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 Contents vii

Key Concepts 64
Key Terms 65

5 MIDI 66
Overview 66
Before MIDI 66
The MIDI Protocol 68
Note On and Note Off Messages 72
MIDI Programs 73
Controller Messages 74
MIDI Channels 74
Piano Roll 75
Sampling 76
Other Protocols 78
Summary 79
Key Concepts 79
Key Terms 79

6 MUSIC NOTATION SOFTWARE 00

Overview 80
Basic Notation Application Functions 80
Note Entry 81
Importing MIDI Files 84
Importing MIDI Files in DAWs 85
Future Work 85
Summary 85
Key Concepts 86
Key Terms 86

7 SEQUENCING MIDI 87
Overview 87
Basic Setup 87
The Live Browser 89
Max for Live 91
Plug-Ins Device Browser 92
Other Menus 93
Places 93
Adding Book Content 93
Working in Live 94
Arrangement View 95
MIDI and Audio Tracks 97
MIDI 98
MIDI Pitch Editor 102
MIDI Velocity Editor 103
viii CONTENTS

Loops 105
Adding Tracks 107
Inserting a New MIDI Clip 107
Recording with a MIDI Keyboard or the Computer MIDI
Keyboard 111
Changing Tempo 117
Saving and Cleaning Up the Set 118
Exporting Rendered Audio 118
Summary 118
Key Concepts 120
Key Terms 120

8 ACOUSTICS 121
Overview 121
The Hearing Process 121
Room Acoustics 123
Resonance 126
Sound Systems 127
Phase Cancellation 128
Psychoacoustics 129
Loudness 130
Summary 133
Key Concepts 133
Key Terms 134

9 EFFECTS 135
Overview 135
Gain and Distortion 135
Tone-Shaping Controls in Effects 137
Gate 138
Compression 138
Effects and Performance 140
Output Gains in Effects 140
Limiting 141
EQ 141
Delay 143
Reverb 144
Chorus 144
Flanger 145
Effects Chain 145
Effects in DAWs 146
Summary 147
Key Concepts 147
Key Terms 147
 Contents ix

10 SEQUENCING AND PERFORMING WITH AUDIO 148

Overview 148
Session View 148
Recording and Editing Clips 155
Recording Audio 157
Audio Channels 158
Adding Effects 162
Key and MIDI Mapping 165
Record to the Arrangement View 169
Summary 170
Key Concepts 171
Key Terms 171

11 TECHNOLOGY IN PERFORMANCE 112

Overview 172
Old Venues with a New Twist 172
A Little History: Electroacoustic Music 173
Film, Television, Video Games, Multimedia, and the Studio 175
Interactive Music 176
Interactive Music Systems 178
Further Possibilities 178
Summary 178
Key Concepts 179
Key Terms 179

12 TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION 100

Overview 180
Technology for a Purpose 180
Composition 180
Performance 181
Education 181
Technology-Based Musical Instruments 182
Interactive Music Systems 182
Separating Cognitive Functions of Musicianship from Physical
Actions 185
Technology Dictating Pedagogy 186
Notation 186
Educational Considerations 187
Informal Music Learning through Technology 188
Technology in Practical Educational Use 189
Summary 190
Key Concepts 190
Key Terms 191
x CONTENTS

13 TECHNOLOGY IN COMPOSITION 192

Overview 192
Algorithmic Composition 192
Early American Algorithmic Composition:
David Cope 193
Rule-Based Algorithmic Composition 194
Data-Driven Algorithmic Composition 195
Issues of Authorship 196
Algorithmic Composition Methods 198
Software and Tools 198
Precomposed Loop and Pattern Software 198
Sound Manipulation 199
Composer of Algorithms and Algorithmic Composition 199
Summary 200
Key Concepts 200
Key Terms 200

14 INTRODUCTION TO MUSIC PROGRAMMING 201

Overview 201
Programming Languages 201
Introduction to Max 203
The Max Window 207
Help Patchers 209
Arguments 209
Separating Items in a Message 210
Numbers: Integers and Floating Points 210
Aligning 213
Commenting 213
Inspector 214
Generating Music 215
The RAT Patch: Creating Random Atonal Trash 215
Synthesizing MIDI Numbers 217
Adding Timing 220
Slider Patch 225
Rat Patch 2 225
MIDI Input 230
Summary 234
Key Concepts 235
Key Terms 235

GLOSSARY 236

REFERENCES 251

INDEX 258
 FORE ORD

David Cope

Composer, author, and Dickerson Emeriti Professor

at the University of California Santa Cruz

usic technology is an emerging concentration within the field of music. It

has influenced every music discipline in some way and has been most nota-
bly associated with the creation and use of electronic musical instruments, record-
ing systems, and live sound production, to name just a few implementations. In this
regard, the overarching term ''music technology'' may refer specifically to a com-
poser building an interactive multimedia exhibit, a performer producing an album
in which he or she performs all of the parts, an educator designing a computer lab
with self-directed instructional software, or something completely different. In
short, the scope of what we call ''music technology'' seemingly has no limits.
When V. J. contacted me to write a foreword for his new book, I was de-
lighted to accept; the fact that he was including material on algorithmic music
composition delighted me even more, given that so many books on the subject of
computer music do not include a chapter, section, or even a paragraph on that
unique aspect of what computers do so well computational composition in
lieu of algorithms based exclusively on producing new digital sounds, as if com -
puters are solely capable of being sophisticated musical instruments rather than
giving us a powerful process to create whole musical compositions.
Digital computer music I make the distinction '' digital'' here because a
number of composers still use analog computers to do it is clearly the lingua
franca of much of today's contemporary and experimental music. For example, it
is almost a given in popular music as well as much of today's contemporary clas-
sical music. Thus, a book like the one you are reading at this moment is worth its
weight in gold, and not only for those who wish to create it but for those who want
to appreciate it as well. V. J. has produced a valuable tool for everyone, not just a
relatively small percentage of those participating in its production .

•
Xl
xii FOREWORD

It is my pleasure to ignite your journey into the extraordinarily diverse and

multifaceted world of music technology, a journey here both beautifully written
and wonderfully captivating. So enjoy your reading and then appreciate more
fully your experience in creating and listening to the joys of what our digital age
has made possible.
Music has been and will continue to be enriched by a wonderful breadth of
possibilities, limited only by our willingness to accept the new wonders of a world
we've just begun to mine.
 INTRODUCTION

elcome to this exploration ofthe Foundations ofMusic Technology. Whether

you are a musician with zero technology skills beyond taking selfies, a
technology wizard who reads binary code, but not music notation, or someone in
between, this textbook will explain concepts of music technology in a straightfor-
ward manner and give examples of how the information can be used in a practical
sense. Whatever your experiences are with both music and technology, we will tie
theoretical concepts into real-life implementations that result in unique, creative,
musical activities.
Many people believe that technology alone can transform them into creative
musicians. This myth is spread through advertisements for the latest gadgets,
software, and gear. The strange reality is that we probably have more music tech-
nology, music software, and music controllers and instruments than we need,
and certainly more than we realistically know what to do with. Honestly, tech-
nology makes it really easy for anyone to create uninteresting music. However,
music technology can offer accessibility with regard to music-making activities
that traditional acoustic instruments and methods cannot. Coupled with an edu-
cation in traditional aspects of music theory, counterpoint, and ear-training, an
understanding of the functions and inner workings of various technologies can
help facilitate a multitude of creative musical objectives.
In this book we will discuss technology and its uses as a mechanism to facili-
tate musicianship as well as a muse to spark creativity. Whether you are approach-
ing this text with a background in music and limited technology skills or vice
versa, I encourage you to think about what is discussed in a very practical way:
how can I use this information to facilitate my creative ideas, be they perfor-
mance, composition, education, or research? In our everyday lives, we encounter
machines. from ATMs to coffeemakers, performing all sorts of tasks that make
our lives easier, so why should our musical lives be any different? In this book,
we'll most often use the word ''technology'' to refer to electronic devices like com-
puters or software, but ''technology'' is really some mechanism to help reach some
conclusion or solve some problem. For some, the path to incorporating technol-
ogy into their music-making begins with a commitment to test the waters. As you
begin or continue to pursue your musical goals by using different technologies, be

•••
Xlll
xiv INTRODUCTION

patient: don't give up the first time you encounter a roadblock. Instead, think
about your musical objectives and let that drive your use of technology.

