That the Pan’s pipes are the originals of all these species seems hardly open to doubt.  Even among the Greeks and Romans we see traces of them in the double trumpet and the double pipe.  These trumpets became larger and larger in form, and the force required to play them was such that the player had to adopt a kind of leather harness to strengthen his cheeks.  Before this development had been reached, however, I have no doubt that all wind instruments were of the Pan’s pipes variety; that is to say, the instruments consisted of a hollow tube shut at one end, the sound being produced by the breath catching on the open edge of the tube.

Direct blowing into the tube doubtless came later.  In this case the tube was open at both ends, and the sound was determined by its length and by the force given to the breath in playing.  There is good reason for admitting this new instrument to be a descendant of the Pan’s pipes, for it was evidently played by the nose at first.  This would preclude its being considered as an originally forcible instrument, such as the trumpet.

Now that we have traced the history of the pipe and considered the different types of the instrument, we can see immediately that it brought no great new truth home to man as did the drum.

The savage who first climbed secretly to the top of the stockade around his village to investigate the cause of the mysterious sounds would naturally say that the Great Spirit had revealed a mystery to him; and he would also claim to be a wonder worker.  But while his pipe would be accepted to a certain degree, it was nevertheless second in the field and could hardly replace the drum.  Besides, mankind had already commenced to think on a higher plane, and the pipe was reduced to filling what gaps it could in the language of the emotions.

The second strongest emotion of the race is love.  All over the world, wherever we find the pipe in its softer, earlier form, we find it connected with love songs.  In time it degenerated into a synonym for something contemptibly slothful and worthless, so much so that Plato wished to banish it from his “Republic,” saying that the Lydian pipe should not have a place in a decent community.

On the other hand, the trumpet branch of the family developed into something quite different.  At the very beginning it was used for war, and as its object was to frighten, it became larger and larger in form, and more formidable in sound.  In this respect it only kept pace with the drum, for we read of Assyrian and Thibetan trumpets two or three yards long, and of the Aztec war drum which reached the enormous height of ten feet, and could be heard for miles.