PHYSIOLOGICAL PARADOXES. 



often require only indistinct and muffled utter- 

 ance as in the instance above. By these and 

 other devices the employment of the lips for 

 speaking is so well concealed that some people 

 used to believe the performer produced the 

 voice lower down than the lips and throat 

 hence the name ventriloquist. 



2. False Continuity. 



The limitation of our sense-perceptions in 

 the direction of smallness produces erroneous 

 ideas in connection with hearing, as well as 

 with sight. 



Whenever we hear a beautifully produced 

 smooth musical note, we inevitably think of it 

 as something which is acting smoothly and con- 

 tinuously upon the ear. 



This is not the case. The smoothest musical 

 note consists of a succession of waves in the 

 air produced by a succession of blows upon 

 it. The blows are delivered either by succes- 

 sively escaping portions of compressed air, as 

 in whistles and reeds, or by some rapidly 

 moving object, as with strings and bells. 



The blows vary in the rate at which they 

 are struck. In the deepest musical note they 

 succeed one another at the rate of about 40 

 per second, and in the highest at the rate of 

 4,000 per second. We can hear sounds which 

 are beyond the musical range in both direc- 



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