THE SENSE OF HEARING. 143 



neigh of tbe horse or the resonant song of the nightingale — these tones, which, 

 ivi some respects analogous to the speech of man, afford means for a certain de- 

 gree of intelligent intercourse between animals, are utterances to which we often 

 assign no meaning, or, in our narrow prejudice, altogether disregard as the ex- 

 pression of a psychical emotion. We are very far from intending to write a 

 panegyric on the power of sonnds, or to analyze with poetic circumstantiality 

 the susceptibility of sensitive minds to the language of music; there needs but 

 brief exposition to secure for the sense of hearing that high interest which natu- 

 rally pertains to it. For without the sense of hearing, there is no sound, as with- 

 out the sense of sight, no color. 



We may safely assume that at least every educated individual has formed for 

 himself some idea, however superficial, of the causes of sound ; has learned, for 

 instance, to consider the mighty tones of the organ as proceed ng from the reg- 

 ular and tremulous pulsations of the air-columns enclosed in the pipes, which 

 pulsations arise when the air compressed in the bellows is directed in a current 

 towards the openings of the pipes; that the penetrating tones of the violin re- 

 sult from the vibrations communicated to the stretched strings by the bow, as 

 similar vibrations are produced in the strings of the piano when struck by the 

 hammer ; that the tuning-fork resounds when its elastic branches of steel are 

 thrown into vibratory motion by a blow against some resisting surface, &c. 

 These visible vibrations, as the source of sound, are too obvious to allow us to 

 suppose that there is any one not familiar Avith the fundamental facts of the 

 geueivation of sounds. But though our task of exposition as regards the object- 

 ive excitant of the nerves of hearing be on that account materially lightened, 

 and we may limit ourselves to a discussion of the special relations of certain 

 properties and modifications of this excitant to the auditory organ, yet we be- 

 lieve we do not err in nnputing to many and perhaps most of the laity * a radical 

 misconception in which they are only the inoie foi'tified by the received expla- 

 nations on the nature and causes of sounds. This is a misconception so nearly 

 unavoidable, so entwined with all our ideas, and, indeed, so much sanctioned by 

 rhe language even of science, that it is a difficult matter for physiology to evince 

 it to be such and to establish right conceptions in its place. Many will be able 

 to surmise what misconception we mean, since we have already had occasion, in 

 treating of other senses, to enter the lists against it; but, at the risk of being 

 counted tedious, we must here combat it anew, and much fear that when we 

 come to consider the sense of sight we shall not be able to spare our readers a 

 repetition of our efforts to eradicate it. Every one says, and most believe, that 

 the vibrating string of the violin or the pulsating air-column of the organ pipe 

 itself resounds ; this is a radical error. When we said above that without the 

 sense of hearing there could be no sound, we did not mean that if no ear were 

 present an externally existing sound would not be perceived, but, in the strict- 

 est sense of the word, that without the ear, without the excitable nerves of 

 hearing, no sound at all would exist. The string only vibrates, it sounds not; the 

 eound is not conveyed through the air from the string to our ear, and through 

 this to our consciousness; the sound originates in ourselves, is the sensation, and 

 hence an action of our own soul, which is the result of the vibrations of the 

 string, but has nothing whatever in common with them. The string, by its os- 

 cillations, throws the adjacent particles of air into a corresponding oscillatory 

 movement, this movement is propagated in the form of a wave from particle to 

 particle, and when the particles next to the ear receive the iindulatory impulse 

 and are set in motion, they communicate that motion to what is called the tym- 

 panum of the ear, which is thus in turn made lo vibrate ; the vibrations of the 

 membrane just mentioned are now transmitted through certain bones of the ear 



* A term used by some European writers, French as well as German, and seeminjj to im- 

 ply tliut the profession of science is regarded, in Founente point of view, as a sort of priest- 

 hood-. Being convenient, it is here retained. T. R. 



