OF SOUND AND HEARING. 241 



work three things. The first, that the stronger object 

 drowns and confounds the weaker; as the light of the 

 sun, the light of a candle, the report of ordnance, the 

 voice. The second, that the more excellent object .destroys 

 the weaker sense ; as the light of the sun, the eye, a violent 

 sound close at the ear, the hearing. The third, that both 

 are repercussed, as in mirrors and the echo. 



Neither doth the object of the one confound or hinder 

 the object of the other; as light or colour, sound, or con 

 trariwise. 



Both affect the sense in animals, and that by objects in 

 greater or less degrees grateful or odious : but they affect 

 also after their own manner inanimates proportionate, and 

 having (as seemeth) a conformity with the organs of the 

 senses ; as colours, a mirror, that is crystalline like the 

 eye ; sounds, the places of reverberation, which seem, like 

 wise, to resemble the bone and cavern of the ear. 



Both work diversely, accordingly as they have their 

 mediums well or ill disposed. 



To both the medium the most conducible and propitious 

 is the air. In both the stretching of the sense, and, as it 

 were, its erection to perceiving, availeth somewhat in more 

 nice objects. 



They differ in these : 



The species of visibles appear to be as if emissions of 

 beams from the visible body, almost like odours. But the 

 species of audibles appear more to partake of a local mo 

 tion, like the percussions which are made in the air: that 

 whereas bodies for the most part work in two manners, by 

 communication of their nature, or by an impression or 

 signature of their motion, that diffusion in visibles appeareth 

 more to partake of the former manner ; in audibles, of the 

 latter. 



The dilation of sounds appears to be more .evidently 

 carried by the air than of visibles. For I judge that a 

 vehement wind shall not so much hinder any visible afar 

 off, as a sound ; I understand the wind blowing contrary. 



It is a notable difference, whence also many less diffe 

 rences flow, that visibles (original light excepted) are not 

 carried but by right lines, whilst sounds are carried by 

 arcuate lines. 



&quot;Hence it happens, that visibles confound not one another, 

 that are represented together: sounds eontrarily. Hence 

 it happens, that the solidity of the substance seems not 



VOL. XV. R 