BOOK DESIGN
This book is divided into 14 chapters that address foundational concepts of music
technology. Chapters 1 to 3 introduce the basic concepts of sound, audio record-
ing, and playback devices, incorporating how computers can be used to make
and record new sounds and works. We then introduce the concepts of digital
synthesis and the related hardware and software in Chapter 4. There are several
hands-on chapters that address issues related to digital notation, recording, and
sequencing audio and MIDI (Chapters 5-7). Chapters 8-10 follow with a discus-
sion of the principles of acoustics and digital audio effects. The book continues
with Chapter 11-13, which describe specific uses of technology in music perfor-
mance, music education, and music composition. Finally, an introduction to pro-
gramming music software is offered in Chapter 14. Hands-on elements are
included throughout the chapters that use the included Fundamentals of Music
Technology (FMT) software.
This book assumes no previous knowledge of music technology. It is differ-
ent from other books because it is not tied to a specific piece of software that will
change in a few months. Instead, it introduces and demonstrates technology con-
cepts that are universally shared by many applications through the use of small,
intuitive, customized software-based lessons that address a single concept. When
learning to record, for example, readers experience the concept by using a simple
application with a minimal amount of labeled controls. Once the concepts are
introduced and demonstrated, readers are referred to some of the popular soft-
ware applications used by professionals. Having learned the basic concept and
techniques using the included software, the skills should transfer to the reader's,
or the instructor's, professional software application of choice.
As you proceed through this book, consider the ways in which the content
relates to and help support your creative endeavors writing, performing, and,
in general, being musical. Consider the audience that is going to be experienc-
ing these creative endeavors of yours and the type of experience that is going to
speak to them and then direct your projects toward that end. If your audience
is going to enjoy something light and comical, write, perform, engineer, dem-
onstrate, program, etc., along those lines. If the audience is going to enjoy
something emotional and dramatic, then work along those lines. In general,
consider the audience you want to reach, think about the experience that is
going to reach them, and then design that experience; use music, words, and
technology as necessary to reach your goals.
You took somewhat of a risk buying this book. Perhaps it was required for a
class, but, then, you took a risk getting an education. Really, you're taking a bet on
yourself that this education is going to some how reward you and be worth the time
and money you put into it. I thank you for involving this book in that decision, and
 Introduction xv

encourage you to consider and determine the ways in which the information will
help you reach your musical goals.

FOR INSTRUCTORS
The notion of a single, all-encompassing music technology textbook as the sole
classroom resource is somewhat misleading; even when music technology texts
are assigned, instructors vary with regard to the specific software they use. It's
entirely common for an instructor to use one book to explain concepts of digital
audio and another book for the particular software they're using- or no book at
all. This textbook gives the instructor a resource to explain concepts and their
historical development, demonstrate the concepts with the included hands-on
software, make assignments, describe prominent projects and applications used
in the music profession, and, yet, provide enough flexibility for the reader/instruc-
tor to take any direction regarding the professional software products they pursue.
The online Instructor Manual provides class lecture outlines for a 14-week
semester using this textbook. It also provides specific illustrations to help explain
various topics and suggestions for expanding upon the topics in the textbook.
Each lecture outline concludes with suggested assignments that relate to and re-
inforce concepts introduced in the textbook. The Instructor Manual also con-
tains homework and classwork assignments for each chapter
The book uses the companion Mac and PC software FMT to demon-
strate concepts in a step-by-step guide. There is also a companion website with
further resources for students. Additionally, the source code for FMT has been
made available for the instructor or student to use.

THE FMT SOFTWARE

Downloading and Installation

The FMT software was developed for use as a companion to the Foundations of
Music Technology book. There are many different music technology software ap-
plications in use by professionals; each professional may prefer a particular piece
of software over another. In this book, concepts are explained using a single ap-
plication, FMT, that simulates a variety of music technology concepts including
operating a mixer, recording in a DAW, automating effects, creating synthesized
sounds, and many more. As concepts are introduced in the book, the reader may
demonstrate them using FMT, where each control, parameter, and function is
labeled and described. As the concepts are learned, the acquired skills may trans-
fer to the use of standard music technology software applications that facilitate
these same concepts in a similar way, both operationally and graphically. This
allows the reader to work through this book using any software application that
they have available to them instead of being tied to what software they can afford
buy or what their computer can run.
xvi INTRODUCTION

'
Pl Record Stop 1 itoput Cta.llnte:
[l.uil !: )
Audio Track: 1

Am! TrJel 1
frir Aecordtn91

" Audio Track: 21

FIGURE 1.1: Basic DAW recording concepts as presented in FMT

,,,. J - ..,
-- I I JI -c

a.c .......... ,. •••

FIGURE 1.2: DAW recording as presented in Ableton Live 9

The software may be downloaded from the Oxford University Press Com-
panion website at www.oup.com/us/manzo or from the author's website at http://
vjmanzo.com/oup/fmt.
• Download the FMT software for your Mac or Windows computers.
• Unzip the software by double clicking it once it has finished downloading.
On Windows, it is recommended that you do a COMPLETE install of Quick-
Time (http://www.quicktime.com) prior to running the FMT software.
• Launch the software by clicking on the FMT icon.
 ••
Introduction XVll

iJl Quicklin1e 7 ProdtJct Features _

QUkkTime 7 Pr,oduct Features

Select the desired features,, then dick Next.

8 • QJlJlckTime EssentiaJs
9 • Qud.rme Player
.... QufckT"&me Web PlugHn
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C3 • •QukkTime Mure\liewer
L_ • , Quicklime for J~va

Older featu'es prtMded for compatibllty wth ~ third...,.ty mede appkations a,¥J d
m,ve 'fQffflats. Ody ntal these as needed.
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sutteate..esrequlreS429K8-oo Yf.U had drive •

•_ _<_Back_
. __ ~-1.....__Ne_~_t_>__...1 c~ I

FIGURE 1.3: Downloading and installing all additional QuickTime components on a Windows
computer

Open Source
The FMT source code is also available from the companion website. If you are
stuck getting the program to load on your computer, you may download the Max
Runtime application from http://www.cycling74.com and run the FMT applica-
tion from the source code.
• Visit http://www.cycling74.com and download the latest Max Runtime ap-
plication; you do not need to download the full Max/MSP!Jitter application.
• Download the FMT source code from the companion website or vjmanzo
.com/oup/fmt.
• Unzip the source code and open the file FMT.maxproj with the Max Run-
time application:
• Open the Runtime application and select open from the file menu,
then browse to the FMT. maxproj file.
• On a Mac, you may also drag the FMT.maxproj file directly onto the
Runtime application.

Testing the App

Within the application, you will need to ensure that three components are working.
• Test that your playback output device is working.
• Test that your recording/microphone input device is working.
• Test that your MIDI output is working. (Note: Testing MIDI input is optional.)
xviii INTRODUCTION

By default, everything in the software should work as intended with your com-
puter. However, complicated computer setups may affect the presets in the software.
• From within the FMT software, look at the main page window to get a
sense of where the program controls for the Master Volume, Audio Set-
tings, Lesson Menu, and MIDI Keyboard & Settings are located.
• Read through the instructions in the main window and ensure that:
• Your speaker output works by clicking the Test Audio button and
listening for two click sounds to come from your speakers.
• If not, choose the appropriate selection for your computer from
the Driver and Output pull-down menus.
• Your microphone input works by speaking and observing that the
LED indicator illuminates in the main window.
• If not, choose the appropriate selection for your computer from
the Input pull-down menu.
• Your MIDI output works by clicking on the graphical on-screen
keyboard.
• If not, choose the appropriate selection for your computer from
the MIDI Output pull-down menu.
Note that not all lessons in FMT will require MIDI input and output (IO) or
audio IO. The input and output methods for all lessons will be indicated in the text.
If you continue to experience difficulties, try using the software on a differ-
ent computer and see if you experience the same issues. Additionally, you may
access the error log on the front page.

