4 The Mechanistic Approach

CHAPTER 4
THE MECHANISTIC APPROACH
How do the intervals given by the first few integers manage to evoke man's
experience of musical beauty? Let us briefly review the answers to this part
of the problem of consonance we have found so far.
In the period when the problem was seen as one of numbers, it was
answered either by identifying the world with number (the Pythagoreans),
or by positing some sort of correspondence between the external harmony
of the ratios of string lengths and the inner harmony governing the human
soul.
Kepler divided the process by which the simple ratios are transformed
into pleasing sound in two successive stages. The first stage, from the source
of sound to the sense of hearing, he accounted for through the theory of
species. For the second stage, from the ear to the soul, he posited an active
psychic principle, called Intellectual Harmony, that judged the incoming
species of the musical sounds as to whether or not they belonged to the arcs
of circumscribed circles cut off by certain constructible regular polygons.
The experimentalists accounted for the first stage by their coincidence
theory: from the vibrating source of musical sound the air received regular
pulses that it, in its turn, transmitted to the ear. But what next?
Benedetti noted that the coincident vibrations of the air affected the
ear gently, thus generating consonance. Galileo, more specifically, introduced
the eardrum as the place where the air pulses, through the regularity with
which they bent it, were transformed into consonances. This was a revolu-
tionary step, in that a specific part of the body was now assigned the role of
mediator between external regularity and inner perception, but it was still
open to the anticipatory objection raised by Kepler (quoted before on p.
31):
[ '" J please, what relationship could there be between the titillation of the sense
of hearing, which is a corporal thing, and the incredible delight that we perceive deep
within our soul through the harmonie consonances?
Mersenne supposed that the soul, present everywhere in the body, picked
up the pulses at the exit of the auditory nerve. This might have become an
interesting step forward, yet Mersenne did not even try to fmd out more
115
H. F. Cohen, Quantifying Music
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 1984
116 CHAPTER 4
about the process (characteristically, this most prolix of all musical theorists
devoted just one sentence to the whole problem). From the experimentalist
school no more could be expected: c1early, with the means at their disposal
no experimentation beyond the eardrum was at all possible. However, at the
time another school of natural philosophy was coming to the fore that, by
its own principles, was forced to investigate the matter more deeply. The
originators of the 'mechanical philosophy' were determined to explain all
natural processes through the movements of particles of matter; in their
attempt to explain the world they could hardly afford to halt at the eardrum.
In the case of Descartes the explanation of the process of hearing was part
of his general solution to the body-mind problem. For Beeckman it arose
in the context of his acoustical and musicological investigations, to which
we turnnow.
Isaac Beeckman's signature (written with the left hand, mirrored).
4.1. ISAAC BEECKMAN
Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) was one of the strangest characters of the

entire Scientific Revolution, so densely populated with colorful people.
For, although he was a very original and intellectually independent thinker,
who devoted attention to such varied fields as mechanics, astronomy, logic,
medicine, music, etc., he never published a word of his many fmdings. Born
in Middelburg from a Calvinist family that had left the Southern Netherlands
in 1566, he studied theology at Leyden University. Ag some theological
conflict prevented his actually preaching in his native province, he settled
instead as a maker of candles and water-conduits. In 1619 he was appointed
vice-principal of the Latin School (secondary school) at Utrecht. From 1620
on he held the same position at Rotterdam, and from 1627 until his death
he was principal of the Latin School at Dordrecht.
In science and medicine Beeckman was an entirely self-taught man. This
was an obvious drawback in that it made him frequently discover things
that, as he found out later, had already been known for a long time. But
it also made him immune to traditional natural philosophy; when, in 1631,
he began to read Aristotle he had already for a long time developed his own
principles of philosophy.1 The only formal confirmation of his self-teaching
THE MECHANISTIC APPROACH 117
was his graduation in medicine, which took place in 1618 at the University
of Caen in Normandy. But he never practised.
Insofar as Beeckman is mentioned at all in the historiography of science,
it is usually because of some rather spectacular discoveries in mechanics,
that run parallel to, and in a few respects even surpass Galileo's performance
in the same field. From 1613 on he stated a principle of inertia: 'whatever
moves, moves forever, unless it is prevented from doing SO'.2 This principle,
together with a conception of gravity as a 'force pulling by little jerks', made
him discover, with the mathematical assistance of his friend Descartes, the
law of falling bodies that states the squared proportionality between distance
covered and time passed. 3
Both these and all his other fmdings Beeckman entrusted to a scientific
diary (his Journaei), which he kept from 1604 to 1634. During his lifetime
he showed it to no more than three carefully selected people, Descartes,
Mersenne, and his Dutch pupil Hortensius. 4 Seven years after his death his
brother published a hundred rather arbitrarily chosen items from the diary,
which subsequently got lost. It was recovered in 1905 by the scientist/
archivist De Waard, who prepared an exemplary 4·volume edition of the
entire manuscript. 5 It is written partly in not too subtle Latin, 6 partly
in somewhat coarse Dutch, which is undoubtedly why this goldmine of
information on the first phase of the Scientific Revolution has still hardly
been tapped. (In Note 7 a short but virtually exhaustive overview is given
of the literature on Beeckman).
The fact that Beeckman restricted his writing to a private diary raises
some questions. What, for instance, prevented him from packing together a
coherent set of loose fragments and licking them into the shape required for
a mature publication? His own answer was the one usually given in such
cases: lack of leisure. 8 But given the truth of his own observation that this
type of impediment acts as astimulus rather than as a brake on scientific
inquiry,9 this at least cannot have been the whole answer. Rather, we must
conclude, in Dijksterhuis' words, that
Beeckman showed the same defects in the matter of science as Leonardo da Vinci.
Both were deficient in the tenacity of purpose and powers of concentration required
to systematize, finish, record, and publish their inquiries, even if only in one field. Of
Faraday's motto: 'Work, Finish, Publish', they only took to heart the first injunction.
In consequence they either did not advance science at all, or at least to a much srnaller
extent than they might have done.! 0
The resulting fragmented nature of Beeckman's writings also poses a

problem for the historian. If, in the following, I might succeed in drawing
118 CHAPTER 4
a consistent picture of Beeckman's musical thought, am I not constructing

a piece of history , rather than reconstructing it? Beeckman never 'fmished,
published' his work on music and acoustics; but who am I to pretend do to
it for him? This dilemma would have been insoluble if Beeckman's thinking
had lacked consistency; but, fortunately, by and large it did. not, and it is
not too difficult to arrange his fragmented ideas in a logical and meaningful
way. Of course, imposing his own order on the mass of historical material
is the inescapable business of the historian of science anyway, but usually
the scientist concerned helps him or her by providing at least some order of
his own. Consequently, in Beeckman's case the uncertainty characteristic
of all text interpretation is still greater than usual, an uncertainty that is
enhanced even more by the fact that, owing to the inherent nature of a
private diary, there was no need for Beeckman to express himself as elearly
as he could. For him it sufficed to write in such a way that, on later turning
up a particular passage, he could still remember what he had been thinking
at the time he scribbled it down. l l Thus we often find that behind the
written words some general idea is lurking in the background that can only
be grasped by inspired intuition, but that is nevertheless indispensable for
making sense of the entire diary item in question.
Fortunately, the difficulty is reduced somewhat by the fact that in the
last ten years of his life Beeckman was drawn into a more or less regular
scientific exchange with Mersenne and his cirele, the resulting correspondence
forcing him to express himself more elearly than he used to do in his diary.
The details of his musicological exchanges with Mersenne and Descartes will
be discussed in Chapter 5; here we restrict ourselves to an investigation of
Beeckman's own musical doctrine. But before embarking on this enterprise
something should be said about his scientific principles and method, and
about his musical environment.
Four quotations from the diary may serve to elucidate Beeckman's ap-
proach to science.
(1618) Philosophy is divided into two parts: mathematics and physics. Physics is
concerned with the corporal things themselves, but mathematics with their quantity, and
the dignity of physics is as much greater as the shade is more ignoble than the body itself.
Nevertheless, mathematics is so necessary for leading to physical knowledge that it can
most properly be called its hands, by which alone all that physics contains can be appre-
hended. [ ... 1 One cannot have an exact knowledge of the microcosm unless one has
perfectly explored the nature of the macrocosm [ ... 1; physics, that treats of the
macrocosm, provides the preliminary standard for the art that investigates the nature
of man and the microcosm. This latter art is called medicine, and of all arts it is the
ultirnate one and the most excellent, and the most useful and necessary for its student. 12
(1620) [I] seek to investigate the causesofall things, and to 1eave no thing untouched
by reason. 13
(1629) For in philosophy ladmit nothing but what is represented as sensile to the
imagination. 14
(1620) Nature, however, is not something incorporal, and therefore incompre-
hensible. ls
These quotations illustrate clearly some basic characteristics of Beeckman's

scientific approach.
- Mathematics is an important tool of physics, but it has not nearly the
ontological status assigned to it by Kepler and Galileo: it is not the language
of the Book of Nature, but the shade of its body. The resulting absence of
attempts to mathematize nature (apart from some incidental geometrical
proofs) corresponds with the fact that Beeckman's knowledge ofmathematics
was relatively poor.
- The important thing is to explain nature, that is, to find the hidden
structure beneath the appearances of the phenomena we observe. Though
Beeckman is to some extent aware of the importance of experimental check-
ing, he does not go out of his way to do experiments hirnself. He fmds most
of his data in the phenomena of daily life, though observed with a keen eye
for the need not to take them at face value. This rather non-experimental
posture, as he confessed hirnself, was the result, to quite some extent, of a
serious myopia. 16
- The explanations to be given should be of a corpuscular nature; nothing
but the material is at all intelligible.
- Our ultimate aim should be to explain man; but this cannot be attempted
until we have reached a perfect understanding of the natural phenomena
external to man.
As we shall see presently, for Beeckman the only doctrine able to fulfill
these requirements was atomism. And he did not hesitate to apply it to music
as weIl.
Beeckman's exposure to music was rather limited. On his own confession,
he was the worst pupil his singing-master had ever had, and he was not
able to notice discords very well. 17 The only kind of music he was familiar
with was congregational singing in the Reformed Church. About the only
music he refers to in his diary consists of the psalms he used to hear on
Sundays, belonging to the Calvinist Psalter. This was certainly beautiful
music, but it was extremely limited in scope. It was very austere, with
little rhythmical variety, and it was essentially diatonic, that is, chromatic
alterations were quite rare .18 We shall see that Beeckman's total lack of
120 CHAPTER 4
familiarity with what was going on in the art music of bis day did not fall
to influence some of bis musical theories.
The following discussion of these theories centers around Beeckman's
ideas on consonance and the division of the octave, the discussion of conso-
nance being embedded in an account of the relevant portions of Beeckman's
theories on the production, the propagation, and the reception of musical
sound. Even though I have done my best to make Beeckman's points of view
as elear as possible, the interconnectedness of his very strange acoustical
theory with bis fairiy complicated explanation of consonance may make the
whole thing too taxing for the reader's patience. If so, he or she may just
peruse the next 26 pages in a superficial way, and concentrate again on the
Summary 0/ Beeckman's theory 0/ consonance starting on p. 146.
4.1.1. The Corpuscular Theory 0/ Sound

