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VII. The Beats of Mistimed Consonances. 

 By Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, B.A., D.Sc. 



To the Editors of the Philosophical Magazine and Journal. 

 Gentlemen, 



IN a letter published in your December Number Mr. Bosan- 

 quet laments that his labours upon the beats of mistuned 

 consonances have been thrown away upon me, because I have 

 ventured to criticise two points in his valuable and interesting 

 researches. 



These points are, first, his misuse of the word " subjective " 

 as applied to the phenomena in question ; and, second, the 

 priority of Dr. Konig in the analysis of the phenomenon so 

 far as it can yet be said to be analyzed, to the credit of 

 which Mr. Bosanquet lays a direct claim. 



I will deal with Mr. Bosanquet's objections separately, 

 merely observing that it would indeed be a pity if " the 

 credit" of any discovery to which Mr. Bosanquet is entitled 

 could be " taken away by a careless sentence " of mine. 



Mr. Bosanquet's attempt to defend his use of the word 

 " subjective," as applied to the difference-tones or beat-notes, 

 is virtually an admission of the very point for which I contend. 

 By way of defence, he retires behind the shelter of Helmholtz 

 and of Mr. Ellis, who, it appears, have lapsed into the same 

 laxity of language. On reading Mr. Bosanquet's reference to 

 Helmholtz, I immediately turned to p. 234 of Ellis's transla- 

 tion (the only edition at hand at the moment), and found 

 that I had underlined the word in pencil, and had added in 

 the margin " sic " by way of protest. But whether Mr. Bosan- 

 quet sins in good company or not, I am still of opinion that 

 it is unwarrantable to apply the term " subjective " to that 

 which has a physical existence independently of the conscious 

 " e g°j" or °f the brain through which consciousness works. 

 The ear is, as I have said elsewhere, only a complex resonator; 

 and any other suitable resonator will also respond to the tones 

 in question, provided it possesses the asymmetry of its parts 

 which is necessary for the development of those tones. To 

 speak of such tones as subjective is a palpable abuse of the 

 term. But I really do not require to insist further on this 

 point if, as Mr. Bosanquet says, he does not believe " much " 

 in the " advancement of clearness by the employment of words 

 very strictly defined." 



Secondly, as to Konig's priority in the observation that the 

 beats of imperfect consonances consist of variations in the 

 intensity of the lower of the two tones. This observation Mr. 

 Bosanquet says was "unquestionably " first obtained by him- 



