A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins.

  • Mary Whiton Calkins
Date:
1910
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A first book in psychology / by Mary Whiton Calkins. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    102/446 page 84
    or walk, the legs swing alternately, and with each leg swings the arm of the opposite side. Here we have the basis of the idea of rhythm; a strong sensation-mass from the leg whose foot rests upon the ground, the leg that carries the weight of the body, followed at equal intervals by a weak sensation-mass from the leg that swings through the air. ... As the leg swings, the arm swings; and at the moment that the foot is set down, the arm pulls with its full weight upon the shoulder. . . * These natural tactual rhythms are, however, mere alter¬ nations of two bodily phases. Dance-rhythms and auditory rhythms — regular alternations of sounds, weaker and stronger, longer and shorter, are capable of much greater variation and are consequently far more complex. The unit of musical rhythm is a measure; measures are combined in phrases; and phrases are grouped in musical periods. The unit of word-rhythm is a poetic foot; and verse and stanza are progressively complex combinations of poetic feet. The consciousness of these more complex rhythms is an experience of group within group. It is important to observe that auditory and motor rhythms are normally combined. The chorus-dance, out of which the drama developed, is an expression of this close relation be¬ tween the sensory and the motor nerve structures, which we illustrate whenever we keep time, with hand or foot, to music. The consciousness of melody is a complex experience of a rhythmic series of harmonious tones in which the harmony is successive, not simultaneous. As in the case of the rhythm- consciousness, the unified terms are temporally distinct. * “A Primer of Psychology,” revised edition, 1899, § 47.
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