine
appreciation of even the noblest music is not an indication of mental
elevation, or of moral purity, or of delicacy of feeling, or even
(except in music) of refinement of taste." "The greatest, keenest
pleasure of my life," he adds, "is one that may be shared equally with
me by a dunce, a vulgarian, or a villain;" and he ends by asserting,
dogmatically, that a taste for music has no more to do with our minds
or morals than with our complexions or stature.
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