As a1l things consist of atoms of diverse forms at diverse distances from each other,
that is, [distant1 by intermediate empty spaces, without doubt a1l essential difference
comes from them.1 9
This sentence sums up a good deal of the fundamentals of Beeckman's

mechanical pbilosophy: all qualities of things are reduced to the motions of
atoms of various shapes and sizes in the void. Beeckman was quite aware of
the elose link with the ancient atomic theory of Democritus and Epicurus,
with wbich he was acquainted primarily through its poetical expression
in Lucretius' De rerum natura ('On the nature of things'). To Beeckman the
atomic theory was not the end product of achain of scholastic reasoning on
the structure of matter, but rather a fertile starting point for the explanation
of the most varied aspects of nature. (It has even been hypothesized that he
was the man who suggested the idea to Gassendi, the first scientist to make
the atornic theory palatable for a Christian public).20
One of the phenomena to wbich Beeckman applied the theory was sound.
It is not quite clear whether the sound corpuseles he posited should be
conceived of as atoms, for he never calls them by that name, and there are
more ambiguities in bis theory of matter. 21 But corpuseles they were, and
we shall see that they enabled Beeckman to frame one broadly coherent
theory of the production as well as of the propagation and the reception
of musical sound.
The corpuscular theory of sound is raised for the first time in 1616. It
comes down to the idea that any vibrating object, like astring, cuts the
surrounding air into little spherical corpuseles of air that are sent away in
all directions by the vibrating motion of the object in question. A number of

those corpuscles, on reaching the sense of hearing, constitutes together the
sound heard, and thus Beeckman can say, in a formulation repeated at least
ten times that to him sums up the theory: "Sound is the very same air that
was in the mouth of the speaker". 22 In fact vibration is not even a necessary
condition for causing sound: whenever air is divided into little globules,
sound is thereby produced. 23
Apart from the great explanatory power of the theory, Beeckman tried
to make it plausible by two independent arguments. One was a little experi-
ment, that happened to be the same as one to be described in 1638 by
Galileo, but that was used by Beeckman for drawing a quite different con-
clusion. It is the experiment with the water-mled glass and the fmger (that
according to Beeckman's specification must be somewhat moist), rubbing
in a regular movement its upper rim. Beeckman notes that the resulting sound
is accompanied by regular jumps of litde drops of water, as if the water
was boiling, but only at the place where the rim is being rubbed. From this
he concludes that the vibrating glass not only cuts litde globules off the water
(causing the 'boiling'), but also offthe air (causing the concomitant sound).24
The otherconfirmation is of a theoretical nature. The only mechanism
by which natural phenomena can be explained is direct contact between
solid bodies. Therefore asounding body that wou1d do nothing but touch
the surrounding air would not be able thereby to create sound, as air is not
asolid body, or at least not nearly as solid as the sounding body itself. 25
Rejecting the Wave Theory
Beeckman's adopting a corpuscular theory of sound was not due to a failure

to understand the concept of waves, or the way they are generated. In the
case of the sea he even answered quite explicitly the question
how it comes about that the water is moved, since the wind seems to press equally stiffly
each part of the water?
I answer that wind, just as air, can be condensed and rarefied, that is, when it falls
on the water and pushes against it, then it is compressed by the pressure of subsequent
wind. This condensation and rarefaction comes about trembling, like a vibrating string.
As a result the wind exerts more pressure on one part of the water than on the other,
and as soon as a little groove has been made in the water it is enlarged at once, for
the wind that, in the case of a smooth body, sUdes along the body, is now kept in
the little groove and increases the pressure. [ . . . J the wave rises as long as the weight
of the water of the wave is not too heavy for the force of the wind to sustain it; but
the wave descends when the wind, no longer able to raise the water, relaxes and, as has
122 CHAPTER 4
been said before, is tremblingly rarefied. This is why the stronger the wind is, the higher
and !arger are the waves, unless the water is very shallow .... 26
Thus it appears to be perfectly clear to Beeckman how successive con-

densations and rarefactions constitute waves, and how the amount of force
exerted determines the maximal displacement; in fact he even compares the
whole process with the vibrations of astring. How, then, did Beeckman
succeed in not adopting a wave theory of sound?
The answer is that in Beeckman's view such a theory was unable to account
for the propagation of sound. In his time, insofar as something like a wave
theory of the propagation of sound was put forward, it was only by way of
the tradition al comparison with the ripples generated by a stone when thrown
into quiet water. But in Beeckman's view this analogy is untenable. If it
were true that sound would consist of moved air, it would be a kind of wind.
And this would imply, contrary to all experience, that wind, on reaching
the sense of hearing, would evoke sound. Also sound would, just like wind,
affect the skin, and fmally it would be impossible to explain why it is that
sounds coming from different or even opposite directions hardly impede
each other, whereas wind can blow only from one direction at a time.
Beeckman's objections to equating sound with wind are, of course, per-
fectly valid. His crucial mistake is the assumption that this identification
follows from the wave analogy. It would seem that such amistake could only
be made by someone who is not aware of the fact that in the propagation of
sound it is not the air itself, but only its to and fra motion that is successively
passed on. But the amazing thing is that Beeckman appears to know this
perfectly well, so that we are forced to attribute his rejection of the wave
analogy to his apriori conviction that, like all other natural phenomena,
such as light, sound cannot but consist of particles of matter:
when a hard body is percussed while there is air in between, or when, in whatever
way the sound is genera ted, air is moved, the first air that has directly been moved by
the percussion does not push forward the air nearest to it in order to move it in the
same way it was moved itself, and again this [layer of air I the next, until f"mally the
ears are struck by the successive motion, as we have said to happen in water, but [I
say thatl the very same air that is directly touched and affected by a hard thing, is
[thereby I violently shocked and dispersed, and scattered particle-wise everywhere, so
that the air itself that had received the impulse strikes our ear, in the way a candle
flame spreads itself through space and is called light. 27
And now Beeckman has no difficulty at all in explaining why we can

simultaneously hear sounds from opposite directions: owing to the great
velo city of the air globules, and to the fact that they do not stream in one
line but cover a certain width, it will never happen that every single globule
emitted by one source collides with a globule emitted by an opposite one.
And even if such an unlikely event would occur, most particles would be
deflected thereby to such a small extent that they would re ach the ear
nevertheless.
So far about Beeckman's use of the corpuscular theory of sound as a
defensive weapon against possible riYal views. Next we are going to investigate
what phenomena Beeckman derived from or explained with the help of this
extraordinary theory. The first of these was his analysis of pitch.
Frequency and Pitch
As we have seen in Section 3.1., Benedetti in 1585 had not even attempted
to prove the inverse proportionality between string length and frequency,
and when, in 1638, Galileo tried to prove it he could offer no thing but two
pseudo-experiments (pp. 88-90). However, in 1636 Mersenne published a
geometrical proof, the discussion of which has been postponed to this chapter
because he had taken it from Beeckman, who had found it in 1614/5 and
communicated it to Mersenne in 1629. 28 It is the only part of Beeckman's
work in music and acoustics that has received due attention in the literature,
so it need only be summarized here quite briefly.29
The aim of the proof is to show, by a method fit for generalization ofthe
result, that strings of lengths I: 2, thus producing the octave, vibrate in
frequencies 2: I. It runs as follows (see Figure 40).
Fig.40. From: Beeckman's Joumael (ed. by De Waard), Vol. I, p. 54.
A given string ab will, together with its half cb, generate an octave. If ab
is such that it can be stretched as far as h, then cb can be stretched as far as
1. As clb is half ahb, Im is halfhc. As the whole string and its half are equally
affected by the stretching, both will, upon release, return with equal fo~ce
124 CHAPTER 4
to their original plaees, ab and cb respectively. Their speeds thus being equal,
and the distance hc being twice the distance Im, c1b will pass twice through
the point of departure m in the time ahb needs for passing onee through c.
In other words, half the string performs twice as many vibrations per unit
time as the whole string, q.e.d.
This result is immediately generalized, first, from the octave to an musical
intervals (because the proof runs similarly for any given ratio of string
lengths), and, second, from the string to an sound-producing objects. For
musical sounds deriving from whatever source can be made consonant with
sounds from strings, and thus pitch is proportional to frequency irrespective
of the way the note is produeed.
Despite these results Beeckman never bothered to determine the actual
frequency of a note of given pitch. When, in 1629, Mersenne communicated
to him his fmdings on the subject, Beeckman's first re action was to doubt
the practical usefulness of this type of inquiry:
... it never occurred to me to calcuJate the number itself, and this perhaps because I
never saw any use in that, nor do I see it now. 30
... since an inf"mite number of things of def"mite usefulness is up for inquiry, I
do not see why we should fatigue ourselves with those that do not yet appear to be
usefu1. 31
Beeckman indeed stood to his commitment to applied scienee: Mersenne's

subsequent demonstration of the advantages of pitch standardization imrnedi-
ately convinced him ofthe legitimacy ofpursuing the matter. 32
Pitch, Loudness, and Tone Quality

Modem acoustical theory distinguishes between three properties of a musical
note: pitch, loudness, and tone quality, the last being an the difference
we perceive between two notes of equal pitch and loudness produced by
different sourees of musical sound, for instance, the human voice and the
flourish of a trumpet. Sinee roughly the end of the 17th century musical
sound is represented by waves, and the three distinct properties of sound
are said to correspond to the three properties that can be assigned to waves,
pitch being determined by the frequency of the vibrations that make up
the wave, loudness by its amplitude, and tone quality by its shape (which,
in its turn, represents the 'mix' of partial tones the musical note in question
consists of).33 Thus there is a simple one-to-one correspondence (see Figure
41).
Sensation Wave theory
pitch frequency
loudness amplitude
tone quality shape
Fig.41.
However, we have seen that the pioneers of acoustics did not conceive
of the way the vibrations of the sounding object affect the air as waves,
but rather as a succession of pulses. In this view the association of pitch with
frequency causes no trouble: Beeckman, Mersenne, and Galileo stated it
unambiguously, and both Mersenne and Beeckman explicitly cautioned not
to confuse frequency with amplitude in this respect, as was still being done
by Kepler (p. 30).34 Thus the correspondence of loudness with amplitude
had no secrets for them either, apart from a terminological one: in terms of
the pulse theory, the property we now call amplitude was called the amount
of air struck. But the third property, tone quality, did cause difficulties,
for with what property of a succession of pulses could it possibly correspond?
Mersenne's inspired guess (p. 103) that the mix of partial tones determined
tone quality was entirely correct, but it was not suitable for being formulated
in terms of a property of pulses. So Mersenne's and Beeckman's knowledge
of the physics of tone production can be rendered as follows (see Figure 42):
Sensation Pulse theory
pitch frequency
loudness quantity of air struck
tone quality ?
Fig.42.
For Mersenne here, perforce, the matter ended. But not for Beeckman.
For in his view the vibrating string etc. divides the air into little globules.
This theory entails a dramatic increase in relevant variables: whereas in the
pulse theory three properties of musical notes are confronted with only
two distinguishable properties of pulses, the corpuscular theory of sound
offers a veritable embarras du choix: within the limits set by the mechanical
126 CHAPTER 4
philosophy the globules can be said to differ in size, in shape, in density,

in quantity, in speed, and so on. And, indeed, Beeclanan was embarrassed
by the choice available: at different places in the diary we find different
attributions. Undoubtediy he would have noticed the resulting inconsistency
if he had assembled his disparate notes for publication, but this is precisely
what he never did.
On New Year's day 1625, in a discussion of the human voice, Beeckman
distinguished between three properties of musical sound: pitch, loudness,
and 'fuilness' (as opposed to 'thinness').35 The latter property he attributed
to the size of the globules, loudness to the density of their aggregate (the
eloser the globules were together, the louder the voice), and pitch to speed:
the faster a globule was emitted, the higher the resulting pitch. If it is per-
mitted to interpret the 'fullness' of a voice as a measure of its tone quality,
we get (Figure 43):
Sensation Particle theory
pitch velo city

loudness density of the
aggregate (= q uantity)
tone quality size
Hg. 43.
Combining these attributions with his new, anti-Aristotelian ideas on

motion, he was now able to explain why, of all voices, a loud, full, and high-
pitched one can cover the greatest distance.
Apparently this was only an ad hoc explanation, for on other occasions
Beeclanan made other attributions. At one time he associated tone quality
with the shape of the sound partieles;36 at another he rather vaguely stated
that the differences between the sounds of different musical instruments
should be attributed to the various 'dispositions' the particles acquired
towards each other. 37
Loudness, however, he always associated with the amount of corpuseles
emitted. 38 This helped to explain at the same time why it is that higher
sounds te nd to be louder as weil, since pitch, in this view, is also related
to the amount of globules produced. This comes to pass as foilows. The more
often astring vibrates, that is, the greater its vibrating speed, the smaller
are the globules that are cut off the surrounding air. The sizes of the particles
are inversely proportional to pitch: a note of given frequency is produced

by globules twice as large as those of a note of double frequency. And this
implies that twice as much air is cut off; thus loudness increases at the same
time. The whole procedure is compared to shaking a salt-cellar: the faster
and by the more frequent movements of the hand this is done, the fmer the
resulting grains of salt. 39 (perhaps these are the very grains of salt with which
we should take the whole corpuscular theory of sound). So now we get the
following picture (see Figure 44):
Sensation Alternative particle theory
piteh size ---,). quantity