Basic Troubleshooting
The activities provided in this book have been tested, and you should not encoun-
ter any problems. However, if you give technology the chance, it will stab you in
the back!
A few basic steps will help to make sure that you don't run into problems:
• Make sure you have downloaded the latest companion files for this book
from the OUP website.
• Save your work frequently and keep your saved files organized. Don't ac-
cidentally overwrite files with the same name unless instructed to do so.
• Follow the instructions exactly as written.
• If you are still running into problems, save your work, restart the program
completely, and reopen your work.
• If your computer is being unresponsive, restart it. Shut it down, wait for
a minute or so, and turn it back on (don't forget to turn it back on as this is
considered to be an important step).
• If for some reason you still encounter an error, you should try to recreate
the error on a different computer to identify problems with your machine.
It's always possible that your computer's volume is turned down, speakers
unplugged, keyboard not working, etc.
 •
Introduction XlX

• Apple computers tend to run audio applications more stably and with less
delay, or latency, than Windows-based computers. However, either type of
computer will work for the purpose of reading through this text.

Some concepts are a little tricky to understand, and you may have to reread
something a few times before the concept sinks in. Consult the online compan-
ion resources if and when you get stuck. All in all, the concepts introduced in
this book are not hard to learn, but they do require patience. Soon you'll get the
hang of it and will be using technology to facilitate your creative ideas in no
time. Enjoy!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank all of my colleagues at Worcester Polytechnic Institute for
their support and encouragement. To my colleagues in music technology, Frederick
Bianchi and Scott Barton: thank you for your commitment to making music
technology studies at WPI the most unique program I've seen. Thank you to
Dean Karen Oates and my department head Kristen Boudreau for allowing and
supporting our vision to make WPI an innovative place where books like this one
can be written. Thank you to all of the students at WPI who have helped to test-
drive this book- especially, Erica Bowden. Thanks!
To my colleagues in the Kean University Conservatory of Music: thank you
for helping to shape my views about how technology can facilitate musicianship.
To Matthew Halper: thank you for your friendship through the years and for
supporting the notion that all this machinery making modern music can still be
openhearted. To my colleagues at the New Jersey Institute of Technology and
Montclair State University: thank you for your support and insight throughout
my time there. Thank you to Michael Halper and Scott Skeebo for your contin-
ued standard of excellence doing good work in that area. To my colleagues in
the Boyer College of Music and Dance at Temple University: thank you for your
openness to spending time talking about my research ideas involving technol-
ogy for music education during my doctoral years. To Alex Ruthman, David
Elliot, and the music faculty at NYU: thank you for demonstrating the vast im-
plications for technology in music. Thank you also to David Cope for writing
the forward. To my colleagues in the Technology Institute for Music Educators
(TI:ME) and the Association for Technology in Music Instruction (ATMI):
thank you for your continued support and input about my work. Thank you Will
Kuhn, my co-author for Interactive Composition (2015). Thank you Rick Dammers,
Bill Bauer, and Dave Williams for your excitement and enthusiasm about using
technology to reach the 80% of students that aren't part of their school's band,
choir, or orchestra.
Thank you to Ableton, Cycling '74, the many members of the Ableton and
Cycling '74 forums, and the numerous developers and artists throughout the
world that contribute to this very unique community. Thank you, also, to all users
of the Modal Object Library and the EAMIR SDK.
xx INTRODUCTION

To Queen and Roy Thomas Baker- what could be better than Queen II, except,
possibly, Queen? Your music from 1973 to 1978 is unparalleled by anything else
happening at the time.
To Richard Carlin and Norm Hirschy at Oxford University Press: my contin-
ued thanks to you and the rest of the team for your professionalism and expertise
during this process.
Of course, I would be lost without the continued support of my wife, Raquel.
You should have escaped while you had the chance ,cause now you're stuck with
me. Thanks also to my family and friends, and all of my pets. Thank you!
 CHAPTER 1

PROPERTIES OF SOUND

OVERVIEW
n this chapter we will discuss the basic properties of sound. This will include
terms and concepts commonly associated with the field of physics such as
waves, frequencies, and vibration. The discussion may seem more like a science
lesson than a music one, but keep in mind that learning these concepts will allow
you to better understand how music technology works and how it can be used to
facilitate your musical objectives.

WHAT IS SOUND?
We all have some internal definition of what a sound is: ''It's something you hear
with your ears''; ''It has something to do with frequencies''; ''It's a wave of pressure
traveling from an instrument through the air to your ears bumping into all of the
molecules along the way." In fact, sound is all of those things. A sound is a collec-
tion of waves that travel through some medium, most notably air. The term wave
(or sound wave), for our purposes as musicians, refers to air pressure that moves
through a room and is heard by the audience.

FREQUENCIES
Waves move in a pattern that goes up and down; this movement is known as a
cycle. We use the term frequency to describe the number of cycles a wave com-
pletes in one second.

+l---,

l--1-----.-;
start o1 cycle en~ of cycle
0.0 seconds 1.0 seconds 2.0 seconds 3.0 seconds

FIGURE 1.1: A sine wave completing one cycle each second

1
2 FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC TECHNOLOGY

The wave shown in Figure I.I completes only one cycle per second. A wave
traveling at twice that speed would complete two cycles in one second, or 2 hertz
(abbreviated Hz). Using this terminology, a wave that completes 440 cycles in one
second is said to move at 440 Hz.

ti GO TO THE SOFTWARE LESSON: SINE WAVE

In the FMT companion software, choose the lesson Sine Wave from the pull-
down menu. If necessary, slowly increase the main level slider at the top left of the
software to hear the sound of this sine wave. Notice that this wave, called a sine
wave or sinusoid, is moving, or oscillating, at 440 Hz.

• Locate the orange circle l, and change the frequency of this sine wave by
clicking on the number 440 and typing in a new value, or by clicking and
sliding the value up or down.

Notice that the number of waves shown in the window changes as you
change the frequency value. Changing the knob on the left side of the wave
window at the orange circle 2 will also change the size and strength of the wave;
this is a property known as amplitude.
The frequency 440 has special significance to musicians since, as you may
already know, it is the pitch A located above middle C and is commonly used as a
reference pitch while tuning. However, you may belong to an orchestra that pre-
fers to tune their A to 438 Hz or at 442 Hz, in both cases still referring to that
pitch as A. The letter names we use in notation are meant to reference a fre-
quency. If we wanted to be precise, we would say to a musician, ((Play the notes
based on the frequency 261.623 Hz, followed by 293.66 Hz, then 329.62 Hz," but
it's easier to say, ((Play the notes C, D, and E." Within the software, a graphical
on-screen keyboard has been given that will play the frequency corresponding to
the keys you click.

• Click the A and C arrows above the keyboard to play major scales ascend-
ing and descending.

The oscillator in this software creates a sine wave that repeats a cycle at the
specified frequency. Suppose that you were able to swing your backpack over
your head 440 times in one second. In this regard, you are the oscillator since you
control the frequency of the cycle. In addition to the sounds of everything flying
out of your backpack and hitting the walls, you would hear your backpack itself
emit the pitch that we call A 440, the A above middle C. Suppose then that you
got tired and could only swing your backpack at half that speed: 220 times per
second. Your backpack's pitch would now sound like the A one octave below-
the A below middle C. Suppose, then, that you then ate a candy bar and got the
energy to speed back up to 440 times per second, back to the A above middle C,
and then had so much energy that you were able to swing your backpack at twice
that speed: 880 times per second! The pitch would no longer sound like the A
above middle C, but the A two octaves above middle C.
 CHAPTER 1 • Properties of Sound 3

- - - - - -523.25 Hz
! " " - - - - -440.00 Hz

- - - -==== 220.00 Hz
•
•
r - - - - - - -130.81 Hz

FIGURE 1.2: A few notes on the grand staff showing their frequency equivalent

S1neW.V•
9"0. HI

FIGURE 1.3: A 440 Hz sine wave generated within the companion software

Tuning Systems
All cultures that produce music have some way of referencing the
octave, typically as being twice the value of some pitch; for example,
A 440 Hz and A 880 Hz. The way that the notes within that octave
are realized is another concept related to the various tuning systems
4 FOUNDATIONS OF MUSIC TECHNOLOGY

that exist. In most Western tuning systems, the octave is divided

into 12 pitches or notes. In the most common tuning system used
today, equal temperament, these 12 pitches are spaced equally in
the octave.
In the past, tuning systems influenced the way in which
music was composed for certain instruments. For example, early
Baroque composers could not compose suites in unrelated keys
unless they were willing to wait for the performers to retune their
instruments. Today, many of the difficulties and shortcomings of
implementing a particular non-equal temperament tuning system
in traditional acoustic instruments can be alleviated with the use
of digital tuning systems and software-based musical instruments
in general.

