10 " Wliether Music is necessary to the Orator. 



(agreoablv to Rousseau's table, article " System,") every given 

 note and its majo«- third, as C, E = 15, 12, produce, when struck 

 in conjunction, a tkird sound = 30 cailed the lower octave of 

 that given note C ; we nevertheless decide that that lower octave 

 or thirty is the original note ov fifteen itself; — and are conse- 

 quently enabled, by this wonderfully rational metamorphose, to 

 prove the infallibility of our base. 



Prop. 2d. That 2, 4, S, 16, &c. are vot equal to one : for if, 

 in the two first bars of " God save the King," for example, the 



original notes fh ~p?'i~ "~ |~F^^'T~f- were represented by 

 we could not recognise the tune at 



giS: 



all. Wherefore the substitution of octave for unison is inadmis- 

 sii)Ie ; and must, if admitted, expose us to the fate of our har- 

 monic founder Rameau, who, on advancing the singular proposi- 

 tion that one is equal to two, was laughed at by all the world. 

 " Tout le monde s'est moque de lui," says Rousseau, " and the 

 Academy openly disapproved." 



Prop. 3d. That of four strings called our common chord = 15, 

 12, 10, 7i ; the upper string or 7f being ahsorbedhy the lower 

 string 1 5, is equal to nothing, and may be retrenched. 



And therefore — that harmonic proportion does actually exist 

 within this common chord, as indicated by its three first strings, 

 independently of its fourth. So says Ta'rtini. 



Prop. -4th'. That of the foregoing strings =15, 12, 10, 7| ; 

 the upper string or 1\ is not absorbed by the lower string 15, 



And therefore, 7iot being equal to nothing, cannot be re- 

 trenched. On the contrary, it imparts so decidedly novel a cha- 

 racter to the whole; that, without it we should have only an in- 

 conclusive group incapable of effectuating any sort oj finish. 



Prop. 5th. That strong and weak, called Forte and Piano, are 

 equal. 



And therefore — whether in the case of a single string accom- 

 panied by its 12th and IJth [upper octave of its 5th, and double 

 octave of its 3d] ; or in the case of that third sound axWed Jim- 

 damentul base, engendered by two coexisting sounds : although 

 Nature produces all such accompanying or engendered sounds in 

 comparative piano, and more generallv in pianissimo — yet that 

 these sounds must be l)rouglit forward "in /or/e. 



Prop. Gth. That strong and weak, called Forte and Piano, are 

 not equal. 



And therefore must not be confounded ; otherwise we should 

 have much worse than no music at all. " God save the King," 



if 