loudness quantity
(tone quality mutual disposition)
Fig.44.
In particular the association of pitch with the size of the sound globules
turned out to be helpful. It could easily be quantified, and thus be put to
use in order to explain certain other phenomena. The first of these. was the
overtones. Beeckman did not discover the overtones himself, but when
Mersenne, in the beginning of the thirties, communicated his discovery to
him, Beeckman could immediately provide the explanation. According to
Beeckman,
astring, by its tremor dispersing the air, breaks it into nearly equal globules; however,
as all parts of the string tremble equally frequently indeed, but not equally fast, and
as some particles of air are perhaps more fragile than others, and as the thickness of the
string is not everywhere exactly the same, it happens that a eertain amount of those
globules is broken into two, three, four, ete. parts. Those that are broken in two repre-
sent to the ear the octave, beeause in the same time it is affected by a doubled sting ;40
and SO on with the other partials up to and including the sixth one.
This explanation refers directly to the second application Beeckman made
of his corpuscular theory of pitch: it helped to explain consonance.
4.1.2. The Nature ofConsonance
In accordance with the dual nature of Beeckman's analysis of sound in

terms of pulses and in terms of the sound particles produced by them, he
gives a double explanation of consonance as well. Since the sound globules
128 CHAPTER 4
are smaller in proportion to frequency, the ratios of the consonances are

the same as those of the sizes of the globules; for instance, the sizes of the
globules that make up the octave are in the ratio 2: 1. This explanation can
only possibly be a complete one if it is extended to an explanation of how
the differently sized globules affect the sense of hearing; Beeckman's ideas
on this subject will be discussed in the section that deals with the perception
ofmusical sound (p. 139).
Beeckman's alternative explanation of consonance follows from his
analysis of the sounding string, combined, again, with his corpuscular con-
ception of sound.
According to current acoustical theory, sound consists of a succession
of waves. It is the succession that constitutes the sensation of sound; one
cannot point to one particular stage of the wave and dec1are it responsible
for the creation of sound. But the 17th century pulse theory was conceived
in such a way that every single pulse was thought to correspond to one
particular bit of sound. Mersenne thus devoted an entire proposition of
his Harmonie universelle to an inquiry into what portion of one to and
fro motion of a vibrating string was actually responsible for bringing forth
the sound bit. 41 Obviously such an analysis was even more imperative for
Beeckman, since he believed that sound consists of particles that are cut off
the air by a moving string. For this implies that during those stages of the
pulse when the string does not move, no globules are created, and therefore
no sound is produced. And these stages occur precisely at the extreme points
of the vibrating motion: in between 'to' and 'fro' there is a minute pause,
and that is where silence prevails.
All this may be c1arified by an analysis of the octave. Let be given two
strings AC and DF, Band E being their respective mid-points (see Figure 45).
p
A~----F:"--~C
Q
Fig.45.
DEF is half ABC, since we are considering the octave. P and Q are the points
of maximum displacement of the longer string, Rand S of the shorter. Let us
suppose for the moment the vibrating to take place in the void, so that after
release the displacement continues to be maximal.
Now Beeckman's essential point is that in positions ABC and DEF the
speeds of the vibrating strings are maximal, while in positions APC, AQC,
DRF, and DSF the string is momentarily at rest (the so-called 'media quies',
or 'intermediate rest' Beeckman posited in between the successive contrary
motions of any body whatever)_42 And since we have already seen that the
distance RS is covered twice as frequently as PQ, the sound-silence pattern
of the shorter string repeats itself twice as often as that of the longer one.
The resulting regularity is what pleasantly affects the ear: tbis is Beeckman's
main explanation of consonance. 43
Formally this explanation is quite similar to the coincidence theory
formulated by Benedetti, Galileo, and Mersenne. But materially it is different,
since not the more or less frequent coincidence of certain pulses, but rather
the greater or lesser regularity of a defmite sound-silence pattern is invoked
to explain consonance. The difference is due to Beeckman's corpuscular
conception of sound, and it seems fitting to mark it by giving his explanation
a distinct name, for instance the regularity theory of consonance.
Clearly to a large extent the implications of the regularity theory are the
same as those of the coincidence theory. In Beeckman's view the coincidence
of sound with sound alternated by the coincidence of silence with silence is
consonance, and thus the only pure consonance is the unison. All other
intervals consist of mixtures of, on the one hand, such 'unisons', with 'dis-
sonances', Le. sounds concurring with silences, the latter case presenting
itself when the one string is still in motion while the other is momentarily
at rest. The more often such 'dissonances' are interrupted by such 'unisons',
the more consonant the interval in question iS. 44 Thus we arrive at exact1y
the same ordering of degrees of consonance as can be derived from the
coincidence theory, and thus we run again into all the difficulties tbis scale
has already appeared to entail. How did Beeckman meet them?
The Regularity Theory Put to the Test
Beeckman was quite aware that, in reality, the vibrations of astring are not
made in the void, but in the air, and that this means that the displacement of
the string is progressively dampened. Since pitch appears not to change there-
by, Beeckman could on ce more conc1ude that pitch is related to frequency,
not to amplitude: the acoustical counterpart of diminishing amplitude is di-
minisbing loudness. However, and this is a crucial point of Beeckman's theory
of consonance, not only loudness is reduced by dampening, but there also
occur changes in the sound-si/ence pattern produced by the vibrating string.
What happens is the following:
130 CHAPTER 4
... the impulse weakens, so that it does not always strike the ear with equal violence,
and as a result there is not so much difference as before between the stroke itself and
silence, that is, rest; and the strokes do not last so long, and their extremities are shaved
off and do not reach the sense of hearing, so that greater silen<;es are produced. As
therefore the difference between the sound itself and silence is small, the ear does not
distinguish sound from rest, in the same way as the eye takes as continuous things
that are far away, perforated and discrete, because of the small apparent difference
between the images of a hole and the thing itself and its holes: for only little light
reaches the eye from things far away. Thus the sound seems continuous, and aperpetual
murmuring.45
In short: "the musical note languishes perpetually, and be comes more con-
tinuoUS".46 And just as in the case of vision the middle hole of the object
far away is still perceived best,
just so a continuous sound, too, is by far the easiest divided into two, because, as in
seeing, there is only one middle that is equally affected everywhere. 47
In Beeckman's view it is broadly true that the human mind has a predilection
for dichotomies, examples of which he signals repeatedly throughout his
diary. For instance, it helps to explain why the perception of the octave is
so similar to that of the unison: a pause of the upper string coincides exactly
with the middle of the stroke of the lower,
so that the sense of hearing cuts the lower into two equal parts through the middle
point of silence, which bisection has been said to be the easiest and therefore the most
pleasant. 48
On the basis of these two principles: the increasing continuity of every

musical note and the human preference for bisection, Beeckman now con-
structs a revised scale of degrees of consonance.
The Degree ofConsonance ofthe Fourth
As the difference between sound and silence is gradually reduced, the mind
in the end tends to add two strokes together, and to take them for one.
For example, the fifth 3: 2 tends to get perceived as 3: 1, which implies
that "a lower octave, that is explained by the smaller number of strokes,
appears to be represented and to be heard a little".49 But the upper string,
which pro duces three strokes in the time the lower one needs for two, cannot
be bisected in this way. Similarly the major third degenerates into 5: 2,
and is thus 'represented' to the mind as the major tenth. But in the case of
the fourth the situation is different. Here the lower string is represented by
an odd number, and therefore it cannot dissolve into the lower octave. But
neither can the even-numbered upper string:
The upper string cannot represent the lower, nor the lower the upper, because the ear
perpetually conceives as higher that which is higher, and that which is lower can never
appear to the ear as higher than the other. Therefore, when it gets languid, the lower
string is divided, but the strokes of the upper string are multiplied, that is, in the case
of the lower string two strokes are conceived as one; at the upper string each stroke is
halved and is taken for two strokes. 50
And now Beeckman has achieved his purpose :

From this it is clear that the fourth 4: 3 degenerates into the eleventh 8: 3, which is
worse than the major tenth 5: 2, and is therefore employed less often in counterpoint. 51
What to make of this strange theory, which is perhaps the least plausible
of all of Beeckman's ideas on music? What, in particular, does he mean
by these higher and lower octaves being 'represented and heard a little'?
Beeckman never refers to any empirical counterpart of this 'representation'.
In the case of the higher octave to the upper string 'being heard a little',
it is tempting to think of the first upper partial. But when, more than a
decade after Beeckman framed his theory, Mersenne mentioned to him
his discovery of five upper partial tones, Beeckman was surprised, and the
explanation he then gave of the phenomenon had nothing at all to do, as we
have seen on p. 127, with his theory of the languishing of the consonances.
The case of the lower octave is even more baffling. If Beeckman refers here
to a representation that is not purely mental, but rather is given by experi-
ence, then he has unwittingly discovered the differential tones, the discovery
of which is commonly ascribed to Tartini (1714).52 These are tones defmed
by the difference of the frequencies of the notes that constitute the interval
played, for example, the difference tone of a fifth given by two notes of
300 and 200 Hz, respectively, has itself a frequency of 300 - 200 = 100 Hz,
in other words, it sounds the lower octave to the bottom note. In the ca se of
the major third the difference tone is two octaves below the bottom note
(500 - 400 = 100, and 100: 400 = 1: 4), but it is quite possible, on hearing
it, to misjudge it by one octave, as Tartini appears to have done himself.
This is so, because differential tones are much weaker than the notes that
produce them; in fact they have no objective existence at all, but are artifacts
created by and inside our sense of hearing. 53
I must confess that I am somewhat at a loss to solve the dilemma. Of
course it would be nice to be able to shift backwards the discovery of the
differential tone (a phenomenon crucial to later theories of consonance)54
132 CHAPTER 4
by nearly a century. But I fear that too many arguments can be adduced
against this interpretation. To begin with, there is this complete lack of
reference to actual experience. Add to this that, as we have just seen, in
referring to the upper octave generated by the fourth Beeckman can hardly
have meant its first upper partial. And fmally, the fact is that the fourth
also pro duces a difference tone, which sounds a twelfth beneath the bottom
note. Altogether I reluctantly prefer the interpretation that we should con-
ceive of those 'mentally represented octaves' as nothing but hypothetical
constructs introduced by Beeckman in an ad hoc manner, just in order to
give the major third preferential treatment over the fourth in the scale of
degrees of consonance. ss
The greater degree of consonance of both the fifth and the major third
is also illustrated through a comparison of the qUality of certain chords that
contain them: according to Beeckman both C - G - c and C - E - c are
better than C - F - c. The first case, C - G - c vs. C - F - c, is simply
the harmonie vs. the arithmetical division of the octave, and the reason for
the better quality of the former foilows directly from Beeckman's original
analysis of consonance:
Why is the so-called harmonie consonanee better than the arithmetical? That is, why is
it that the harmony beeomes more pleasant when someone sings the fifth against the
bass and the fourth against the soprano, than when someone would sing the fourth
against the bass and the fifth against the soprano?
I answer: because the fourth is less perfeet than the fifth, and the lower the fourth
is [plaeed], the more this can be pereeived by our ear. For slowly move bottom notes,
and therefore the intermediate sounds move on longer before the sounds coincide
and a unison is produeed; but the upper note, beeause it emits its sounds quiekly,
beeomes at once a unison with the lower one of that fourth. Thus the diseord of the
fourth, or rather the difference of its sound from unison, is hardly perceptible; but
the more perfect eoncordance of the fIfth is more pleasant to our ear, and by virtue
of its own nature more rapidly a unison with the bass is made, because its proportion
is as 3: 2. 56
Next, in order to compare C - E - c and C - F - c (that is, chords given

by 4 5 8 and 3 4 6), this type of analysis is combined with the idea of the
languishing of intervals. In both cases the upper note is bisected, but in
C - F - c the bisection cannot be continued at the bottom note, whereas
in C - E - c the bottom note (4 being an even number) can be bisected as
weil, thus producing the octave below, as required. 57
The Degree ofConsonance ofthe Thirds and the Sixths
The bisection thraugh languishing posited by Beeckman has consequences

for the fifth and the major third only. The other consonances, whose bottom
notes are given by odd numbers, are not affected by it. Thus the adjusted
regularity theory of consonance would result in the scale of degrees of
consonance given in Figure 46: 58
unison 1: 1
octave 2: 1
fifth 3: 2 ----+ 3: 1
major third 5: 4 ----+ 5: 2
fourth 4: 3 ----+ 8: 3
major sixth 5: 3 ----+ 10: 3
minor third 6: 5 ----+ 12: 5
minor sixth 8: 5 ----+ 16: 5
Fig.46.
Beeckman even goes so far as to quantify pairwise degrees of 'goodness'.

