MUSICAL EAK. 199 



who has a "musical ear" or the contrary. Others, more philosophi- 

 cally, have considered, that the faculty is encephalic ; that the ear is 

 merely the instrument for conveying the sonorous undulations, which, 

 in due order, constitute melody; but that the appreciation is ultimately 

 effected in the brain. "That it," (the power of distinguishing the mu- 

 sical relations of sounds,) says Dr. Brown, 1 "depends chiefly, or per- 

 haps entirely, on the structure or state of the mere corporeal organ of 

 hearing, which is of a kind, it must be remembered, peculiarly compli- 

 cated, and therefore susceptible of great original diversity in the parts, 

 and relations of the parts that form it, is very probable; though the 

 difference of the separate parts themselves, or of their relations to each 

 other, may, to the mere eye, be so minute, as never to be discovered 

 by dissection." Many physiologists of eminence have regarded the 

 complex internal ear as the seat of the faculty ; some looking to the 

 cochlea ; others to the semicircular canals ; and but few referring it to 

 the brain. Sir C. Bell, indeed, asserts, that "we are not perhaps war- 

 ranted in concluding, that any one part of the organ of hearing 

 bestows the pleasures of melody and harmony, since the musical ear, 

 though so termed, is rather a faculty depending on the mind." Yet 

 afterwards he adds: "We think that we find in the lamina spiralis (of 

 the cochlea) the only part adapted to the curious and admirable powers 

 of the human ear for the enjoyment of melody and harmony. It is in 

 vain to say, that these capacities are in the mind and not in the out- 

 ward organ. It is true, the capacity for enjoyment or genius for music 

 is in the mind. All we contend for is, that those curious varieties of 

 sound, which constitute the source of this enjoyment, are communicated 

 through the ear, and that the ear has mechanical provisions for every 

 change of sensation." 2 A cherished opinion of Sir Everard Home 3 on 

 this subject has been given before. Conceiving the membrane of the 

 tympanum to be muscular, he considers the membrana tympani, with 

 its tensor and radiated muscles, to resemble a monochord, " of which 

 the membrana tympani is the string ; the tensor muscles the screw, 

 giving the necessary tension to make the string perform its proper 

 scale of vibrations; and the radiated muscle, acting upon the membrane, 

 like the movable bridge of the monochord, adjusting it to the vibrations 

 required to be produced;" and he adds: "the difference between a mu- 

 sixjal ear and one which is too imperfect to distinguish the different 

 notes in music will appear to arise entirely from the greater or less 

 nicety with which the muscle of the malleus renders the membrane 

 capable of being truly adjusted. If the tension be perfect, all the va- 

 riations produced by the action of the radiated muscle will be equally 

 correct, and the ear truly musical." In this view, as unsatisfactory 

 in its basis as it is in some of the details, Sir Everard completely 

 excludes, from all participation in the function, the internal ear, to 

 which the attention of physiologists, who consider the faculty to be 

 seated in the ear, has been almost exclusively directed. 



1 Lectures on the Philosophy, of the Human Mind, Edinb., 1820 ; or Amer. edit., vol. i. 

 p. 207. Boston, 1826. 



a Anat. and PhysioL, 5th Amer. edit., by Godman, ii. 273. New York, 1829. 

 3 Lect. on Comp. Anat., iii. 268. 



