The Origin and Development of Musical Scales [pp. 324-343]

THE PRIN CE I'ON REVIEW.
with the operation of our law of tone-relation. If we put that
law to work, we obtain a graded list of related tones from which,
we may select several different series whose least interval shall
be 6; and if we then arrange these series in order of their aver —
age kinship with the tonic, we shall find the very scales just
described at the top of the list. Hence the ancient modes and
their direct descendants, the church modes, exemplify in a re —
markable way the unconscious operation in the action of tasteof the law of scale-construction whose formal statement we havegiven above.
The Arabic tonal system is somewhat more intricate than
the Greek, but based on precisely the same principles. It is
noteworthy, however, for its greater nicety of subdivision, for
the skill with which it couples a system with perfect fifths with
that of natural tone-relationship, and for its discovery of theascending "leading-tone" of which we shall speak presently.
Three of the twelve Arabic tonal modes coincide with three of
the Greek, and several of the more prominent have what we
call pure or natural intonation. It seems unnecessary to discuss
the system at length, as it yields results not materially different
from those obtained from the Greek, except perhaps in its more
evident leaning towards pure intonation.
(e) Let us now turn to the subsidiary and restrictive law of'
selection which in its desire for equality and smoothness fixes.
its eye upon the length of the intervals involved rather than
upon the kinship of the tones at their extremities. It may be
thought that this principle should have preceded the other be —
cause its intervention may have been prior to that of the latter;
yet there can hardly be any question that even if this be the:
order of time, it is not the true order of thought and explication.
In its crudest stages music rpay indeed be more influenced by
the principle of evenness, but as it emerges into systematic forms
it comes at first almost exclusively under that of kinship.
The few points where traces of the action of the former prin —
ciple are seen in the history of modern music are these. The
oriental scales with their numerous notes are more or less underits power, altho their octaves, fifths, and fourths are derived
as were the Greek. In Greek music it seems hardly to have
appeared. The later enharmonic and the second "irrational"
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