432 COSMOS. 



of the universe itself, supposing that the moving, and, as it 

 were, vibrating planets, exciting sound-waves, must produce 

 a spheral music, according to the harmonic relations of their 

 intervals of space. " This music," they add, u would be per 

 ceived by the human ear if it was not rendered insensible by 

 extreme familiarity, as it is perpetual, and men are accus 

 tomed to it from childhood." 19 The harmonic part of the 

 Pythagorean doctrine of numbers thus became connected with 

 the figurative representation of the Cosmos precisely in the 

 Platonic Timasus ; for " cosmogony is to Plato the work 

 of the union of opposite first causes, brought about by har- 

 mony." 2 He attempted, moreover, to illustrate the tones 

 of the universe in an agreeable picture, by attributing to 

 each of the planetary spheres a syren, who, supported by the 

 stern daughters of Necessity, the three Fates, maintain the 

 eternal revolution of the world's axis." 21 Such a represen- 

 tation of the Syrens, in whose place the Muses are sometimes 

 substituted, as the choir of heaven, has been, in many cases, 



19 The Pythagoreans affirm, in order to justify the reality 

 of the tones produced by the revolution of the spheres, that 

 hearing takes place only where there is an alternation of 

 sound and silence. Aristot. de Ccelo, ii. 9, p. 290, No. 

 24-30, Bekker. The inaudibility of the spheral music is 

 also accounted for by its overpowering the senses. Cicero, 

 de Rep. vi. 18. Aristotle himself calls the Pythagorean 

 tone-myth pleasing and ingenious, (KO^^WS KCLC Tre/m-riDs,) but 

 untrue, (1. c. no. 12-15.) 



20 Bockh in Philolaus, p. 90. 



21 Plato, de Republica^ x, p. 617. (Davis' Translation. John's 

 Class. Lib. p. 307.) He estimates the planetary distances ac- 

 ording to two entirely different progressions, one by doubling, 

 the other by tripling, from which results the series, 1. 2. 3. 4. 

 8. 9. 27. It is the same series which is found in the Timseus, 

 where the subject of the arithmetical division of the world spirit, 

 (p. 35,Steph.,Z>awV Trans. Bohrfs Class. Lib.} which Demiur- 

 gus propounds, is treated of. Plato had, indeed, considered 