For example, at the 36th strake the strokes of the fifth have united 12 times,
and those of the fourth 9 times; thus at the 36th strake the fifth surpasses
the fourth by 12 - 9 = 3 degrees of goodness. But the major third does
not surpass the major sixth by 3 degrees until the 40th stroke has been made.
And so on. 59
Sympathetic Resonance and the Distinction Between Consonance and

Dissonance
Having thus settled the problems deriving from the need to make the scale
of degrees of consonance conform to experience, the task remains to find
a distinguishing criterion between consonance and dissonance. Beeckman
takes it from his analysis of sympathetic resonance.
As we have seen on p. 30, Kepler in 1619 extended Fracastoro's expla·
nation of resonance at the unison to the octave and the fifth. At least one
year earlier Beeckman noted raughly the same explanation. 6o When, in
1628, he read Harmonice mundi, the coincidence struck him at once, and
he noted the similarity between his own account and that of the 'acute
phllosopher' he admired so much. 61
134 CHAPTER 4
However, there were two important differences. The first had to do

with Kepler's account of the way the vibrations of the sounding string are
transmitted to the second string tuned at the unison, the octave, or the fifth.
Beeckman quoted Kepler's statement:
then the sound of one [string], that is, the immaterial species of the body of the string,
when it is made to vibrate and has left its string, strikes the other string. 62
And he immediately added:

Never would I have called sound an immaterial species. For how can something im-
material move something material? 63
As could be expected from Beeckman, his own explanation of resonance

was corpuscular. With its help he was able to overcome a second objection
that could be raised against Kepler's account of reasonance: in the case of
the non-vibrating string tuned at the octave it was not at all clear how the
odd-numbered pulses, that tended, through coincidence, to strengthen the
sympathetic motion, were able to overcome the dampening effect of the
equally numerous even-numbered pulses. And of course this objection applied
a [ortion to resonance at the fifth. 64
Before discussing Beeckman's thinking on resonance, it might be helpful
to make it clear that, from the point of view of current acoustical theory,
his attempts as weil as those of his contemporaries were doomed to failure
at the outset. In fact resonance at the octave, the twelfth, etc., is caused by
the corresponding upper partial tones of the vibrating string. For instance,
astring tuned at the twelfth g of astring sounding C is made to resound if
and only if this C contains the second upper partial g. Thus, in the case of
,-
higher-tuned strings, there is no other resonance than at the unison, either
directly, through the fundamental, or indirectly, through an upper partial
(see Figure 47).
I;
-
unison octave twelfth
,.
.,
Q
... 0&-
Ir
0&-
Fig.47.
This implies that the relative strength of resonance depends on the overtone
mix of the note given by the vibrating string.
Beeckman first discussed resonance at some time around 1617, when he
was only aware of resonance at the unison and at the octave. The mechanism
of resonance is as foilows:
I say that the touched string partly pushes away from itself the untouched string in the
process of dispersing particles of air, partly, through [the vibration of) its own body,
moves the air nearest to itself, which motion moves the following [layer of air) up
to the untouched string; and when the touched string returns, it [the untouched string,
that is) is moved only by the motion that commonly, though wrongly, is called 'eschew-
ing the void'.6 s
And this mechanism accounts not only for resonance at the unison, but
also at the octave. The point Beeckman is making here may be clarified by
Figure 48.
c
Fig.48.
The rarefaction of the air caused by the second stroke made by string AC at
ABC, on its return from position AQC to APC, gives some extra impulse
to the motion of DF, so that the dampening effect of this second stroke,
though strang, is not complete. Beeckman also notes that during the last
stage of the second pulse the corresponding movements from ABC to APC
and from DSF to DRF are in the same direction. The net result is that the
even-numbered pulses exert less force than the odd-numbered pulses, so that
the resonance is continually strengthened, q.e.d.
In 1631 Beeckman used this result for proving that (as he believed to be
the case) resonance at the major tenth is the strongest of all. 66 The proof
is based on the fact that, as we have seen, in Beeckman's corpuscular view
of sound every single vibration creates a succession of sounds and silences,
silence being the result of rests at the extrernities, and sounds being produced
by the globules cut off the air by the string while in motion. The strength of
resonance depends on the coincidence of sounds with sounds and of silences
with silences. Thus the coincidence of strong sound from the vibrating string
with a rest at the untouched upper string has a dampening effect. And daq1p-
ening is maximal when maximum motion in the one string coincides with
136 CHAPTER 4
maximum contrary motion in the other. Moreover, the transition from silence
to sound and vice versa is a gradual one, since the number of globules pro-
duced increases with the speed of the vibrating string reaching and passing
through its equilibrium position ABC. Thus the resulting sound-silen ce
patterns at the various intervals can be compared not only in words - as
Beeckman did - , but also by means of curves - as Beeckman, unfortunately,
only suggested:
Let whoever would like to do so examine more accurately the exact strength by a
graphie delineation through compass and ruler. 67
For carrying out this suggestion would unfailingly have led Beeckman to
ascribing a wave pattern to the vibrational motion of sounding strings, as is
shown in Figure 49 for the octave, the twelfth, and the major seventeenth.
Hg. 49.
Thus even the corpuscular theory of sound could eventually have given
occasion to analyzing sound in terms of a succession of waves. But Beeckman,
in refraining, for whatever reason, from actually drawing the graphs, just
missed the inevitable consequences. (Of course, in the end he would have
had to giv~'up his corpuscular theory of sound, which thus would have been
overthrown by its own implications.)
However this may be, the required proof has now become easy. At the
octave, as we have seen, the second part of the stroke of the lower string
only just succeeds in overcoming the dampening effect of the contrary
motion of the vibration of the upper string. Similarly, in the case of 1: 3,
the fastest, and therefore strongest, part of the motion of the lower string
coincides with the maximum intensity of the contrary motion of the upper
string. But in the case of 1: 5,
when the upper string moves five times in the time the lower string moves once, the
first, middle, and last strokes concur with the lower string; admittedly the second and
fourth [stroke) run counter to it, but the second and fourth do not appear to overcome
the Irrst and the IIfth as much as the third alone the second and the fourth; thus for the
whole stroke the concurrence is stronger. 68
Thus 1: 5 gives the strongest resonance, and the application to this result
of Beeckman's languishing theory gives at once the required proof of the
superiority ofresonance at the major tenth 2: 5.
But Beeckman is now able to draw one more conc1usion, for the benefit
of which we had to inc1ude in our discussion of consonance this long digres-
sion on resonance. For it [ollows [rom Beeckman's corpuscular theory o[
sound that resonance and consonance are closely related phenomena:
both the strength of the former and the quality of th.e latter are determined
by the sound-silence patterns that characterize the intervals in question. So
now Beeckman is fmally in a position to explain why consonance stops at
the minor sixth, in other words, to give a physical criterion for the distinction
between the consonances and the dissonances. The starting points of the
argument are the superior strength of 1: 5 just proved, and the fact that
the unison, with its perfectly regular alternation of sound and silence, is the
quintessential consonance:
From this a more accurate reason can be sought why the number of consonances is
limited to the senario, for 4: 5, 5: 6, 5: 8, 3: 5, that appear to be farther removed
from unison, a1l take their origin from 1: 5, the strongest of a1l consonances, as [ ... )
we have proved.6 9
Thus only those intervals are consonances that are direct1y derived either
from unison, 1: 1, or from the twentieth, 1: 5.
By the same token an interval such as 6: 7 is a dissonance. In the first
place it is derived from I: 3, which is worse than I: 5, and from I: 7,
which is so even more (see Figure 50). For in the case of I: 7 again the
maximum sound emitted by the lower string coincides with the mid-point
of a contrary motion of the upper string, which thus leads to considerable
dampening.
138 CHAPTER 4
Fig.50.
Next, 1: 7 is four degrees worse than 1: 3. Thirdly, the derivation of 6: 7 fra m 1: 7

is weak and very lang, for 6: 7 is as much worse than 3: 7, as 1: 2 is worse than unison,
and 3: 7 [is as much worse) than 1: 7 as 1: 3 [is worse) than 1: 1. 70
In the same way 7: 8 is a dissonance, since its derivation from 1: 7

takes no less than four bisections, and 1: 7 is much less fit than 1: 5 to
generate consonances anyway. Similar analyses serve to exclude a11 other
intervals,like 10: 11,15: 16,etc.:
Between all these and the four so-called imperfect consonances there is no proportion
of goodness (as is to be seen from these [considerations», but they are almost inf"mitely
worse. 71
Untenable as this theory obviously is (for we have already said that the
strength of resonance depends on the mix of partial tones of which a musical
note consists), it raises an intriguing problem. For what precisely could be
the justification for taking as similar the strength of resonance and the quality
of consonance? The argument on dampening through contrary motion is
correct as far as it goes, but what relevance could it possibly have for con-
sonance? In Beeckman's view consonance is determined by the regularity
of a defmite sound-silence pattern. But how could the ear distinguish between
sounds originating from contrary motions? Are not all sound globules alike,
independent of where they come from? Contrary motion could affect the
ear only if it functioned itself as a resonating string. Whether or not this was
actually Beeckman's view we shall see presently.
The Ear and the Soul
We have already seen that in Beeckman's view the sound that reaches the ear
'is the very same air that was in the mouth of the speaker'. The globules
emitted by astring derive their velo city from the force with which the
vibrating string hits them. In the case of the pipe their motion is partly due
to the movement of the incoming wind that is cut into globules, partly it
derives from the spring of the air inside the pipe that is compressed by the
globules and, in springing back, chases them out of the pipe (see pp. 147/8).
Every single globule flies on its own;?2 every single globule is homogeneous,
and represents in its particular shape and size the properties of the resulting
sound. 73 However, during their flight through the air the globules do not
yet constitute sound: they are still nothing but the 'substance of sound'. 74
If a globule does not reach an ear it fmally comes to rest, according to the
laws of projectile motion, and is then reintegrated in the surroun.ding air. 7S
Only in affecting the brain through the mediation of the eardrum are the
globules tumed into actual sound. In which way can we imagine this process
to develop?
Again nothing but a corpuscular explanation is able to satisfy Beeckman.
He does emphatically not believe that the human mind itself is amenable
to areduction in terms of matter and motion. However, as far as body-mind
interaction is concemed he deerns it not apriori hopeless to search for
underlying material processes. He admits, in 1628, that this is a very difficult
problem, and the reasons he has found so far do not entirely satisfy him.
But this foundation [should be] posited, that [ ... ; e.g.] the sounds of the consonances
actually cause, tluough motion, something inside us to change pIace .... ~
Before plunging into Beeckman's investigations as to the nature of such

a motion, we should realize ourselves that accounting for the perception of
the consonances involves two distinct tasks. In the first place an account is
needed of how the affection of the eardrum by the air (in whatever way
we have to imagine the nature of this affection) is transformed into the
sensation of sound. Secondly, and more specifically, we have to look for
some mechanism by which the regularity of the affection, as given by the
140 CHAPTER 4
frequency ratios of the consonant intervals, is turned into pleasing sound.