Of course, it is impossible (and certainly not recommended!) for you to ac-

tually swing a backpack over your head as fast as 440 (or even 220) times per
second. However, we do experience some form of this phenomenon every day.
For example, when you step on the gas pedal of your car, your engine revs at a
certain speed. The more gas you give it, the faster the engine spins and the higher
the pitch goes.

Singing Cars?
Visit the companion website for this book (www.oup.com/us/manzo
or http://vjmanzo.com/oup/fmt) or simply search online for links to
videos of people using their car engines to ''sing'' by programming
computers to make the car engine rev at a sequence of different speeds.

In many ways, this is the basis of the ways that synthesizers work. There are
similarities in the mechanics of many instruments, from a guitar string vibrat-
ing, to a car engine spinning, to your backpack swinging over your head. The real
difference is in the particular characteristic of each instrument the characteris-
tic that lets you distinguish a middle C played on the piano from a middle C
played on the trumpet. That characteristic is called timbre.

TIMBRE
Timbre is the property of a sound that we, as musicians, refer to as tone or tone
color. As you have probably noticed from playing with the software oscillator, the
Other documents randomly have
different content
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 17 and new at every moment, is

certainly true ; it is also true that this cannot be fully expressed by
means of intellectual concepts. Only direct acquaintance can give
knowledge of what is unique and new. But direct acquaintance of
this kind is given fully in sensation, and does not require, so far as I
can see, any special faculty of intuition for its apprehension. It is
neither intellect nor intuition, but sensation, that supplies new data ;
but when the data are new in any remarkable manner, intellect is
much more capable of dealing with them than intuition would be.
The hen with a brood of ducklings no doubt has intuition which
seems to place her inside them, and not merely to know them
analytically ; but when the ducklings take to the water, the whole
apparent intuition is seen to be illusory, and the hen is left helpless
on the shore. Intuition, in fact, is an aspect and development of
instinct, and, like all instinct, is admirable in those customary
surroundings which have moulded the habits of the animal in
question, but totally incompetent as soon as the surroundings are
changed in a way which demands some non-habitual mode of
action. The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim
of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to
animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men. It is hardly to
be supposed, therefore, that the rapid, rough and ready methods of
instinct or intuition will find in this field a favourable ground for their
application. It is the older kinds of activity, which bring out our
kinship with remote generations of animal and semi-human
ancestors, that show intuition at its best. In such matters as self-
preservation and love, intuition will act sometimes (though not
always) with a swiftness and precision which are astonishing to the
critical intellect. But philosophy is not one of the
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18 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC pursuits which illustrate our

affinity with the past : it ^ a highly refined, highly civilised pursuit,
demanding, for its success, a certain liberation from the life of
instinct, and even, at times, a certain aloofness from all mundane
hopes and fears. It is not in philosophy, therefore, that we can hope
to see intuition at its best. On the contrary, since the true objects of
philosophy, and the habit of thought demanded for their
apprehension, are strange, unusual, and remote, it is here, more
almost than anywhere else, that intellect proves superior to intuition,
and that quick unanalysed convictions are least deserving of
uncritical acceptance. In advocating the scientific restraint and
balance, as against the self-assertion of a confident reliance upon
intuition, we are only urging, in the sphere of knowledge, that
largeness of contemplation, that impersonal disinterestedness, and
that freedom from practical preoccupations which have been
inculcated by all the great religions of the world. Thus our
conclusion, however it may conflict with the explicit beliefs of many
mystics, is, in essence, not contrary to the spirit which inspires those
beliefs, but rather the outcome of this very spirit as applied in the
realm of thought. H. UNITV AND PLURALITY One of the most
convincing aspects of the mystic illumination is the apparent
revelation of the oneness of all things, giving rise to pantheism in
religion and to monism in philosophy An elaborate logic, beginning
with Parmenides, and culminating in Hegel and his followers, has
been gradually developed, to prove that the universe is one
indivisible Whole, and that what seem to be its parts, if considered
as substantial and self 
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 19 existing, are mere illusion. The

conception of a Reality quite other than the world of appearance, a
reality one, indivisible, and unchanging, was introduced into Western
philosophy by Parmenides, not, nominally at least, for mystical or
religious reasons, but on the basis of a logical argument as to the
impossibility of not-being, and most subsequent metaphysical
systems are the outcome of this fundamental idea. The logic used in
defence of mysticism seems to be faulty as logic, and open to
technical criticisms, which I have explained elsewhere. I shall not
here repeat these criticisms, since they are lengthy and difficult, but
shall instead attempt an analysis of the state of mind from which
mystical logic has arisen. Belief in a reality quite different from what
appears to the senses arises with irresistible force in certain moods,
which are the source of most mysticism, and of most metaphysics.
While such a mood is dominant, the need of logic is not felt, and
accordingly the more thoroughgoing mystics do not employ logic,
but appeal directly to the immediate deliverance of their insight. But
such fully developed mysticism is rare in the West. When the
intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit
of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief
which he finds in himself. But since the belief already exists, he will
be very hospitable to any ground that suggests itself. The paradoxes
apparently proved by his logic are really the paradoxes of mysticism,
and are the goal which he feels his logic must reach if it is to be in
accordance with insight. The resulting logic has rendered most
philosophers incapable of giving any account of the world of science
and daily life, If they had been anxious to give such an account, they
would probably have discovered the errors of theii
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20 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC logic ; but most of them were

less anxious to understand the world of science and daily life than to
convict it of unreality in the interests of a super-sensible " real "
world. It is in this way that logic has been pursued by those of the
great philosophers who were mystics. But since they usually took for
granted the supposed insight of the mystic emotion, their logical
doctrines were presented with a certain dryness, and were believed
by their disciples to be quite independent of the sudden illumination
from which they sprang. Nevertheless their origin clung to them, and
they remained — to borrow a useful word from Mr. Santayana — "
malicious ' in regard to the world of science and common sense. It is
only so that we can account for the complacency with which
philosophers have accepted the inconsistency of their doctrines with
all the common and scientific facts which seem best established and
most worthy of belief. The logic of mysticism shows, as is natural,
the defects which are inherent in anything malicious. The impulse to
logic, not felt while the mystic mood is dominant, reasserts itself as
the mood fades, but with a desire to retain the vanishing insight, or
at least to prove that it was insight, and that what seems to
contradict it is illusion, The logic which thus arises is not quite
disinterested or candid, and is inspired by a certain hatred of the
daily world to which it is to be applied. Such an attitude naturally
does not tend to the best results. Everyone knows that to read an
author simply in ordei to refute him is not the way to understand
him ; and to read the book of Nature with a conviction that it is all
illusion is just as unlikely to lead to understanding. If our logic is to
find the common world intelligible, it must not be hostile, but must
be inspired by a genuine accept 
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 21 ance such as is not usually to

be found among metaphysicians. III. TIME The unreality of time is a
cardinal doctrine of many metaphysical systems, often nominally
based, as already by Parmenides, upon logical arguments, but
originally derived, at any rate in the founders of new systems, from
the certainty which is born in the moment of mystic insight. As a
Persian Sufi poet says : " Past and future are what veil God from our
sight. Burn up both of them with fire I How long Wilt thou be
partitioned by these segments as a reed ? "l The belief that what is
ultimately real must be immutable is a very common one : it gave
rise to the metaphysical notion of substance, and finds, even now, a
wholly illegitimate satisfaction in such scientific doctrines as the
conservation of energy and mass. It is difficult to disentangle the
truth and the error in this view. The arguments for the contention
that time is unreal and that the world of sense is illusory must, I
think, be regarded as fallacious. Nevertheless there is some sense —
easier to feel than to state — in which time is an unimportant and
superficial characteristic of reality. Past and future must be
acknowledged to be as real as the present, and a certain
emancipation from slavery to time is essential to philosophic
thought. The importance of time is rather practical than theoretical,
rather in relation to our desires than in relation to truth. A truer
image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as
entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than
from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is
Both in 1 Whinfield's translation of the Masnavi (Trubner, 1887), p.
34. G
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22 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC thought and in feeling, even

