Oct. 22, 1874J 



NATURE 



497 



not get from Mr. Taylor's work. Not once, in the whole 

 course of his 219 pages, has he condescended to cater for 

 the mere amusement of his reader. We hope, but almost 

 against hope, that this will not interfere with the sale of 

 his book. 



The book, with the exception of a few slight blemishes, 

 to some of which we will presently advert, is a very good 

 one indeed : lucid, comprehensive, and accurate. Many 

 of the more difficult ideas introduced are illustrated very 

 happily by analogy ; and, so far as the first half of the 

 volume is concerned, there is nothing which should pre- 

 sent a difficulty to any reader of average intelligence. 

 It is necessarily otherwise with the second half, which 

 treats mainly of music, for this is a subject which mere 

 intelligence, however acute, will not enable a man to 

 master. One may as well discourse of colours to the 

 congenitally blind, as of music to a man devoid of " car." 

 It has often struck us as one of the most remarkable of 

 phenomena in the physical world, that while we ourselves 

 were only greatly annoyed by the discordant grinding of 

 some street-organ miscreant, one friend beside us has 

 been almost in a state of frenzy, while another, on the 

 contrary, listened with the most stolid indifference. [We 

 leave it to the psychologists to consider whether the 

 mind itself may not, in certain individuals, have similar 

 excess or defect in some particular quality, and if so, to 

 explain by it the existence alike of sceptics and of 

 fanatics.] Considering that this extraordinary difference 

 is often found to exist between individuals nearly related, 

 and in all other particulars closely resembling one another, 

 it is not to be wondered at that even among those who 

 possess in a special manner an ear for music, individuals 

 should be found to differ widely from one another on 

 many of the less important points. In such a case who 

 is to decide ? Ceteris paribus, we should be inclined to 

 side with the mathematician, who has, as it were, an 

 extra sense in addition to those possessed by his antago- 

 nist. Wherever, then, we find that Mr. Taylor's view is 

 not exactly in accordance with that of Hclmholtz (though 

 the discrepancies, so far as we venture to think we under- 

 stand them, are few, and, with one exception, of appa- 

 rently small importance), we are inclined to take the side 

 of Helraholtz. But, we repeat, this is not to be con- 

 sidered as a demerit of Mr. Taylor, for the main point 

 of variance (if we be correct in supposing it to exist) seems 

 to be an ;csthetic one, upon which only a comparatively 

 small number of persons (and these not only exception.ally 

 gifted, but also highly trained) are competent to form an 

 opinion. We outsiders may judge of the value of such 

 opinions l^y comparing the verdicts of different art critics 

 on the same picture ; though in the case of sound, where 

 the physical processes (in the external ear at least) are 

 thoroughly known to the mathematician, he ought to 

 have a decided advantage over those who have not his 

 physical insight. The following passage (§ 75), seems 

 particularly happy : — 



"That tuw sounds sliould produce absolute silence 

 seems, at first sight, as absurd as that two loaves should 

 be equivalent to no bread. This is, however, only 

 because we are accustomed to think of sound as some- 

 thing with an cxtern.al objective existence ; not as con- 

 sisting merely in a state of motion of certain air-particles, 

 and therefore liable, on the application of an opposite 

 system of equal forces, to be absolutely annihilated." 



There is, however, considerable objection to be taken 

 to the word forces. Had Mr. Taylor said motions, or still 

 better disturbances, the passage would have been not 

 only clearer but more correct. 



A closely-connected mistake occurs, in two different 

 forms, in §§ 22, 50. In the former, the word force is 

 used in place of energy ; in the latter, energy is used where 

 force is obviously the correct word. But here, though in 

 all prob.ability unconsciously, Mr. Taylor is only following 

 the metaphysicians and other quasi-scientific men, who 

 give what they call a " broad basis " to the meaning of a 

 word by using it now in one sense and anon in quite a 

 different one. 



Another curious statement, occurring in § S and re- 

 peated in § 37, seems to show that Mr. Taylor's clock has 

 a half-second pendulum, for he speaks of a complete oscil- 

 lation (from side to side and back again) as taking place 

 in one second ! 



The inherent defect of all non-mathematical treatment 

 of a subject undoubtedly mathematical shows itself in 

 the elaborateness of Mr. Taylor's explanation of wave- 

 motion. We are quite sure that a very slight amount of 

 the most elementary geometry, properly introduced, would 

 have en.abled him to condense the whole of this part of 

 his work into one-third of its present bulk or even less, 

 and this with a decided increase of simplicity and intelligi- 

 bility to the ordinary reader. 



We object entirely to the word strictly in the foot-note 

 to § 5, for, instead of being not strictly accurate, the state- 

 ment referred to is not even approximately accurate. In 

 the same section there is an illustration of wave propa- 

 gation by the alternate kneeling and standing of the indi- 

 viduals of a line of men, where the reader is likely to be 

 much puzzled by the printing of " two, six, and nine," 

 instead of "twenty, sixty, and ninety." This, however, 

 may be called hypercriticism, so we proceed to point out 

 that in § 23 there is a genuine blunder. Mr. Taylor says 

 that in the diminution of loudness and dying away of the 

 sound of a pianoforte wire once struck, "the effect produced 

 is the same as if our harmonium had, while sounding out 

 its note, been carried gradually further and further away 

 from us," forgetting altogether what, indeed, we do not 

 find in his book, the lowering of pitch which accom- 

 panies diminution of intensity when the source of sound 

 moves away from the observer. 



In § 54 the word submission (subdivision ?) produces a 

 curious effect, due prob.ably to the printer. 



We conclude by repeating that the work is a very 

 good one, worthy of the subject ; and that we are 

 glad to see that (in default of an English translation 

 of the " Tonempfindungen ") the beautiful discoveries 

 of Helmholtz have found in this country an able 

 and congenial expositor. Had we thought less of 

 the work we should not have been driven to criti- 

 cism of mere isolated words or phrases which 

 easily escape detection by an author himself Yet, after 

 all, we must conclude with an expression of amazement 

 that a man who shows himself to have so thorough an 

 appreciation of harmony as does Mr. Taylor, should 

 tolerate for a moment in his pages a foreign word such as 

 timbre, when we have an excellent and generally received 

 English equivalent for it ; or employ for a concord such 

 a hideously inappropriate word as the English clang. 