As to the latter, Beeckman had two strings to his bow. On the one hand he
defined consonance as the regular alternation between coinciding sounds
and coinciding silences. On the other, in his view the consonances were
characterized by sound globules of sizes inversely proportional to the simple
ratios of the frequencies of the constituting notes.
These notions were the starting points Beeckman had at his disposal; let
us see now how far they could take him towards a mechanistic explanation
of the pleasure of the consonances.
In the only diary note he devoted exclusively to the sense of hearing
(dated 1631),77 he first discussed the outer ear, in particular the membrane
at the end of the auditory passage that separates it from the middle ear:
the eardrum. It is stung, as it were, by small globules; larger ones violently
shock it. This action of the sound globules on the eardrum is like the ruffling
of a military drum, supposing that the soldier who operates the drumsticks
were able to ruffle it with greatly increased agility. In order to explain the
transmission of the stings and shocks, Beeckman extends the comparison
to the middle ear. He is acquainted with its anatomy (see for a present-day
picture Figure 51).
Fig.51. (From: Pierce and David (1958), p. 133; reprinted by permission).
(The membrane now known as the oval window was called by Beeckman
the inner membrane). Now the affection of the eardrum is transmitted
through the inner air to the inner membrane in the same way the bottom
membrane of the military drum is moved by the motion of the air inside
the drum:
... the skin of a drum, when struck by a stick, gives sound because the inner air is
squeezed and compressed, and it moves the sides with retrograde motion, and at once
springs back to the skin itself. 78
In this process the role of the three ossic1es is only secondary. They just take
over the motion of the drumskin and pass it on to the inner membrane,
thus doing nothing but reinforcing the stings and shocks the inner membrane
receives through the motion of the air inside the middle ear.
Finally, the inner ear. Of its structure Beeckman knows virtually nothing. 79
In his view the inner membrane is the entrance of the acoustical nerve that
connects the ear with the brain. Beeckman accounts for the transmission of
motion through the nerves by means of small partic1es, called spirits. The
concept of 'spirits', or 'pneuma', goes back to Galen, who used it to explain
sense perception. (yie met it before when discussing Kepler's account of
sense perception, pp. 24/5.) Galen conceived of the spirits, that are centered
in the brain (the se at of the process of perception), as an immaterial, really
'spiritual' principle rather than as the particles of matter into which they
were now turned by Beeckman. 80 In Beeckman's view the spirits are made
of a nerve-like substance. They move either alongside the nerves or through
their inner cavities, just as water runs down a water conduit both through
and alongside it. They are connected, as it were, by means of little hooks,
and thus form a continuous whole, that is centered in the brain. Spirits
moving away from the brain in the direction of, for example, the hands or
the feet, cause these members to move, through a mechanism of contraction
and relaxation. Incoming spirits, through a similar mechanism, are the material
cause of sense perception. An example of this is the sensation of pain:
When our skin is cleaved or stung by a nail, we feel pain because the whole structure of
our body suffers. For the animal spirits are diffused throughout the whole microcosm;
thus, when some part is cleaved, the spirit is cleaved as well, and when the spirit is
cleaved it retreats, just as expanded and dilated air contracts itself.
[As a result of the overall connection,] together with all members the brain, that is
the center of all sensation, suffers as well. [ ... ] the coarser [the nail] is, and the less
the cut [spirit] is contracted, the duller the sensation is.8 1
Now being stung by a nail is exactly similar to being stung by very sharp
sound globules, and this is why
excessively fme sounds seem to me unpleasant, and they sting the spirit of the brain
by their very fme-ness, just as a little nail stings the skin; coarser sound [particles] do
not hurt solely by virtue of their size, just as light hurts only when it has maximal
clarity, and [the light particles] strike the eye too swiftly and sharply.82
However, the size of the souI}d globules is not the only agent of the greater
or lesser agreeability of sound:
142 CHAPTER 4
from the various instruments that emit sound a certain quality originates, that is
sometimes delectable, sometimes less so, because the air is cut into parts that do not
correspond to the pores of the brain, or of the members, or of the collection of
spirits. 83
Let us pause here, and briefly review Beeckman's attempts at defming

the material substratum of auditory sense perception. Compared to the few
sentences Galileo and Mersenne devoted to the process of hearing, clearly
Beeckman turns out to have investigated the matter much more deeply
(after all, he had studied medicine; but so had Galileo). He gave mechanical
analogies of the way the affection of the eardrum is transmitted to the oval
window and from there to the brain. Of course the state of pre-microscopical
anatomy as wen as the globule theory of sound seriously impaired the validity
of his results. But this is not the main point. From the perspective of his
own time a much more serious defect was that, in accounting thus for the
process of hearing, the specijic properties 0/ consonance have been lost sight
0/. Sound perception per se has been mechanically explained, but we still
do not know why notes whose frequency ratios are given by the first few
integers do sound pleasantly together. The only statements on the pleasure
of musical sound Beeckman made concern the effects of single sounds: notes
that are too high hurt because their sharp sound globules sting the sense of
hearing, and all other unpleasant notes are unpleasant because of a 'lack of
correspondence' between their globules and the spirits of the brain. Had
Beeckman succeeded in quantifying this lack of correspondence - I admit
that I have no idea how he could have done this - , then, and only then,
would he have found a material principle that connects outer regularity with
inner pleasure. But in his analysis regularity stops at the irmer membrane.
As a result the solution to the problem of consonance has only been advanced
by one small step, from the end of the outer ear to the end of the middle
ear. Compared to the scope of the original enterprise this is not much, but I
do not think that the value of the attempt is diminished thereby. Rather, it
defines the limits set by the anatomical and physiological knowledge available
to the 17th century scientist.
However this may be, Beeckman hirnself hardly appears to have feIt that
something was lacking from his explanation of consonance. For instance,
the diary itern that contains the passage quoted above on the disposition of
the sound globules of single notes starts by the observation that the pleasure
of the consonances has already been accounted for. In Beeckman's view the
regularity that charact~rizes the alternation of sound-silence patterns in the
consonances is just one instance of a very general principle:
. .. aII sweetness in music consists in identity, and in deviating a little bit from this
identity, and in returning to it. 84
This, in Beeckman's view, is true for all sense perception. Whether in feeling
pain, in seeing, or in hearing, our sensations are never evoked instantaneously.
Only those affections of the senses can be perceived at all that require a
certain duration. Thus sound, in order to be enjoyed, needs to be repeated.
But as soon as the thing perceived has been perfectly understood through
repetition, it ceases to be pIe asant and needs to be varied. Thus the pleasure
evoked by the regular sound-silence patterns that characterize the consonances
is reducible to a general psychologicallaw of sense perception. 85
Obviously the search for a material substratum of this psychological law
presupposes, again, a knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the nerves
and the brain that was completely beyond the grasp of science in Beeckman's
time. Our account of Descartes' performance in the same field (Section
4.2.3.) will demonstrate once more that here was the unsurpassable limit to
the attempts of 17th century mechanicists to fill the gap between physical
regularity and musical pleasure.
Accounting tor Small Deviations trom Pure Consonance

In a letter to Mersenne written in 1630, Beeckman casually observed that
the strokes of intervals given by ratios that consist of incommensurable
terms, such as the consonances in the equal division of the octave, after
their common first stroke never again coincide. 86 We have already seen that
this state of affairs had devastating consequences for the coincidence theory
of consonance, even though its adherents failed to notice this. However,
Beeckman's regularity theory was not thus menaced, because he was in a
position to explain why the human ear will hardly perceive very small devia-
tions from pure consonance. This he had already made clear in a diary note
written around 1617.
In this note he observed that sounding strings are seldom, if ever, found
to be in exactly the ratios that define the pure consonances. Suppose this
comes about because, in the case of the octave, one string is slightly more
than twice as short as the other, then, Beeckman says, the stroke ofthe lower
string will not quite coincide with that of the upper string, but it will strike
just a very short instant of time earlier. This very small ditterence will not be
perceived. Why this is so Beeckman does not say explicitly, clearly because
the reason is, to him, so obvious. For it follows directly from his corpuscular
144 CHAPTER 4
idea of sound, according to wbich the transition from silence to sound and
vice versa is gradual. Therefore the ear is not hurt when complete silence
coincides with nearly complete silence, and maximum sound with nearly
maximum sound. And perhaps after twenty vibrations, Beeckman continues
bis argument, we will still not hear it. But at some time, after, say, a hundred
vibrations, the deviation cannot but become perceivable, for then the differ-
ence in time between the strokes and rests of both strings will have become
too great, and thus "every hundredth trembling motion of the string will
be perceivable". 87 .
At tbis point Beeckman draws no other conc1usion than that
notes of longer duration require more exact strings, and that singing a melody exc1u-
sively in whole notes makes it more difficult to make the harmony sweet and pleasant,
because, as I said, the hidden defect becomes manifest in time. 8 1!
Some two years later, in discussing a recipe for tuning the harpsichord,
Beeckman notes in passing that the criterion for the justness of the fifths is
that they do not 'wow-wow', a phenomenon, he says, that is to be observed
much more clearly in the organ, both at the fifth and at the octave. 89
This nice onomatopoeia unmistakably describes Beeckman's becoming
aware of the phenomenon of beats. In order to explain them nothing more
is now needed than to combine the observation of the phenomenon with
the theoretical discussion of slightly deviating consonances referred to above.
This happened on the 8th ofMay 1628, when an organ player ofhis acquaint-
ance told him that, in order to get the fifths duly tempered, he used to tune
them exactly pure, and then
he taps the pipes in such a way that the sounds run counter to each other as if they
said wow, wow, wow, the one wow differing from the other in time as much as one
pulse in the radial artery from the other, and then a1l is weIl. But if he makes them even
more unequal, the wows come still 5 or 6 times c10ser together; and if he makes them
worse again, the sound passes into something like rattling. 90
Not only is this an early semi-quantitative description of tuning by beats,

but also, for the first time, an explanation of the phenomenon is provided.
'Wows', Beeckman says, come to pass as a result of a slight mistuning: the
strokes coincide less and less, until fma1ly the vibrational motion that lags
behind is overtaken by the other, and both momentarily coincide again.
Every single cyc1e of lagging and being overtaken makes itself heard as a
wow; therefore the closer the notes are together, the more time will be
needed for one wow to be heard. For example, a slightly mistuned fifth will
wow once every, say, fifty vibrations, which hanlly displeases the ear. And
if the upper pipe is rnistuned more,
it overtakes [the other] every 30th time or so, whieh begins to take away the agree-
ability of the flfth. But if it is still worse, it rattles and is reaIly vieious, since now the
ratio is no longer as 2 to 3, but as 17 to 18 or 20 to 21 or 10 to 11, ete., whieh are aIl
dissonances, for instead of the one string [sie] moving three times against the other one
twiee, the strokes now eome together only once every eleven or 12 times, or so.91
Let us look into the meaning ofthis fascinating passage.

Its weakest point is the clumsy quantification: the numbers given are
just fancy examples that have nothing to do with relating the number of
beats per unit time to the amount of deviation from purity. This failure was
the inevitable consequence of Beeckman's professed lack of interest in
determining absolute frequency (p. 124).
But for the rest Beeckman's account of wow-wowing is simply the best
that could possibly be given in the context of the state of acoustical theory
of his time. This may be illustrated by the following account of beating
in a present-day textbook on the physics ofmusic:
Another very important instance of superposition is the phenomenon of beats. When

two sources of sound of nearly the same frequeney are sounded sirnultaneously, the
resulting effeet is aperiodie alternation of sound and silence which we caIl beats. It is
easy to see how the effeet arises. At a given instant the two sets of waves superposed
at the observer's ear are in agreement. Compressions arrive together and rarefactions
arrive together, and we hear a loud sound. One of the sources, however, is vtbrating
slightly faster than the other. The waves it sends out begin to arrive earlier than those
from the other source. The superposed waves are now in opposition. A eompression
from one source arrives simultaneously with a rarefaction from the other and vice
versa. If the two sounds have equal intensity there will be complete silence. In any case
there will be a minimum of sound. Presently the faster source will have gained a whole
vibration, the two sets of waves will be in agreement again at the ear, and the sound will
give maximum loudness. Clearly the number of beats per seeond will be the number of
eomplete vibrations whieh the faster source gains on the slower in one second, and this
in turn will be the differenee in frequeney of the two sourees. 92
Despite the absence, in Beeckman's acoustics, of the concept of super-

position of waves that arise from successive condensations and rarefactions
of the air, it is clear that he captured the essence of the phenomenon of
wow-wowing. 93
And Beeckman's fmalline contains one more striking discovery. Adrnittedly
it betrays some inevitable confusion between ratios of intervals and rates
of beating, since it follows from his regularity theory that both are produced
146 CHAPTER 4
by coinciding sounds and silences. But nevertheless Beeckman appears to be

clearly aware that beating causes dissonance. Once more we have reason to
marvel how a totally wrong starting point (the corpuscular theory of sound),
combined with a remarkable physical 'intuition', could yield, besides obvious
failures, some really brilliant discoveries.
Summary of Beeckman 's Theory of Consonance

Beeckman's corpuscular conception of sound gave rise to two different
analyses of consonance. On the one hand, the consonances were thought to
consist of sound globules of sizes inversely proportional to frequency. This
quantification of consonance was not used by Beeckman for explaining any
of its properties. The size of the sound globules was invoked only in order
to explain why very high notes sound unpleasantly.
Much more important was another consequence of the corpuscular theory
of sound, namely the alternation between sound and silence that results
from the fact that during certain stages of the vibration of astring no sound
globules, or only very few, are produced. This relative discontinuity of
musical sound is the key to Beeckman's explanation of consonance.
Every note has a characteristic sound·silence pattern of its own, which
depends directly on its frequency. Therefore complete identity between
two sound-silence patterns is realized only in the case of two notes of equal
frequency sounding simultaneously. This identity is what is called 'conso-
nance'; by defmition its one pure manifestation is at the unison. Conceptually,
dissonance is exactly the reverse: not sound + sound followed by silence +
silence, etc., but sound + silence and silence + sound.
Thus consonance and dissonance are opposite principles. All actual
musical intervals other than the unison consist of a mixture of the two, and
thus they are comparable as to the extent to which they share in this basic
element of consonance.
The scale of degrees of consonance that thus would follow from the
relative discontinuity of musical sound is revised on the consideration that
over time the discontinuity is reduced through dampening. The resulting
revision reestablishes the match between physical regularity and aesthetic
experience.
It also follows from the relative discontinuity of sound that small devia-
tions from purity are imperceptible. This invalidates a major objection to the
rival coincidence theory of consonance, and helps to explain wow-wowing.
Next, the explanation of consonance in terms of sound-silence patterns
provides a elose analogy to sympathetic resonance, which is used for estab-

