36 THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF LIFE 



These two methods of analysis the method by inscrip- 

 tion on a cylinder and the method by Helmholtz's resonators 

 were therefore equally scientific so long as sound was only 

 to be studied objectively as a vibratory movement. We 

 need not say that the method of Helmholtz was more satis- 

 fying to the human mind. 



Quite different is the problem of explaining the mechanism 

 of audition, that is, the relations of sound with the human 

 ear. There is no longer any question of knowing which kind 

 of analysis is more satisfactory to the human mind, but 

 which will adequately analyse the function peculiar to our 

 auditive apparatus. Making a mistake which was like 

 that of Darwin and Weismann, Helmholtz took it for 

 granted that the analysis of sounds by our ear is made by 

 the method most satisfying to our mind ; and so he assigned 

 to the fibres of Corti in the internal ear the office of resona- 

 tors, each of them being able to reproduce a simple sound. 

 It has been demonstrated that this hypothesis cannot be 

 accepted, yet it is so pleasing that it is still taught every- 

 where. 



Pierre Bonnier, on the contrary, put forth the hypothesis 

 that the analysis of sound by the ear is made in a way 

 analogous to that of registering on a cylinder. He con- 

 sidered that the extremities of our auditive nerve receive 

 the impression from the form of the vibration of the air a 

 form /transmitted by a series of pressures to the intra-uri- 

 cular liquids, just as it is transmitted to the vibrating plate 

 from which the stylus transcribes it on the registering 

 cylinder of the phonograph. 



Pierre Bonnier's theory seems preferable to that of Helm- 

 holtz, but it is not the place here to discuss the relative 

 value of their systems : I merely wish to show that there 

 is no reason why that analytical process which is more pleas- 