though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate
of wisdom. That this is the case may be seen at once by asking
ourselves why our feelings towards the past are so different from
our feelings towards the future. The reason for this difference is
wholly practical : our wishes can affect the future but not the past,
the future is tc some extent subject to our power, while the past is
unalterably fixed. But every future will some day be past : if we see
the past truly now, it must, when it was still future, have been just
what we now see it to be, and what is now future must be just what
we shall see it to be when it has become past. The felt difference of
quality between past and future, therefore, is not an intrinsic
difference, but only a difference in relation to us : to impartial
contemplation, it ceases to exist. And impartiality of contemplation
is, in the intellectual sphere, that very same virtue of
disinterestedness which, in the sphere of action, appears as justice
and unselfishness. Whoever wishes to see the world truly, to rise in
thought above the tyranny of practical desires, must learn to
overcome the difference of attitude towards past and future, and to
survey the whole stream of time in one comprehensive vision. The
kind of way in which, as it seems to me, time ought not to enter into
our theoretic philosophical thought, may be illustrated by the
philosophy which has become associated with the idea of evolution,
and which is exemplified by Nietzsche, pragmatism, and Bergson.
This philosophy, on the basis of the development which has led from
the lowest forms of life up to man, sees in progress the fundamental
law of the universe, and thus admits the difference between earlier
and later into the very citadel of its contemplative outlook. With its
past and future
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 23 history of the world, conjectural

as it is, I do not wish to quarrel. But I think that, in the intoxication
of a quick success, much that is required for a true understanding of
the universe has been forgotten. Something of Hellenism,
something, too, of Oriental resignation, must be combined with its
hurrying Western self-assertion before it can emerge from the ardour
of youth into the mature wisdom of manhood. In spite of its appeals
to science, the true scientific philosophy, I think, is something more
arduous and more aloof, appealing to less mundane hopes, and
requiring a severer discipline for its successful practice. Darwin's
Origin of Species persuaded the world that the difference between
different species of animals and plants is not the fixed immutable
difference that it appears to be. The doctrine of natural kinds, which
had rendered classification easy and definite, which was enshrined in
the Aristotelian tradition, and protected by its supposed necessity for
orthodox dogma, was suddenly swept away for ever out of the
biological world. The difference between man and the lower animals,
which to our human conceit appears enormous, was shown to be a
gradual achievement, involving intermediate being who could not
with certainty be placed either within or without the human family.
The sun and the planets had already been shown by Laplace to be
very probably derived from a primitive more or less undifferentiated
nebula. Thus the old fixed landmarks became wavering and
indistinct, and all sharp outlines were blurred. Things and species
lost their boundaries, and none could say where they began or
where they ended. But if human conceit was staggered for a
moment by its kinship with the ape, it soon found a way to reassert
itself, and that way is the "philosophy' of evolution,
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24 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC A process which led from the

amoeba to Man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a
progress — though whether the amoeba would agree with this
opinion is not known. Hence the cycle of changes which science had
shown to be the probable history of the past was welcomed as
revealing a law of development towards good in the universe — an
evolution or unfolding of an idea slowly embodying itself in the
actual. But such a view, though it might satisfy Spencer and those
whom we may call Hegelian evolutionists, could not be accepted as
adequate by the more whole-hearted votaries of change. An ideal to
which the world continuously approaches is, to these minds, too
dead and static to be inspiring. Not only the aspiration, but the ideal
too, must change and develop with the course of evolution : there
must be no fixed goal, but a continual fashioning of fresh needs by
the impulse which is life and which alone gives unity to the process.
Life, in this philosophy, is a continuous stream, in which all divisions
are artificial and unreal. Separate things, beginnings and endings,
are mere convenient fictions : there is only smooth unbroken
transition. The beliefs of to-day may count as true to-day, if they
carry us along the stream ; but to-morrow they will be false, and
must be replaced by new beliefs to meet the new situation. All our
thinking consists of convenient fictions, imaginary congealings of the
stream : reality flows on in spite of all our fictions, and though it can
be lived, it cannot be conceived in thought. Somehow, without
explicit statement, the assurance is slipped in that the future, though
we cannot foresee it, will be better than the past or the present : the
reader is like the child which expects a sweet because it has been
told to cn^eji its mouth and shut its eyes. Logic, mathematics,
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 25 physics disappear in this

philosophy, because they are too " static " ; what is real is no
impulse and movement towards a goal which, like the rainbow,
recedes as we advance, and makes every place different when it
reaches it from what it appeared to be at a distance, I do not
propose to enter upon a technical examination of this philosophy. I
wish only to maintain that the motives and interests which inspire it
are so exclusively practical, and the problems with which it deals are
so special, that it can hardly be regarded as touching any of the
questions that, to my mind, constitute genuine philosophy. The
predominant interest of evolutionism is in the question of human
destiny, or at least of the destiny of Life. It is more interested in
morality and happiness than in knowledge for its own sake. It must
be admitted that the same may be said of many other philosophies,
and that a desire for the kind of knowledge which philosophy can
give is very rare. But if philosophy is to attain truth, it is necessary
first and foremost that philosophers should acquire the disinterested
intellectual curiosity which characterises the genuine man of science.
Knowledge concerning the future — which is the kind of knowledge
that must be sought if we are to know about human destiny — is
possible within certain narrow limits. It is impossible to say how
much the limits may be enlarged with the progress of science. But
what is evident is that any proposition about the future belongs by
its subject-matter to some particular science, and is to be
ascertained, Mf at all, by the methods of that science. Philosophy is
not a short cut to the same kind of results as those of the other
sciences : if it is to be a genuine study, it must have a province of its
own, and aim at results which the other sciences can neither prove
nor disprove.
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a6 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC Evolutionism, in basing itself

upon the notion oi progress, which is change from the worse to the
better, allows the notion of time, as it seems to me, to become its
tyrant rather than its servant, and thereby loses that impartiality of
contemplation which is the source of all that is best in philosophic
thought and feeling. Metaphysicians, as we saw, have frequently
denied altogether the reality of time. I do not wish to do this ; I wish
only to preserve the mental outlook which inspired the denial, the
attitude which, in thought, regards the past as having the same
reality as the present and the same importance as the future. " In so
far," says Spinoza,1 " as the mind conceives a thing according to the
dictate of reason, it will be equally affected whether the idea is that
of a future, past, or present thing." It is this " conceiving according
to the dictate of reason ' that I find lacking in the philosophy which
is based on evolution. IV. GOOD AND EVIL Mysticism maintains that
all evil is illusory, and sometimes maintains the same view as regards
good, but more often holds that all Reality is good. Both views are to
be found in Heraclitus : " Good and ill are one," he says, but again, "
To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some
things wrong and some right." A similar twofold position is to be
found in Spinoza, but he uses the word " perfection " when he
means to speak of the good that is not merely human. ' By reality
and perfection I mean the same thing," he says ; 2 but elsewhere
we find the definition : " By good I shall mean that which we
certainly know to be useful to us."8 Thus perfection belongs to
Reality in its own nature, but good1 Ethics. Bk. IV, Prop. LXII. «
Ethics. Pt. II. Df. VI. ' Ib., Pt. IV, Df. I.
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 27 ness is relative to ourselves and

our needs, and disappears in an impartial survey. Some such
distinction, I think, is necessary in order to understand the ethical
outlook of mysticism : there is a lower mundane kind of good and
evil, which divides the world of appearance into what seem to be
conflicting parts ; but there is also a higher, mystical kind of good,
which belongs to Reality and is not opposed by any correlative kind
of evil. It is difficult to give a logically tenable account of this
position without recognising that good and evil are subjective, that
what is good is merely that towards which we have one kind of
feeling, and what is evil is merely that towards which we have
another kind of feeling. In our active life, where we have to exercise
choice, and to prefer this to that of two possible acts, it is necessary
to have a distinction of good and evil, or at least of better and
worse. But this distinction, like everything pertaining to action,
belongs to what mysticism regards as the world of illusion, if only
because it is essentially concerned with time. In our contemplative
life, where action is not called for, it is possible to be impartial, and
to overcome the ethical dualism which action requires. So long as we
remain merely impartial, we may be content to say that both the
good and the evil of action are illusions. But if, as we must do if we
have the mystic vision, we find the whole world worthy of love and
worship, if we see 1 The earth, and every common sight. . • •
Apparell'd in celestial light," we shall say that there is a higher good
than that of action, and that this higher good belongs to the whole
world as it is in reality. In this way the twofold attitude and the
apparent vacillation of mysticism are explained and justified.
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a8 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC The possibility of this universal