Hshing a physical distinguishing criterion between the consonances and the
dissonances. On eloser inspection we found that this analogy would have
been justified only if the ear itself had been conceived as a resonating system.
However, in Beeckman's account of the process of hearing no trace of this
could be found (sm all wonder: 'Corti's organ' inside the inner ear, which in
1863 provided Heimholtz with the anatomical basis of his resonance theory
of consonance, had by then just been discovered).94
Instead Beeckrnan posited a general psychological principle: the relative
discontinuity that characterizes consonance finds its exact counterpart in
the relative discontinuity that governs sense perception. In this way the
chasm between inner and outer regularity is not mIed, but rather jumped
over in one bold leap.
It remains to be seen whether in Beeckman's view the relative discon-
tinuity of musical sound, found in the case of the vibrating string, was also
characteristic of sound originating from quite different sources, like pipes.
4.1.3. MusicalInstruments
Apart from wow-wowing, all acoustical properties discussed so far were
derived by Beeckman from considerations on strings, such as the inverse
proportionality of string length and frequency, or the process by which
the vibrating string cuts the surrounding air into Httle globules, etc. Beeckrnan
was convinced that these properties could be generalized so as to inelude
all other sources of musical sound, such as pipes and drums, since sounds
could be made consonant to each other, and thus must necessarily find
their origin in basically similar mechanisms. 95 But of course it remained
to investigate the details of these mechanisms, and the extent to which they
were comparable. As an attempt to do justice to Beeckrnan's ideas in this
field would lead us too far away from the central subject of this book, I shall
present here only a brief summary of the main principles governing sound
production in pipes.
Beeckrnan's point of departure is the idea that the wind that is breathed
or blown into a pipe is cut into globules by the sharp edge formed by the
hole at the pipe's aperture. Pitch is, of course, determined by the size of the
globules, which in its turn depends primarily on the extent to which the
free distribution of the globules is prevented by the surrounding air. In the
void their size would always be equal, independent of the pipe's shape. But
in reality the larger the pipe, the more air is present in it, and the f\1ore
148 CHAPTER 4
difficult it is for the wind or breath blown into the pipe to chase away the
air. Thus the air inside the larger pipe tends to compress the wind or breath
more, and this results in larger globules being cut off.
All this is confirmed by the fact that pipes closed at the end ernit a lower
sound than open-ended pipes, as at that end the air cannot be chased out of
the pipe, and thus exerts more pressure on the incorning wind. 96 The phe-
nomenon of overblowing also comes in for a simple explanation: the shape
of the pipe, and therefore the amount of air pressure, remains the same, but
it is overcome by the greater force of the incorning wind, so that the stronger
wind causes the globules to be cut into two once more, thus giving the
octave, q.e.d. 97
Similar principles are at work in the production of the human voice:
What I have said about larger and smaller pipes can also be applied to the human voice.
For the glottis is the hole against the sides ofwhich the air is cut; and the whole mouth,
from this hole up to the outer lips is as a pipe, that can be dilated and contracted, and
thus by means of one single extensible pipe creates a lower or higher voice. 98
Starting from this mechanical analogy, throughout the years Beeckman

would apply his considerable anatomical knowledge to explaining how certain
muscles and other parts of the vocal tract, working both on their own and in
combination, produced the various phenomena that can be observed in the
human voice, such as pitch and loudness and their interrelation, falsetto
singing, tone quality in pronouncing different vowels, etc.
From the foregoing brief account it might seem to follow that, in contrast
to the sound emitted by a string, that consists of a mixture of sounds and
silences, the sound produced by a pipe is continuous. But this is not Beeck-
man's view. 99 For how do the globules reach the ear? After having been cut
off the incoming wind at the aperture they are sent into the pipe. In doing
so they compress the air inside the pipe,
and the air springs back at once, even somewhat beyond its natural constitution, and
thus presses out the sound partic1es, which, onee pressed out, enter our ears. This process
of pressing out goes fast in smaIl pipes, slow in large ones, such that in small ones the
pressing out occurs twice in the time during which in twice as large ones the pressing
out occurs once, because in the latter the springing back of the air goes slow, owing to
the double quantity of air. 100
Thus we fmd that pitch is related to the quantity of air inside the pipe -
and hence to its volume - in a twofold way. On the one hand, the quantity
of air determines the relative ease with which the incorning air can be cut
into partic1es, which in its turn defines their size. On the other hand, it also
determines the rate of ejection of the particles. In both cases the resilience of
the air is in fact the operative variable.
Nor is this mechanism at work in pipes only. Exactly the same process
is found in the bodies of string instruments such as lutes or harpsichords.
Part of the globu1es ernitted by the string reaches the ear directly, but another
part is first absorbed by the air inside the body of the instrument, and sub-
sequently squeezed out of it as a result of the resilience of the air.
In this way the sound particles that reach the ears are multiplied, because those that
would have perished in the free air are preserved in the inside [of the instrument];
and those that would at once have come to rest in the free air are kept in motion,
owing to the springing back [of the air inside ].1° 1
The inside is added to those particles that wandered away from the ears, but that
reach the ears after all through the resonance of the reflection. As a result the sound
becomes fuller and richer, because it consists of more particles, and therefore moves
the senses more. 102
This account completes the fundamentals of the corpuscular theory of the

functioning of the musical instrument.
4.1.4. Intermezzo: Consolations for the Physicist
Here, perhaps, is the appropriate point to interrupt the discussion for a

moment, and to express some sympathy for the patient reader, especially
if she happens to be a professional scientist. For she probably feels by now
that over the last 30 pages or so she has been wandering through an acoustical
madhouse, or at least that Beeckman's physics are distorted by a rnirror
bent in quite remarkable curves. In a sense this is true, of course. Of the
myriad of objections that can be made against Beeckman's globule theory
ofsound I will mentionjust three:
- It follows from Beeckman's account of the role of the musical instru-
ment that there is a difference in time between the arrival at the eardrum
of sound globules that re ach it directly, and of those that first pass through
the air inside the instrument. As a result we would not hear distinct melodies,
but rather a totally unmusicaljumble.
- If small sound globu1es are like little nails, why do they hurt our sense
ofhearing only, and why do they not sting the skin as weIl?
- Also the very same objection cou1d still be made to Beeckman's no-
tion of sound corpuscles that already in Antiquity had been raised against
Democritus' original atornic account of sound: "how [can) a few fragments
150 CHAPTER 4
of wind completely fill a theatre containing ten thousand men?" 103 To which
the historian who called attention to this passage, the acoustician Hunt, dis-
armingly added "that modern sound engineers are often nearly as embarrassed
by this question as [the critic] hoped the followers of Democritus would
be" .104
Given the total untenability of the corpuscular theory of sound it may
well be asked what has been the point of devoting so much attention to it.
To this it may be answered in the first place, that the history of science
consists of many more wrong than correct theories, and that a historian
who is interested only in the latter cannot be said to do justice to its subject
matter.
Secondly, wrong theories can teach us considerably more than correct ones
about the difficulties inherent in the process of the advancement of learning.
The fact that a bright and original thinker like Beeckman (and despite all
I hold these characteristics to be indisputable) could miss the wave theory of
sound, illustrates that this conception was not nearly so obvious as it may
appear to us now, aposteriori.
Third, admitted that the corpuscular theory of sound was wrong, so was
its only contemporary rival, the pulse theory. Both theories, if thought
through down to their last consequences, would have led, and did in fact
lead, to difficulties unsolvable in their own terms. True, the actual historical
development has taken its course to the wave theory from the pulse theory
as a starting point. But this does not at all prove that it could not equally
weH have found its origin in the globule theory. In fact Beeckman's acoustics
strongly suggest this unrealized possibility. At three different occasions we
have seen how narrowly he skimmed past the idea of a transmission of vibra-
tions by me ans ofwaves. He admitted it for water, in which case he displayed
a elear insight in the process. His corpuscular analysis of sympathetic reso-
nance brought him so elose to a rendering in terms of waves that only a
slightly greater interest in the mathematics of graphie representation would
have made it inevitable for him to draw the consequences. And finally his
account of the transmission of stings and shocks through the middle ear made
it elear that, after all, the material substratum of sound could be passed on
without globules being produced again. Concerning the role of the three
ossieles he even said quite explicitly that they transmit the affection of the
eardrum "by their motion, not by a pulse, for it is not probable that by these
instruments sound is produced afresh". 105
Taking all this together, I find it difficult to imagine that, if Beeckman had
coHected all his pertinent diary items, and had tumed them into one coherent
treatise of sound, he would not himself have been struck by the possibilities
hidden in these 100se ends, and that he would not have tried after all to
eliminate the inconsistencies by discarding their common origin, the cor-
puscular theory of sound.
Against this speculation it may be objected that, as a general characteristic
of Beeckman's approach to physics, his eagemess for providing explanations
was not quite matched by a corresponding feeling for the absurdity of some
of their consequences. This characteristic, as we shall see later on in this
chapter, he had in common with his fellow-mechanicists, Gassendi and
Descartes. Yet it was not strictly bound up with the mechanical phllosophy.
For when we look up one of the earliest manifestos of this philosophy,
namely the famous passage on the primary qualities in Galileo's 11 Saggiatore
('The Assayer'; 1623), we see how, despite Galileo's clear perception that
he had nothing better to offer by way of a mechanistic account of sound,
he avoided committing himself to a theory that must inevitably lead to
obviously untenable consequences. 106
All this is only by way of a comment on Beeckman's performance in the

