

470 BIOLOGY. 



the medium which ranks next to the heat, and whose 

 atoms insinuate themselves most easily into those of the 

 vibrating body thus through the air. Man perceives the 

 primary motion, in which things tend to resolve themselves 

 into aether, through the air. By the metal, or by every 

 vibrating body, the vibration of the air is communi- 

 cated. 



2860. This vibration is not, however, a general move- 

 ment to and fro, but a dissolution of the material bands. 

 This dissolution can only take place according to the 

 laws of the primary motion. They are rigidified in the 

 solid masses as crystalline forms. Every law of motion 

 is a crystalline form which has become free or spiritually 

 manifested. Through the vibration forms are engendered 

 in bodies, which are commensurate with the substance 

 and form of the mass and the degree of vibration. 

 These forms, being as it were the ghosts or phantoms of 

 crystals, are called sonorous figures. 



2861. If the air be displaced when in a state of co- 

 vibration, it is not thrown into undulatory circles or 

 waves, like water into which a stone has ben cast, but 

 in each of its parts the sonorous figure of the rigid body 

 is repeatedly represented. The vibration of air is a pro- 

 gressive motion of sonorous figures. 



2862. If the sonorous figures are not incommensur- 

 able, several may be at one and the same time in a single 

 portion of air, without interfering with each other. They 

 harmonize, because they have originated according to 

 concordant laws. But if they are products of different 

 laws, they are then confused, and an indeterminate 

 offensive vibration originates, just as savours become 

 loathsome if they depart from their laws. 



2863. These figures of the air are only perceived by 

 the Ear. The ear is the only sense in which the motor 

 system is represented in &pure state, devoid of any vegetal 

 signification, and simply endowed with nervose nobility. 

 The ear is therefore the only organ which can perceive 

 the primary motion of the matter ; for like acts only in 

 or upon its like. 