love and joy in all that exists is of supreme importance for the
conduct and happiness of life, and gives inestimable value to the
mystic emotion, apart from any creeds which may be built upon it.
But if we are not to be led into false beliefs, it is necessary to realise
exactly what the mystic emotion reveals. It reveals a possibility of
human nature — a possibility of a nobler, happier, freer life than any
that can be otherwise achieved. But it does not reveal anything
about the non-human, or about the nature of the universe in
general. Good and bad, and even the higher good that mysticism
finds everywhere, are the reflections of our own emotions on other
things, not part of the substance of things as they are in themselves.
And therefore an impartial contemplation, freed from all pre-
occupation with Self, will not judge things good or bad, although it is
very easily combined with that feeling of universal love which leads
the mystic to say that the whole world is good. The philosophy of
evolution, through the notion of progress, is bound up with the
ethical dualism of the worse and the better, and is thus shut out, not
only from the kind of survey which discards good and evil altogether
from its view, but also from the mystical belief in the goodness of
everything. In this way the distinction of good and evil, like time,
becomes a tyrant in this philosophy, and introduces into thought the
restless selectiveness of action. Good and evil, like time, are, it
would seem, not general or fundamental in the world of thought, but
late and highly specialised members of the intellectual hierarchy.
Although, as we saw, mysticism can be interpreted so as to agree
with the view that good and evil are not intellectually fundamental, it
must be admitted that here
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 29 we are no longer in verbal

agreement with most of the great philosophers and religious
teachers of the past. I believe, however, that the elimination of
ethical considerations from philosophy is both scientifically necessary
and — though this may seem a paradox — an ethical advance. Both
these contentions must be briefly defended. The hope of satisfaction
to our more human desires — the hope of demonstrating that the
world has this or that desirable ethical characteristic — is not one
which, so far as I can see, a scientific philosophy can do anything
whatever to satisfy. The difference between a good world and a bad
one is a difference in the particular characteristics of the particular
things that exist in these worlds : it is not a sufficiently abstract
difference to come within the province of philosophy. Love and hate,
for example, are ethical opposites, but to philosophy they are closely
analogous attitudes towards objects. The general form and structure
of those attitudes towards objects which constitute mental
phenomena is a problem for philosophy, but the difference between
love and hate is not a difference of form or structure, and therefore
belongs rather to the special science of psychology than to
philosophy. Thus the ethical interests which have often inspired
philosophers must remain in the background : some kind of ethical
interest may inspire the whole study, but none must obtrude in the
detail or be expected in the special results which are sought. If this
view seems at first sight disappointing, we may remind ourselves
that a similar change has been found necessary in all the other
sciences. The physicist or chemist is not now required to prove the
ethical importance of his ions or atoms ; the biologist is not expected
to prove the utility of the plants or animals
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30 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC which he dissects. In pre-

scientific ages this was not the case. Astronomy, for example, was
studied because men believed in astrology : it was thought that the
movements of the planets had the most direct and important
bearing upon the lives of human beings. Presumably, when this
belief decayed and the disinterested study of astronomy began,
many who had found astrology absorbingly interesting decided that
astronomy had too little human interest to be worthy of study.
Physics, as it appears in Plato's Timaeus for example, is full of ethical
notions : it is an essential part of its purpose to show that the earth
is worthy of admiration. The modern physicist, on the contrary,
though he has no wish to deny that the earth is admirable, is not
concerned, as physicist, with its ethical attributes : he is merely
concerned to find out facts, not to consider whether they are good
or bad. In psychology, the scientific attitude is even more recent and
more difficult than in the physical sciences : it is natural to consider
that human nature is either good or bad, and to suppose that the
difference between good and bad, so all-important in practice, must
be important in theory also. It is only during the last century that an
ethically neutral psychology has grown up ; and here too, ethical
neutrality has been essential to scientific success. In philosophy,
hitherto, ethical neutrality has been seldom sought and hardly ever
achieved. Men have remembered their wishes, and have judged
philosophies in relation to their wishes. Driven from the particular
sciences, the belief that the notions of good and evil must afford a
key to the understanding of the world has sought a refuge in
philosophy. But even from this last refuge, if philosophy is not to
remain a set of pleasing dreams, this belief must be driven forth. It
is a commonplace that
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC 31 happiness is not best achieved

by those who seek it directly ; and it would seem that the same is
true of the good. In thought, at any rate, those who forget good and
evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good
than those who view the world through the distorting medium of
their own desires. We are thus brought back to our seeming
paradox, that a philosophy which does not seek to impose upon the
world its own conceptions of good and evil is not only more likely to
achieve truth, but is also the outcome of a higher ethical standpoint
than one which, like evolutionism and most traditional systems, is
perpetually appraising the universe and seeking to find in it an
embodiment of present ideals. In religion, and in every deeply
serious view of the world and of human destiny, there is an element
of submission, a realisation of the limits of human power, which is
somewhat lacking in the modern world, with its quick material
successes and its insolent belief in the boundless possibilities of
progress. " He that loveth his life shall lose it " ; and there is danger
lest, through a too confident love of life, life itself should lose much
of what gives it its highest worth. The submission which religion
inculcates in action is essentially the same in spirit as that which
science teaches in thought ; and the ethical neutrality by which its
victories have been achieved is the outcome of that submission. The
good which it concerns us to remember is the good which it lies in
our power to create — the good in our own lives and in our attitude
towards the world. Insistence on belief in an external realisation of
the good is a form of self-assertion, which, while it cannot secure
the external good which it desires, can seriously impair the if ward
good which lies within our power, and destroy that reverence
towards fact which constitutes both what is
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32 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC valuable in humility and what is

fruitful in the scientific temper. Human beings cannot, of course,
wholly transcend human nature ; something subjective, if only the
interest that determines the direction of our attention, must remain
in all our thought. But scientific philosophy comes nearer to
objectivity than any other human pursuit, and gives us, therefore,
the closest constant and the most intimate relation with the outer
world that it is possible to achieve. To the primitive mind, everything
is either friendly or hostile ; but experience has shown that
friendliness and hostility are not the conceptions by which the world
is to be understood. Scientific philosophy thus represents, though as
yet only in a nascent condition, a higher form of thought than any
pre-scientific belief or imagination, and, like every approach to
selftranscendence, it brings with it a rich reward in increase of scope
and breadth and comprehension. Evolutionism, in spite of its appeals
to particular scientific facts, fails to be a truly scientific philosophy
because of its slavery to time, its ethical preoccupations, and its
predominant interest in our mundane concerns and destiny. A truly
scientific philosophy will be more humble, more piecemeal, more
arduous, offering less glitter of outward mirage to flatter fallacious
hopes, but more indifferent to fate, and more capable of accepting
the world without the tyrannous imposition of our human and
temporary demands.
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n THE PLACE OF SCIENCE IN A LIBERAL EDUCATION

OCIENCE, to the ordinary reader of newspapers, is ^ represented by
a varying selection of sensational triumphs, such as wireless
telegraphy and aeroplanes radio-activity and the marvels of modern
alchemy. It is not of this aspect of science that I wish to speak.
Science, in this aspect, consists of detached up-to-date fragments,
interesting only until they are replaced by something newer and
more up-to-date, displaying nothing of the systems of patiently
constructed knowledge out of which, almost as a casual incident,
have come the practically useful results which interest the man in
the street. The increased command over the forces of nature which
is derived from science is undoubtedly an amply sufficient reason for
encouraging scientific research, but this reason has been so often
urged and is so easily appreciated that other reasons, to my mind
quite as important, are apt to be overlooked. It is with these other
reasons, especially with the intrinsic value of a scientific habit of
mind in forming our outlook on the world, that I shall be concerned
in what follows. The instance of wireless telegraphy will serve to
illustrate the difference between the two points of view Almost all
th? serious intellectual labour required for the 33
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j^ MYSTICISM AND LOGIC possibility of this invention is