field of acoustics proper. An appraisal of the consequences his corpuscular
theory of sound had for his musical ideas can be much more positive. These
will be evaluated in Section 4.1.6., after the discussion of Beeckman's ideas
on the division of the octave to be found in the section that now folIows.
4.1.5. The Division 01 the Octave
In Section 2.2.1. we have discussed the nature of the tuning problem that
arose out of the attempt to include the pure thirds and sixths in the scale.
We have also seen that Zarlino's solution, namely just intonation according
to Ptolemy's diatonic syntonon, resulted in a scale that either contained at
least two consonances false by a syntonic comma, or gave rise to constantly
changing pitch. In Section 3.2.1. we found that the controversy between
Zadino and Vincenzo Galilei on how this dilemma is resolved in actual singing
practice resulted in a rather unsatisfactory stalemate. Some thirty years
later Isaac Beeckman suggested a way out of the famous dilemma.
Just Intonation
This is not to say that Beeckman, whose knowledge of the Italian language
was very limited,107 was aware of the heat that had already been generated
152 CHAPTER 4
by the issue in question. But the content of the dilemma held no secrets
fromhim.
Fig.52.
Beeckman was aware that in Zarlino's scale (shown in Figure 52) all
consonances are pure, apart from the minor third D - F and the fifth D - A,
both of which are false by a syntonic comma. 108 One possible way out of
this difficulty would be to introduce a second note D*, one syntonic comma
below the original D. This me ans that the change of pitch in the course of
the piece is restricted to one particular note. In other words, all consonances
are kept pure and basic pitch is kept stable by mobilizing one or, if need
be, more notes in the scale. Beeckman, however, did not like this solution
at all:
[Mobilizing] the notes fis] altogether contrary to the nature of singing. For singing is
to repeat often and alternately the same higher and exactly the same lower pitch. There-
fore, as a result of those mobile places, the voice is injuriously forced to pronounce the
consonances and at the same time to seek the place of the note, that is, some note that
has not yet been heard throughout the whole melody.1 09
But neither was he willing to give up the purity of the consonances. These, in
his view - which, of course, had much to do with his theory of consonance - ,
were the foundation of all music. 110 This was true even for homophonie
music, which,
beyond the exact observation of the modes arld the consonarlces, has hardly anything
else by which it delights so much [ ... ]. For by mearlS of the little sting that is left
in the soul by the foregoing note the mind accurately observes the subsequent consonant
notes .... 111
In those cases when it was inevitable to choose between either fixing the
notes while adjusting the consonances or keeping them pure while mobilizing
the notes, Beeckman re1uctantly preferred the latter. 112 But in principle,
he believed, it was not necessary to choose. His way out of the dilemma
was a theory on what he termed the modi modorum, the modes of the
modes. It was based on two properties of music that, in themselves, were
nothing new.
The first of these was the fact that a mode is not only characterized by
a distinct TS-pattern (see p. 65), but that certain notes play.a more important
part in it than others. The main note is thefinalis, the first (and last) note of
the modal scale (in the case of the authentie modes, that is). The other
'principal notes' result from the first two harmonie divisions of the octave
in between two finales. In the mode of C they are G and E, called the 'domi-
nant' and the 'mediant', respectively (see Figure 53).
C D E F G A B c
jina/is mediant dominant finalis
Fig.53.
Thus the main consonances in a mode are those generated by the two
harmonie divisions: C - G, G - c, C - E, E - G. These notes, C - E - G - c,
constitute together, as it were, the skeleton of the mode. Their repeated
occurrence, whether harmonically or melodically, defmes the mode in which
a piece has been written.
The second point is, that in just intonation the scale is not uniquely
determined. A slight modification of Zarlino's scale may yield the scale given
in Figure 54:
9 8 15 9 8 8 15
C lö D 9"E 16 F löG9"A9"B 16c
Fig.54.
In this scale the minor third and the fifth on D have become pure, so that
now other consonances fall short of purity by one syntonic comma, in
particu1ar the fifth C - G and the minor third E - G. But C, E, and Gare
principal notes in the mode of C, and therefore, insofar as the mode of C
is concerned, when compared to the original division this modification is
certainly no improvement. But in the case of the mode on D it certainly is,
since here its principal consonances D - F and D - A have become pure.
In other words, just intonation can be adapted to the skeleton of the
modes. In fact Beeckman divided every mode into 18 submodes, or modes
of modes, so that altogether 12 X 18 = 216 of them could be distinguished.
This he achieved by the introduction of the major semitone ~;, which
exceeds the minor semitone !!
by a syntonic comma. As a result, e.g. a pure
fifth can now also be formed by two minor tones 1~' together with only
one major tone ~ and the major semitone ~;. Take, for example, the scale
ofFigure 55:
Fig.55.
154 CHAPTER 4
Here F - c 1S· a pure fifth

1 9 X "9
,as 10 8 X 10
9 X 2725 - 2 113 In this way many
- 3".
more combinations become possible, the only restriction being that per
mode the TS-pattern is, by defmition, fIXed. (See for the way Beeckman
calculated the number of 216 modes of modes Note 114:)
Now what is the point of this exercise? In Beeckman's view the modes
of the modes have a double function: they are both a description of what
happens when a psalm melody is sung, and they serve as an implicit standard
for the composer of psalms.
As to the first function, Beeckman states clearly:
[I think J that every song or psalm has its own particular distribution, thus generating
the modes ofthe modes. 115
In other words, it is the particular submode that, for any given melody,
governs the distribution of the pure consonances. This explains why it is so
easy to recognize a whole melody once its first line has been heard afresh. 116
We can now also understand why it is so difficult to learn to sing a particular
melody correct1y; the main reason is that each requires its own specific intona-
tion system. Therefore, as soon as he has learned it, even an untrained singer
performs it much better than a professional singer who has never sung it
before. 1l7 Another argument in favor of the reality of the modes of the
modes is taken from canons. As compared to normal counterpoint they are
much sweeter, since the melodie lines are identical, and therefore are given
by one and the same intonation pattern. 118
Thus the modes of modes provide, for every melody, the optimal combi-
nation of consonances: only those are exc1uded that matter least. Conversely
this means that a composer has to take into consideration the mode of the
mode of a particular melody. Once it is established he is not allowed to
overstep its boundaries, that is, to introduce into the melody those few
consonances that cannot be pure in the framework of this particular submode.
Unfortunately, in Beeckman's view this happened all too often, the immedi-
ate result being the mobilizing of notes he found so distasteful:
One would compose better songs if one paid attention to the things 1 wrote about the
modes of the modes, and it is to be seen whether the difficulty of the psalms does not
originate in this, too. 119
Thus in composing a melody one should take care not to posit such notes that have
so little correspondence to others, lest they are sung now at this pitch, now at that
[ ... J, for that creates confusion. And 1 believe that as a result manY psaJms are un-
lovely; but now that they have been composed one should aim to correct them some-
what, as it has been demonstrated that nature corrected the aforesaid, for why should
one not be able to achieve through art and nature what nature alone cannot achieve? 120
These fInal remarks allude to what Beeckman believed to happen whenever

the congregation was confronted with a psalm melody that overstepped the
fItting submode : it corrected the composition, in that some notes were
alte red so as to restore the purity of the consonance in question. 121 Examples
of this procedure abound throughout Beeckman's diary. He was particularly
struck by those corrections he found applied every time, in all Reformed
churches, by all members of the congregation, alte red at the same places,
and in the same way. 122 Thus in Psalm 68 (Reformed style) he found that
at a certain place the congregation used to sing A - A instead of F - A.
From the mode (number 11 in Glareanus' system) and the consonances
used its intonation pattern appeared to be as shown in Figure 56:
Fig.56.
Thus F - A would be the dissonant (Pythagorean) major third ~1, which

should not have been prescribed by the composer, and was therefore rightly
avoided by the congregation. 123 More often the congregation solved the
problem by intröducing chromatic alterations. For example, at a certain
place in Psalm 51 the sequence F - A was prescribed, which, however,
because of certain preceding consonances would have given the dissonant
major third 190 X 190 = 1~~' In fact, Beeckman observed, the congregation
used to sing F=, such that F= - A became the pure rninor third ;~ X l~ =
5 124
6"'
Increasingly Beeckman became convinced that very few psalms were
really flawless. As he noted in 1634, only after prolonged use by the con-
gregation could the real value of a psalm be established. 125
Lack of conformity to the modes of modes was not, in fact, the only rea-
son Beeckman adduced in order to explain congregational corrections. But
a systematic treatment of Beeckman's ideas on the subject would lead us
too far into purely musicological technicalities, and will therefore not be
pursued here.
In sum, we have seen that Beeckman found the solution to the singer's
dilemma in ascribing a distinct intonation pattern to any given melody.
ClearIy this solution could only be relevant to diatonic music with a mini-
mum of dissonances, such as was indeed provided by the Calvinist Psalter.
More complicated music, characterized by either intricate counterpoint or
156 CHAPTER 4
an increased use of dissonances and accidentals or both, could not possibly

be defmed in terms of modes of modes. And even in the case of the psalms
he was used to, once Beeckman had begun to note that congregations often
corrected them, he was forced to admit that composers did not really care
for the modes of modes. In quite a few cases this may indeed have been due
to lack of competence. But more often it reflected the fact that increasingly
the development of music was driving away from the simple melodie struc-
tures that could still be caught in the net of the mo des of modes.
Temperament
Beeckman was clearly aware of the necessity, in the case of keyboard instru-
ments, of tempering his beloved consonances. This was precisely why he
preferred the much more flexible human voice, which could adapt itself to
the requirements of any given melody.126
As to the amount of tempering his diary notes are rather vague. When
confronted with a recipe made by Abraham Verheyen, which boiled down to
mean tone temperament, he rejected it out of hand. This was apparently
due to his inability to understand its central feature, viz. the fact that its
whole tone is the mean proportional between the major tone ~ and the
minor tone 1~' 127 A similar lack of understanding - that apparently re fleets
the poverty of his mathematical knowledge - is revealed by his mistaken
attempt to fmd a geometrie construction for equal temperament. 128 Nor was
his calculation of string lengths according to the equal division any better. 129
When discussing its merits he even confused the equally tempered major third
with the Pythagorean one. 130 But since, in his view, on the harpsichord the
deviation of a third by a syntonic comma could hardly be distinguished
anyway, to him it suff1ced to note that tempering consisted of adjusting
somewhat the fifths and fourths.
The only original proposal Beeckman made concerning the tuning of
keyboard instruments was a neat reflection of his real musical preferences:
In due time I shall have a harpischord tuned for a song, that is to say, such that none
but that song, or only its equal, can be played on it, viz. that all the consonances, Hfths
and fourths, are completely perfect. This must without doubt be better than when one
adjusts the flfths somewhat lest the one consonance would exclude the other, but each
would deviate somewhat from perfeetion. This song should also have been composed
such that there is no dissonance in it, namely that those consonances that do not nt
together in a song are eschewed, both in every single part and in the whole rnany-voiced
score. 131
TIlUS, by adapting the tuning to the melody, Beeckman would have succeeded
in realizing his ideal of the modes of modes even on a keyboard instrument.
4.1.6. Conc/usions
Throughout the foregoing account of Beeckman's musical theories I have

freely combined pieces of the jigsaw puzzle his diary notes represent, virtually
irrespective of their dating. This procedure seemed to me justified because
of two specific properties that mark his work. One is the broad consistency
of his musical theories that, I think, has been amply demonstrated in the
preceding account. The other is the rather static nature ofhis work. It seems
that, after a searching period, around 1614-1616 Beeckman defmitively
established his main ideas, which were subject to elaboration, to application
to new phenomena, to modification as to details, etc., but no longer to
fundamental revision. This is not to say that his ideas did not develop over
time at all; an example of such a development was his interest in congre-
gational psalm corrections that resulted from his growing awareness that
the modes of modes were so seldom really adhered to in practice. But the
overall impression Beeckman's diary gives is, that at an early date he had
all his main ideas firmly in his head, and that his notes consist primarily
of elaborations and applications occasioned by the reading of a book, the
rare meeting with a like-minded scholar, or - most frequently - the con-
frontation with a natural phenomenon that cried out for being explained
according to Beeckman's basic principles.
How far these explanations took him can perhaps best be assessed by
comparing his theory of consonance with the two other ones we came across
so far that really aimed at covering the problem of consonance in its entirety.
Thus we will leave out of the comparison Stevin, Benedetti, and the two
Galilei's, and ask only what were the respective accomplishments of the
theories of consonance of Kepler, Mersenne, and Beeckman. In order to do
so, we shall first look into the extent to which their theories depended on
principles of sound production. Next we shall compare their attempts to fmd
a distinguishing criterion between the consonances and the dissonances, and
the implications their explanations of consonance had for the grading of the
consonances. Finally, we shall inquire to what extent the three scientists
were able to link outer regularity with the inner experience of consonance.
(1) Music and acoustics. Kepler's theory of consonance, as we have seen,
was based on geometry. In contrast, those of Mersenne and Beeckman had
in common that they were firmly embedded in acoustical principles. Both
158 CHAPTER 4
the coincidence and the regularity theory depended on a preceding analysis

