ON THE PRINCIPLE OF LIFE, &c. 



m 



alluded to and explained by Lactantius : "As in musical instruments, an 

 accord and assent of sounds, which musicians term harmony, is produced 

 by the due tone of the strings ; so in bodies, the faculty of perception pro» 

 ceeds from a connexion and vigour of the members and organs of the 

 frame."* 



To this theory there are two objections, either of which is fatal to it. 

 The first is, that admitting the absolute necessity of the health or perfection 

 of every separate part to the health or perfection of the whole, we are still 

 as much in the dark ag ever in respect to the principle by which this har- 

 monious machine has been developed, and is kept in perpetual play. The 

 second objection, by which, indeed, it was vigorously attacked by the Epi- 

 cureans, and at length completely driven from the field, is derived from 

 observing that the health or well-being of the general system does not 

 depend upon that of its collective organs ; and that some parts are of far 

 more consequence to it than others. Thus the mind, observes Lucretius, 

 in his able refutation of this hypothesis, may be diseased, while the body 

 remains unaffected ; or the body on the contrary, may lose some of its own 

 organs, while the mind, or even the general health of the body itself, con- 

 tinues perfect. 



The abbd Polignac, who, consistently with the Cartesian system, 

 makes a very proper distinction between the principle of the mind or 

 soul, and that of the hfe, enters readily into the hypothesis of Aristoxenus 

 in regard to the latter power, though he thinks it inapplicable to the for- 

 mer : and Leibnitz appears to have availed himself of it as a means of 

 accounting for the union between the soul and body in his celebrated 

 system, which he seems to have named, from the theory before us, the 

 system of pre-established harmony. By a writer of the present day, 

 however, M. Lusac, the doctrme of Aristoxenus seems to have been re- 

 suscitated in its fullest scope, and even to have been carried to a much 

 wider latitude than its inventor had ever intended : for the theory of M, 

 Lusac affects to regard, not only the frame of man and other animals, but 

 the vast frame of the universe, as a sort of musical organ or instrument ; 

 the concordant and accumulated action of whose different parts or agents 

 he denominates, like Aristoxenus, harmony. Concerts of music," says 

 he, afford a cisai example : you perceive harmony in music when dif- 

 ferent tones, obtained by the touch of various instiaraents, excite one ge- 

 neral sound, a compound of the whole." This observation he applies to 

 the grand operations of nature, the irregularities of which, resulting from 

 inundations, earthquakes, volcanoes, tempests, and similar evils, this philo- 

 sopher considers as the dissonances occasionally introduced into music to 

 heighten the harmony of the entire system. With respect to the harmony 

 of the human frame, individually contemplated, or the concordant action 

 of the different parts of the body, he observes, " It may be said, that of 

 this principle I have merely a confused notion ; and I admit it, if the as- 

 sertion imply that I have neither a perfect, nor a distinct, nor an entire 

 comprehension of what produces this harmony — in what it consists, 

 or how it acts. 1 know not what produces the harmony of various 

 instruments heard simultaneously ; but I can accurately distinguish 

 the sounds which are occasioned when musicians are tunmg^ from 

 those which are produced when, being completely in tune, and every 

 one uniting in the piece, the separate parts are executed with prr^- 



140. 