due to three men — Faraday, Maxwell, and Hertz. In alternating
layers of experiment and theory these three men built up the
modern theory of electromagnetism, and demonstrated the identity
of light with electromagnetic waves. The system which they
discovered is one of profound intellectual interest, bringing together
and unifying an endless variety of apparently detached phenomena,
and displaying a cumulative mental power which cannot but afford
delight to every generous spirit. The mechanical details which
remained to be adjusted in order to utilise their discoveries for a
practical system of telegraphy demanded, no doubt, very
considerable ingenuity, but had not that broad sweep and that
universality which could give them intrinsic interest as an object of
disinterested contemplation. From the point of view of training the
mind, of giving that well-informed, impersonal outlook which
constitutes culture in the good sense of this much-misused word, it
seems to be generally held indisputable that a literary education is
superior to one based on science. Even the warmest advocates of
science are apt to rest their claims on the contention that culture
ought to be sacrificed to utility. Those men of science who respect
culture, when they associate with men learned in the classics, are
apt to admit, not merely politely, but sincerely, a certain inferiority
on their side, compensated doubtless by the services which science
renders to humanity, but none the less real. And so long as this
attitude exists among men of science, it tends to verily itself : the
intrinsically valuable aspects of science tend to be sacrificed to the
merely useful, and little attempt is made to preserve that leisurely,
systematic survey by which the finer quality of mind is formed and
nourished.
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SCIENCE AND CULTURE 35 But even if there be, in present

fact, any such in feriority as is supposed in the educational value of
science, this is, I believe, not the fault of science itself, but the fault
of the spirit in which science is taught. If its full possibilities were
realised by those who teach it, I believe that its capacity of
producing those habits of mind which constitute the highest menta*
excellence would be at least as great as that of literature, and more
particularly of Greek and Latin literature. In saying this I have no
wish whatever to disparage a classical education. I have not myself
enjoyed its benefits, and my knowledge of Greek and Latin authors
is derived almost wholly from translations. But I am firmly persuaded
that the Greeks fully deserve all the admiration that is bestowed
upon them, and that it is a very great and serious loss to be
unacquainted with their writings. It is not by attacking them, but by
drawing attention to neglected excellences in science, that I wish to
conduct my argument. One defect, however, does seem inherent in
a purely classical education — namely, a too exclusive emphasis on
the past. By the study of what is absolutely ended and can never be
renewed, a habit of criticism towards the present and the future is
engendered. The qualities in which the present excels are qualities
to which the study of the past does not direct attention, and to
which, therefore, the student of Greek civilisation may easily become
blind, In what is new and growing there is apt to be something
crude, insolent, even a little vulgar, which is shocking to the man of
sensitive taste ; quivering from the rough contact, he retires to the
trim gardens of a polished past, forgetting that they were reclaimed
from the wilderness by men as rough and earth-soiled as those from
whom he shrinks in his own day. The habit of being unable to
recognise merit
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36 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC until it is dead is too apt to be

the result of a purely bookish life, and a culture based wholly on the
past will seldom be able to pierce through everyday surroundings to
the essential splendour of contemporary things, or to the hope of
still greater splendour in the future. " My eyes saw not the men of
old ; And now their age away has rolled. I weep — to think I shall
not see The heroes of posterity." So says the Chinese poet ; but
such impartiality is rare in the more pugnacious atmosphere of the
West, where the champions of past and future fight a never-ending
battle, instead of combining to seek out the merits of both. This
consideration, which militates not only against the exclusive study of
the classics, but against every form of culture which has become
static, traditional, and academic, leads inevitably to the fundamental
question : What is the true end of education ? But before attempting
to answer this question it will be well to define the sense in which
we are to use the word " education." For this purpose I shall
distinguish the sense in which I mean to use it from two others, both
perfectly legitimate, the one broader and the other narrower than
the sense in which I mean to use the word. In the broader sense,
education will include not only what we learn through instruction,
but all that we learn through personal experience — the formation of
character through the education of life. Of this aspect of education,
vitally important as it is, I will say nothing, since its consideration
would introduce topics quite foreign to the question with which we
are concerned. In the narrower sense, education may be confined to
instruction, the imparting of definite information on
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SCIENCE AND CULTURE 37 various subjects, because such

information, in and for itself, is useful in daily life. Elementary
education — reading, writing, and arithmetic — is almost wholly of
this kind. But instruction, necessary as it is, does not per se
constitute education in the sense in which I wish to consider it.
Education, in the sense in which I mean it, may be defined as the
formation, by means of instruction, of certain mental habits and a
certain outlook on life and the world. It remains to ask ourselves,
what mental habits, and what sort of outlook, can be hoped for as
the result of instruction ? When we have answered this question we
can attempt to decide what science has to contribute to the
formation of the habits and outlook which we desire. Our whole life
is built about a certain number — not a very small number — of
primary instincts and impulses. Only what is in some way connected
with these instincts and impulses appears to us desirable or
important ; there is no faculty, whether ' reason " or ' ' virtue ' ' or
whatever it may be called, that can take our active life and our
hopes and fears outside the region controlled by these first movers
of all desire. Each of them is like a queen-bee, aided by a hive of
workers gathering honey ; but when the queen is gone the workers
languish and die, and the cells remain empty of their expected
sweetness. So with each primary impulse in civilised man : it is
surrounded and protected by a busy swarm of attendant derivative
desires, which store up in its service whatever honey the
surrounding world affords. But if the queen-impulse dies, the death-
dealing influence, though retarded a little by habit, spreads slowly
through all the subsidiary impulses, and a whole tract of life
becomes inexplicably colourless. What was formerly full of zest, and
so obviously worth doing that it raised
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3* MYSTICISM AND LOGIC no questions, has now grown

dreary and purposeless : with a sense of disillusion we inquire the
meaning of life, and decide, perhaps, that all is vanity. The search
for an outside meaning that can compel an inner response must
always be disappointed : all " meaning ' ' must be at bottom related
to our primary desires, and v/hen they are extinct no miracle can
restore to the world the value which they reflected upon it. The
purpose of education, therefore, cannot be to create any primary
impulse which is lacking in the uneducated ; the purpose can only be
to enlarge the scope of those that human nature provides, by
increasing the number and variety of attendant thoughts, and by
showing where the most permanent satisfaction is to be found.
Under the impulse of a Calvinistic horror of the " natural man," this
obvious truth has been too often misconceived in the training of the
young ; ' nature ' has been falsely regarded as excluding all that is
best in what is natural, and the endeavour to teach virtue has led to
the production of stunted and contorted hypocrites instead of full-
grown human beings. From such mistakes in education a better
psychology or a kinder heart is beginning to preserve the present
generation ; we need, therefore, waste no more words on the theory
that the purpose of education is to thwart or eradicate nature. But
although nature must supply the initial force of desire, nature is not,
in the civilised man, the spasmodic, fragmentary, and yet violent set
of impulses that it is in the savage. Each impulse has its
constitutional ministry of thought and knowledge and reflection,
through which possible conflicts of impulses are foreseen, and
temporary impulses are controlled by the unifying impulse which
may be called wisdom. In this way
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SCIENCE AND CULTURE 39 education destroys the crudity

of instinct, and increases through knowledge the wealth and variety
of the individual's contacts with the outside world, making him no
longer an isolated fighting unit, but a citizen of the universe,
embracing distant countries, remote regions of space, and vast
stretches of past and future within the circle of his interests. It is this
simultaneous softening in the insistence of desire and enlargement
of its scope that is the chief moral end of education. Closely
connected with this moral end is the more purely intellectual aim of
education, the endeavour to make us see and imagine the world in
an objective manner, as far as possible as it is in itself, and not
merely through the distorting medium of personal desire. The
complete attainment of such an objective view is no doubt an ideal,
indefinitely approachable, but not actually and fully realisable.
Education, considered as a process of forming our mental habits and
our outlook on the world, is to be judged successful in proportion as
its outcome approximates to this ideal ; in proportion, that is to say,
as it gives us a true view of our place in society, of the relation of
the whole human society to its nonhuman environment, and of the
nature of the nonhuman world as it is in itself apart from our desires
and interests. If this standard is admitted, we can return to the
consideration of science, inquiring how far science contributes to
such an aim, and whether it is in any respect superior to its rivals in
educational practice. II Two opposite and at first sight conflicting
merits belong to science as against literature and art. The one,
which is not inherently necessary, but is certainly
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40 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC at the present day, is