of sound. In the cases of Galileo and Mersenne I have also suggested that
their attempts to solve the problem of consonance through the conception
of pulses imparted to and transmitted by the air, gave rise to aseries ofnew
problems, the answers to which became together the first elements of the
new science of acoustics. Something similar appears to have been true for
Beeckman. To be sure, his globule theory of sound had been developed
independent of his explanation of consonance, following as it did from his
apriori conviction that sound, like any other natural phenomenon, must
necessarily be reducible to the motions of certain particles of matter. But
it is equally evident that virtually all elaborations of this theory took their
origin in musical problems, both traditional and new. No less than in the
experimentalist approach had the analysis of the functioning of the musical
instrument become for Beeckman a vital element of the science of music.
(2) Thedistinguishing criterion. There are major contrasts between Kepler's
and Mersenne's attempts to fmd a distinguishing criterion between conso-
nance and dissonance. Kepler organized his entire Harmonice Mundi around
it, whereas in Harmonie universelle the problem provided the material for just
one of the se ver al hundreds of propositions the book consists of. Kepler's
solution was geometrical, whereas Mersenne was apriori unwilling to admit
any but a physical criterion. Kepler was convinced he had found the solution,
whereas Mersenne in the end had to acknowledge defeat.
Beeckman's position is roughly half-way in between these two. On the
one hand he did fmd a criterion that, conforming to his scientific ideals,
was indeed of a physical nature. On the other hand the problem was clearly
not central to Beeckman's musical thought: the solution occurred to him
only as a kind of afterthought to his analysis of sympathetic resonance,
and its far-fetched content confirms once more its apparent ad hoc nature.
Now in the foregoing we have repeatedly linked the attitudes of both the
adherents of the mathematical and of the experimentalist approaches to the
musical environments with which they were familiar. Thus Kepler's deter-
mination to find an absolute distinguishing criterion appeared to reflect
his exposure to Renaissance music with its absolute separation between the
functions of consonance and of dissonance. Mersenne, in contrast, who feIt
the pressure of his own coincidence theory towards a gradual transition from
consonance to dissonance, could easily give in to this pressure owing to the
new features of the new Baroque style he knew and admired.
Beeckman had one foot in each camp. His explanation of consonance
forced him down the road towards gradual transition rather than towards
positing an absolute break after the rninor sixth. But the intervals with 7,
and dissonances in general had, to hirn, no independent musical meaning
whatsoever. The music from the Calvinist Psalter he was used to was based
on consonance to an even greater extent than the Lutheran church music
and the secular art music Kepler was familiar with. 132 We have seen this
abundantly demonstrated in Beeckman's theory of the modes of modes,
which was really one sustained effort to maintain as much of pure conso-
nance in actual music making as possible. And therefore, when he saw a
chance to withstand the consequences of his own account of consonance, he
grabbed it at once in order to give a physical explanation of the distinction
that was so vital to al1 his musical feelings.
(3) The grading 0/ the consonances. We have seen that Kepler's theory
of consonance did not give rise to grading them: since the regular polygons
either did or did not obey his three limiting rules, the corresponding intervals
were sirnply either consonant or dissonant. In this sense, too, Kepler's crite-
rion was absolute. In contrast, both the coincidence theory and the regularity
theory of consonance inexorably led to the establishment of a scale of
degrees of consonance. We have seen that in many important respects this
scale did not conform to actual musical experience, and thus seemed to
be invalidated by it. Mersenne in the end solved the resulting problem by
declaring aesthetic experience irreducible to scientific analysis, in that he
established two different scales that both had their own independent, though
limited, validity. This reflected Mersenne's basic distrust in the ability of
science to explain nature with any degree of certainty.
Beeckman, on the contrary, was not at al1 plagued by such doubts. If
anything, he was a little overconfident in the explanatory power of the
mechanistic principles he applied to the phenomena of nature. This is not
to say that he believed he had explained, or could explain, everything present
in nature from his atomic theory. He did not try to reduce the human soul
to particles in motion. He wrestled with the problem of the origin of life. 133
He was aware of the fundamental antinomy inherent in the atomic theory,
namely that in order to collide, and thus to pass on motion, atoms must
be perfectly elastic, while in order not to break apart they cannot but be
supposed to be perfectly hard as weIl. But if they are perfectly hard, how
can they possibly spring back after collision? This dilemma was to trouble
later generations as weIl, until it was decided by attributing both properties
to atoms by definition. This pseudo-solution could not satisfy Beeckman,
even though he never clairned he had found the fmal answer. But neither
was this sufficient reason for him to give up the atomic theory altogether .134
160 CHAPTER 4
It seems to me that this attitude was quite typical of his scientific style.
When a basic principle with great explanatory power ran into difficuIties
Beeckrnan feIt no need to give it up: the fact that it could explain so much
was to him decisive. But at the same time he continued his attempts at
repairing the crack. This is what he did with the scale of degrees of con-
sonance. From his analysis of musical sound as relatively discontinuous
he derived not only an explanation of consonance in terms of the regular
alternation of sound-silence patterns, but also a corollary - the theory of
languishing through dampening - that provided the means to restore the
conforrnity of the scale to aesthetic experience.
Beeckrnan's basic weakness, here as elsewhere, was his lack of interest
in confronting other implications of such an ad hoc theory with reality.
Surely he was extraordinarily inventive in frarning his theories. But this
seems to be precisely why he concentrated to such an extent on finding
mechanisms that could explain the phenomena he wanted to explain, that he
tended to neglect the difficulties his explanations often raised in their turn,
such as the non-existence of the lower octave he posited for the fifth and the
major third. Beeckman was far from immune to the perpetual temptation
to the scientist he had himself warned against so eloquently:
It is a cause of many errors that, once having derived something fine from them, one
fmds it sad to discard the fme thing by rejecting the error. 13S
In Beeckrnan's case the preference to stick to a nice explanation rather

than to look out for contradictory information was, of course, far from
complete, otherwise he would have been a total scientific failure. But his
willingness to obey to experimental checking was surely somewhat under-
developed. Another phrase of his characterizes this attitude quite nicely.
Once, in 1624, he considered a certain explanation he had given apriori
more plausible after checking, "because experience has strengthened the
reason" .136 'Strengthened', he says, not 'confirmed', or something similar.
Experience, in his view, could make a theory more plausible; but counter-ex-
perience could not really refute it. Beeckman's main criterion for the validity
of his explanations was their explanatory power. It is true that at times
this attitude led him to plain absurdities. But it is also true that without it
some ofhis best discoveries could never have been made.
(4) Outer regularity and inner pleasure. On this basic issue the main points
have already been made. Kepler's metaphysical explanation was still the only
complete one available. Mersenne had virtually ducked the issue. Beeckman
had succeeded in extending physically given regularity to the rniddle ear.
The rest of his account of auditory sense perception applied to successive

sounds only, and his explanation of the pleasure of the consonances derived
from a psychologicallaw for which he could not find an explanation in terms
of matter and motion, nor did he even look for one. This failure of sorts,
as we have seen, reflects the state of anatomy and physiology in his time
rather than that it diminishes the value of Beeckman's attempts. In magnis
voluisse sat est: 'in major enterprises it suffices to have tried'.
In sum, Beeckman's contributions to musical theory were, to say the least,
at the level of his time. As to scope, they were on a par with the most com-
pIe te ones produced by his contemporaries. As to content, they provided
answers to all pertinent questions current at the time. Some of them even
had c1ear advantages over all contemporary rival explanations. Taken together
they show that the mechanical philosophy, no less than the mathematical or
the experimental approach, could give rise to major progress in the age-old
field of the science of music. Apart from their not having been published
there is no inherent reason why Beeckman's musical theories could not have
become, much more than they did in fact, a viable starting point for further
musico-scientific inquiry.
4.2. RENE DESCARTES
More than any other scientist discussed so far, Rene Descartes (1596-1650)
defies the c1assification scheme used in this book. Reducing music to mathe-
matics in his youth, he was shown by Beeckman the relevance of acoustical
considerations for musical theory, and he was led by his own mechanical
philosophy towards an account of auditory sense perception in terms of
matter and motion. The latter feature, inextricably bound up with his mature
approach to the phenomena of nature, seems to me decisive for discussing
his musical ideas in the present chapter. The treatment of this subject will
be preceded, first, by abrief account of his 1618 Compendium musicae,
and, second, by the quite original comments he made to Mersenne concerning
the problem of consonance.
4.2.1. The 'Compendium ofMusic'
Compendium musicae was the first thing written by Descartes, then 22 years
old, and a soldier in the army of Prince Maurits of the Netherlands at Breda.
It was written as a New Year's gift to arecent acquaintance, who had come
to Breda in October 1618 "for assisting unc1e Peter, and for courtship as
162 CHAPTER 4
RENE DESCARTES
weIl": Isaac Beeckman. 137 (More on their friendship and its vicissitudes in
Section 5.4.). It was not published until right after Descartes' death, in
1650. 138 No musico-scientific work of a major participant in the Scientific
Revolution adheres so elosely to the Renaissance style of musical theorizing
as Descartes' little treatise. Whereas all scientists discussed so far aimed at
replacing the old numerological concepts by new, scientifically more accept-
able modes of analysis, Descartes' Compendium musicae can best be defmed
as 'Zarlino, more geometrico' .
Right in the beginning of the brief, c. 3D-page treatise the discussion of
all properties of sound other than its diversity as to duration and pitch is
exeluded, and relegated to the realm of the physicist. Rather, the tenor of
the treatise is predominantly mathematical. But it is so in a way strikingly
different from Kepler's Harmonice Mundi, that was largely written in the
same year. While Kepler rejected the arithmetical analysis of consonance in
order to replace it by original geometric considerations, Descartes, much less
radically, merely transformed Zarlino's numerical magnitudes into line
segments of given lengths. For instance, Kepler analyzed the fifth as the
ratio of residue and whole of the arcs of a cirele cut off by an equilateral
triangle. Descartes, in contrast, simply defmed the same interval in terms
that are nothing but the geometric counterpart of the traditional conception
of a numerical ratio (see Figure 57):
1---+-- ! I
A C D B
Fig.57. From: Compendium Musicae, Ch. 'De octava'.
If C and D divide AB into three equal parts, the fifth is said to be 'composed
of AD and AB'. Thus not the musical concepts themselves, but only the ter-
minology is geometrized. This goes so far that even in the case of illustrations
by means of the staff sometimes the notes are not designed by their 'musical'
names, but rather are termed A, B, C, ... according to the order in which
theyare discussed in the text (see for an example Figure 58).
Clearly this manner of geometrizing is much more superficial than
Kepler's, and in fact the content of the argument follows rather closely the
ideas of Zarlino, such as they had been taught to young Descartes at the
Jesuit college of La Fleche.
Nowhere does he adhere closer to Zarlino than in his mIes for com-
position, which are highly condensed and not always thoroughly under-
stood abstracts from Book III of the Istitutioni harmoniehe, as has been
164 CHAPTER 4
.
A"'U
.,,, T
J.
-'.
....L
lL·
... r..
"
X
,
A. CitA. ~r
L
•
Fig.58. From: Compendium Musicae, Ch. 'De gradibus sive tonis musicis'.
demonstrated by Pirro in his admirable 1907 thesis on 'Descartes and

Music' .139 Equally tradition-bound is the entirely diatonic character of the
treatise; Descartes even has the greatest trouble in making sense of nature
and function of chromatic alterations. 140 He sticks to the purity of the
consonances. He seems to be aware of the singer's dilemma, and he solves
it by 'mobilizing' D in the sc ale (the very solution Beeckman disliked so
much). In this respect he never changed his opinion throughout his life:
when, in later years, he had acquired a better grasp of the accidentals, he
proposed a solution to the tuning problem for keyboard instruments that
consisted of nothing but the mobilization of D, G, and all five accidentals. 141
Also, despite his conviction that the consonances are defmed by ratios of
the simple integers, he believed at the same time that our ear puts up with
sm all deviations by, e.g., a syntonic comma. And just as everybody else he
did not see any need to develop a theory of consonance that could account
for both statements at a time. 142
However, there are a few things to be found in Compendium musicae that
deviate markedly from tradition. The first of these is Descartes' derivation
of the consonances. This is done by a process of continued bisection of a
string AB (see Figure 59):
A- • i 1 I , I
C F E D
Fig.59. From: Compendium Musicae, Ch. 'De octava'.
The first bisection of AB at C generates the octave AC - AB. Halving again

CB at D, the resulting line segments AC and AD give 'properly' the fifth,
while the fourth is generated 'accidentally' by considering AD and AB. The
latter derivation is said to be accidental because the line segment DB is only
the residue left by the bisection at D; why this is so is not made elear. One
more bisection, at E, leads to finding 'properly' the major third AC - AE,
and "by accident all remaining consonances". 143 The fact that the only
'properly' derived consonances are the fifth and the major third finds an
experimental confirrnation in the phenomenon of sympathetic resonance.
For when the various strings of a lute are plucked, only those strings resound
that are at the fifth or at the major third of the string plucked. Here we see
again the elose analogy between consonance and resonance that was also
felt by Kepler, Mersenne, and Beeckman.
Two conelusions are drawn by Descartes from the preceding analysis,
corresponding with the double distinction made. In the first place, the
distinction of the 'properly' derived consonances, one from each bisection,
leads to the conclusion "that there are only three sonorous numbers, 2, 3,
and 5, for the number 4 and the number 6 are multiples of these, and are
therefore sonorous numbers oniy by accident" .144 Though still formulated
in a terminology derived straight from Zarlino, the observation that our
entire tone system is ultimately based on the numbers 2, 3, and 5, was a new
and valuable one.
Secondly, in the process Descartes has found a new distinguishing criterion
between consonance and dissonance. For one more bisection, at F, would
generate nothing but dissonances, like the whole tone AC - AF. In Com-
pendium musicae this is still a simple statement of fact: no rationale whatever
is given for why the generation of consonances should stop after the third
bisection. