16 thus led," he says in 1822, "to consider normal [transverse] vibrations as only one circumstance in a more general motion common to all bodies, analogous to tangential [longitudinal and rotatory] vibrations; that is, as produced by small molecular oscillations, and differently modified according to the direction which it affects, relatively to the dimensions of the vibrating body." These "inductions," as he properly calls them, are supported by a great mass of ingenious experiments; and may be considered as well-established, when they are limited to molecular oscillations, employing this phrase in the sense in which it is understood in the above statement; and also when they are confined to bodies in which the play of elasticity is not interrupted by parts more rigid than the rest, as the sound-post of a violin". And before I quit the subject, I may notice a consequence which M. Savart has deduced from his views, and which, at first sight, appears to overturn most of the earlier doctrines respecting vibrating bodies. was formerly held that tense strings and elastic rods could vibrate only in a determinate series of modes of division, with no intermediate steps. But M. Savart maintains, on the contrary, that they produce sounds which are gradually transformed into one another, by indefinite intermediate degrees. p. 33. It 16 An. Chim. t. xxv. 17 For the suggestion of the necessity of this limitation I am indebted to Mr. Willis. 18 An. Chim. 1826, t. xxxii. p. 384, The reader may naturally ask, what is the solution of this apparent contradiction between the earliest and the latest discoveries in acoustics. And the answer must be, that these intermediate modes of vibration are complex in their nature, and difficult to produce; and that those which were formerly believed to be the only possible vibrating conditions, are so eminent above all the rest by their features, their simplicity, and their facility, that we may still, for common purposes, consider them as a class apart; although for the sake of reaching a general theorem, we may associate them with the general mass of cases of molecular vibrations. And thus we have no exception here, as we can have none in any case, to our maxim, that what formed part of the early discoveries of science, forms part of its latest systems. We have thus surveyed the progress of the science of sound up to recent times, with respect both to the discovery of laws of phenomena, and the reduction of these to their mechanical causes. The former branch of the science has necessarily been inductively pursued; and therefore has been more peculiarly the object of our attention. And this consideration will explain why we have not dwelt more upon the deductive labours of the great analysts who have treated of this problem. To those who are acquainted with the high and deserved fame which the labours of D'Alembert, Euler, Lagrange, and others, upon this subject, enjoy among mathematicians, it may seem as if we had not given them their due prominence in our sketch. But it is to be recollected here, as we have already observed in the case of hydrodynamics, that even when the general principles are uncontested, mere mathematical deductions from them do not belong to the history of physical science, except when they point out laws which are intermediate between the general principle and the individual facts, and which observation may confirm. The business of constructing any science may be figured as the task of forming a road on which our reason can travel through a certain province of the external world. We have to throw a bridge which may lead from the chambers of our own thoughts, from our speculative principles, to the distant shore of material facts. But in all cases the abyss is too wide to be crossed, except we can find some intermediate points on which the piers of our structure may rest. Mere facts, without connexion or law, are only the rude stones hewn from the opposite bank, of which our arches may, at some time, be built. But mere hypothetical mathematical calculations are only plans of projected structures; and those plans which exhibit only one vast and single arch, or which suppose no support but that which our own position supplies, will assuredly never become realities. We must have a firm basis of intermediate generalisations in order to frame a continuous and stable edifice. In the subject before us, we have no want of such points of intermediate support, although they are in seen. many instances irregularly distributed and obscurely The number of observed laws and relations of the phenomena of sound, is already very great; and though the time may be distant, there seems to be no reason to despair of one day uniting them by clear ideas of mechanical causation, and thus of making acoustics a perfect secondary mechanical science. The historical sketch just given includes only such parts of acoustics as have been in some degree reduced to general laws and physical causes; and thus excludes much that is usually treated of under that head. Moreover, many of the numerical calculations connected with sound belong to its agreeable effect upon the ear; as the properties of the various systems of temperament. are parts of theoretical music, not of acoustics;-of the philosophy of the fine arts, not of physical science; and may be referred to in a future portion of this work, so far as they bear upon our object. These The science of acoustics may, however, properly consider other differences of sound than those of acute and grave, for instance, the articulate differences, or those by which the various letters are formed. Some progress has been made in reducing this part of the subject to general rules; for though Kempelen's" talking machine" was only a work of art, Mr. Willis's machine', which exhibits the rela 19 On the vowel sounds, and on reed organ-pipes. Camb. Tr. iii. 237. |