hopefulness as to the future of human achievement, and in
particular as to the useful work that may be accomplished by any
intelligent student. This merit and the cheerful outlook which it
engenders prevent what might otherwise be the de pressing effect
of another aspect of science, to my mind also a merit, and perhaps
its greatest merit — I mean the irrelevance of human passions and
of the whole subjective apparatus where scientific truth is
concerned. Each of these reasons for preferring the study of science
requires some amplification. Let us begin with the first. In the study
of literature or art our attention is perpetually riveted upon the past :
the men of Greece or of the Renaissance did better than any men do
now ; the triumphs of former ages, so far from facilitating fresh
triumphs in our own age, actually increase the difficulty of fresh
triumphs by rendering originality harder of attainment ; not only is
artistic achievement not cumulative, but it seems even to depend
upon a certain freshness and naivete of impulse and vision which
civilisation tends to destroy. Hence comes, to those who have been
nourished on the literary and artistic productions of former ages, a
certain peevishness and undue fastidiousness towards the present,
from which there seems no escape except into the deliberate
vandalism which ignores tradition and in the search after originality
achieves only the eccentric. But in such vandalism there is none of
the simplicity and spontaneity out of which great art springs : theory
is still the canker in its core, and insincerity destroys the advantages
of a merely pretended ignorance. The despair thus arising from an
education which suggests no pre-eminent mental activity except that
of artistic creation is wholly absent from an education
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SCIENCE AND CULTURE 41 which gives the knowledge of

scientific method. The discovery of scientific method, except in pure
mathematics, is a thing of yesterday ; speaking broadly, we may say
that it dates from Galileo. Yet already it has transformed the world,
and its success proceeds with ever-accelerating velocity. In science
men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which
they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the
appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the
successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors ; where
one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand
lesser men can apply it. No transcendent ability is required in order
to make useful discoveries in science ; the edifice of science needs
its masons, bricklayers, and common labourers as well as its
foremen, master-builders, and architects. In art nothing worth doing
can be done without genius ; in science even a very moderate
capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement. In science the
man of real genius is the man who invents a new method. The
notable discoveries are often made by his successors, who can apply
the method with fresh vigour, unimpaired by the previous labour of
perfecting it ; but the mental calibre of the thought required for their
work, however brilliant, is not so great as that required by the first
inventor of the method. There are in science immense numbers of
different methods, appropriate to different classes of problems ; but
over and above them all, there is something not easily definable,
which may be called the method of science. It was formerly
customary to identify this with the inductive method, and to
associate it with the name of Bacon. But the true inductive method
was not discovered by Bacon, and the true method of science
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MYSTICISM AND LOGIC is something which includes

deduction as mucn as induction, logic and mathematics as much as
botany and geology. I shall not attempt the difficult task of stating
what the scientific method is, but I will try to indicate the temper of
mind out of which the scientific method grows, which is the second
of the two merits that were mentioned above as belonging to a
scientific education. The kernel of the scientific outlook is a thing so
simple, so obvious, so seemingly trivial, that the mention of it may
almost excite derision. The kernel of the scientific outlook is the
refusal to regard our own desires, tastes, and interests as affording
a key to the understanding of the world. Stated thus baldly, this may
seem no more than a trite truism. But to remember it consistently in
matters arousing our passionate partisanship is by no means easy,
especially where the available evidence is uncertain and
inconclusive. A few illustrations will make this clear. Aristotle, I
understand, considered that the stars must move in circles because
the circle is the most perfect curve. In the absence of evidence to
the contrary, he allowed himself to decide a question of fact by an
appeal to aesthetico-moral considerations. In such a case it is at
once obvious to us that this appeal was unjustifiable. We know now
how to ascertain as a fact the way in which the heavenly bodies
move, and we know that they do not move in circles, or even in
accurate ellipses, or in any other kind of simply describable curve.
This may be painful to a certain hankering after simplicity of pattern
in the universe, but we know that in astronomy such feelings are
irrelevant. Easy as this knowledge seems now, we owe it to the
courage and insight of the first inventors of scientific method, and
more especially of Galileo.
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SCIENCE AND CULTURE 43 We may take as another

illustration Malthus's doctrine of population. This illustration is all the
better for the fact that his actual doctrine is novs known to be
largely erroneous. It is not his conclusions that are valuable, but the
temper and method of his inquiry As everyone knows, it was to him
that Darwin owed ar essential part of his theory of natural selection,
and this was only possible because Malthus's outlook was truly
scientific. His great merit lies in considering man not as the object of
praise or blame, but as a part of nature, a thing with a certain
characteristic behaviour from which certain consequences must
follow. If the behaviour is not quite what Malthus supposed, if the
consequences are not quite what he inferred, that may falsify his
conclusions, but does not impair the value of his method. The
objections which were made when his doctrine was new — that it
was horrible and depressing, that people ought not to act as he said
they did, and so on — were all such as implied an unscientific
attitude of mind ; as against all of them, his calm determination to
treat man as a natural phenomenon marks an important advance
over the reformers of the eighteenth century and the Revolution.
Under the influence of Darwinism the scientific atti tude towards
man has now become fairly common, and is to some people quite
natural, though to most it is still a difficult and artificial intellectual
contortion. There is however, one study which is as yet almost
wholly untouched by the scientific spirit — I mean the study of
philosophy Philosophers and the public imagine that the scientific
spirit must pervade pages that bristle with allusions to ions, germ-
plasms, and the eyes of shell-fish. But as the devil can quote
Scripture, so the philosopher can quote science. The scientific spirit
is not an affair of
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44 MYSTICISM AND LOGIC quotation, of externally

acquired information, any more than manners are an affair of the
etiquette-book. The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping
away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know — it
involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the
whole subjective emotional life, until we become subdued to the
material, able to see it frankly, without preconceptions, without bias,
without any wish except to see it as it is, and without any belief that
what it is must be determined by some relation, positive or negative,
to what we should like it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it
to be. Now in philosophy this attitude of mind has not as yet been
achieved. A certain self-absorption, not personal, but human, has
marked almost all attempts to conceive the universe as a whole.
Mind, or some aspect of it — thought or will or sentience — has
been regarded as the pattern after which the universe is to be
conceived, for no better reason, at bottom, than that such a
universe would not seem strange, and would give us the cosy feeling
that every place is like home. To conceive the universe as essentially
progressive or essentially deteriorating, for example, is to give to our
hopes and fears a cosmic importance which may, of course, be
justified, but which we have as yet no reason to suppose justified.
Until we have learnt to think of it in ethically neutral terms, we have
not arrived at a scientific attitude in philosophy ; and until we have
arrived at such an attitude, it is hardly to be hoped that philosophy
will achieve any solid results. I have spoken so far largely of the
negative aspect of the scientific spirit, but it is from the positive
aspect that its value is derived. The instinct of constructiveness,
which is one of the chief incentives to artistic creation, can find
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SCIENCE AND CULTURE 45 in scientific systems a

satisfaction more massive than any epic poem. Disinterested
curiosity, which is the source of almost all intellectual effort, finds
with astonished delight that science can unveil secrets which might
well have seemed for ever undiscoverable. The desire for a larger life
and wider interests, for an escape from private circumstances, and
even from the whole recurring human cycle of birth and death, is
fulfilled by the impersonal cosmic outlook of science as by nothing
else. To all these must be added, as contributing to the happiness of
the man of science, the admiration of splendid achievement, and the
consciousness of inestimable utility to the human race. A life devoted
to science is therefore a happy life, and its happiness is derived from
the very best sources that are open to dwellers on this troubled and
passionate planet.
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Ill A FREE MAN'S WORSHIP1 r I ^O Dr. Faustus in his study

Mephistopheles told the A history of the Creation, saying : " The
endless praises of the choirs of angels had begun to grow
wearisome ; for, after all, did he not deserve their praise ? Had he
not given them endless joy ? Would it not be more amusing to
obtain undeserved praise, to be worshipped by beings whom he
tortured ? He smiled inwardly, and resolved that the great drama
should be performed. " For countless ages the hot nebula whirled
aimlessly through space. At length it began to take shape, the
central mass threw off planets, the planets cooled, boiling seas and
burning mountains heaved and tossed, from black masses of cloud
hot sheets of rain deluged the barely solid crust. And now the first
germ of life grew in the depths of the ocean, and developed rapidly
in the fructifying warmth into vast forest trees, huge ferns springing
from the damp mould, sea monsters breeding, fighting, devouring,
and passing away. And from the monsters, as the play unfolded
itself, Man was born, with the power of thought, the knowledge of
good and evil, and the cruel thirst for worship. And Man saw that all
is passing in this mad, monstrous world, that all is struggling to
snatch, at any cost, a few brief moments of life before Death's
inexorable decree. And 1 Reprinted from the Independent Review,
December, 1903. 46
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