PROFESSOR AT BONN 173 



of the profound internal relations between them. Art, too, 

 strives to acquaint us with reality, with psychological truths, 

 though it expresses them in the wholly different form of 

 sensual manifestation, and not in that of concepts. Eventually, 

 however, the complete phenomenon connotes the conceptual 

 idea, and the two are ultimately united in the whole/ 



Such was the standpoint from which Helmholtz connected 

 physical and physiological optics with aesthetics, in a form 

 that was epoch-making for future generations. 



Starting from the well-known observation that we can feel 

 the vibrations of the air in deep tones through our skin, he 

 shows in his lecture how the aerial vibrations first become 

 sound, when they impinge on the hearing ear, and then 

 develops his views as already enunciated upon the correspon- 

 dence of quality of tone (timbre Klangfarbe) and wave-form. 

 He discusses his theory of prime tones and over-tones, and 

 suggests that the over-tones give rise to the indefinable 

 peculiarity of tone that is known as timbre. And thus, 

 as the existence of over-tones depends on wave-form, he 

 identifies timbre with wave-form. Since the cochlea of the 

 ear is separated by membranes into three chambers, the middle 

 one containing innumerable microscopic lamellae, which lie in 

 regular apposition like the keys of a piano, and are connected 

 at one end with the fibres of the auditory nerve, and at the 

 other with the extended membrane, and since elastic appen- 

 dages to the end of the nerves had been discovered in the 

 form of stiff hairs, Helmholtz regards it as probable that each 

 of these appendages is tuned like the strings of the piano to 

 a single tone, and that each tone which reaches the ear not 

 only sets the lamella in the organ of Corti that corresponds 

 with its prime tone in sympathetic vibration, with excitation of 

 its associated nerve-fibres, but affects the lamellae corresponding 

 with the upper partials also, so that the over-tones are perceived 

 as well as the prime tone. Strictly speaking, therefore, in 

 relation to sensation, the tones of musical instruments may 

 all be looked on as chords with a predominating fundamental 

 tone. It is true that a certain measure of attention is needed 

 in order to detect the over-tones, but Helmholtz succeeded 

 in hearing the partials of the human voice, and in making 

 other people recognize them. 



