HELMHOLTZ IN BONN 



generally, regarded it as a wilderness of sacs and 

 tubes involving problems almost incapable of solution. 1 

 Musicians, on the other hand, did not expect much 

 help from physical and physiological science. Imbued 

 with a love of their art, they were mainly occupied 

 with the consideration of its aesthetic relations, they 

 were unacquainted with the methods of scientific 

 analysis, and they rather dreaded investigations into 

 the minute structure of the parts and also the tor- 

 turing expedient of physical experiment. \Vhy an 

 octave or a fifth should be more satisfying to the 

 ear than a minor third ; why certain chords had a 

 character of their own ; what was the physiological 

 basis of discords ; what was the true nature of beats ; 

 what was the physiological significance of the pro- 

 gression of the notes in a melody ; what were the 

 physiological laws, if any, that regulated the develop- 

 ment of musical capacity in the human race ; all 

 these were questions the musicians cared little about, 

 and if they did allow them to occupy their attention 

 they were dismissed as insoluble. Men took refuge 

 in the notion that music was music because it was 

 adapted to our spiritual nature, and they thought 

 there was little use in endeavouring to examine the 

 physical and physiological materials of which musical 

 tones were composed. Helmholtz changed all this 

 by attempting to give an intelligible account of the 

 mechanism of the internal ear. 



1 Sir G. B. Airy on Sound. London, 1871. 



'37 



