Page:Labour and childhood.djvu/114

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LABOUR AND CHILDHOOD

only because the projection is needed. The musician needs a stronger lung, a larger lip, a bigger larynx. He wants, as does everyone in whom new power is generated, a greater body than his own, but one that is still his own. In this need and power lies the whole history of instrument making; and in spite of disease (which balked so many), and weakness (which prevented myriads), this need seems to have become more imperious and profound, and the power to meet it greater; for not only mouth and tongue, but larynx, windpipe, lungs, tympanum, all were projected in turn; the forms of all these came forth in turn, and now appear, in spite of all disguises, in the orchestral instruments of to-day.

There was no halt in this revelation. Ranging far and farther into the recesses of the hearing organ, instrument makers began at last to make spinnets, then pianos, and piano organs. It did not appear at first that these could possibly have their prototype in the human body. But the physiologist arrived in due time, to show that this "original" existed within. He showed the organ, with three thousand strings, which forms a part of the inner ear. It is called "Corti's organ," after its discoverer. No one can look at it without being reminded of the keyboard of a piano. It is microscopic. No eye had seen it.