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Ellis, Havelock, 1859-1939

"Sexual Selection In Man"

"
The reality of the association between the sexual impulse and music--and,
indeed, art generally--is shown by the fact that the evolution of puberty
tends to be accompanied by a very marked interest in musical and other
kinds of art. Lancaster, in a study of this question among a large number
of young people (without reference to difference in sex, though they were
largely female), found that from 50 to 75 per cent of young people feel an
impulse to art about the period of puberty, lasting a few months, or at
most a year or two. It appears that 464 young people showed an increased
and passionate love for music, against only 102 who experienced no change
in this respect. The curve culminates at the age of 15 and falls rapidly
after 16. Many of these cases were really quite unmusical.[128]

FOOTNOTES:
[86] This view has been more especially developed by J.B. Miner, _Motor,
Visual, and Applied Rhythms_, Psychological Review Monograph Supplements,
vol. v, No. 4, 1903.
[87] Sir S. Wilks, _Medical Magazine_, January, 1894; cf. Clifford
Allbutt, "Music, Rhythm, and Muscle," _Nature_, February 8, 1894.
[88] Buecher, _Arbeit und Rhythmus_, third edition, 1902; Wundt,
_Voelkerpsychologie_, 1900, Part I, p.


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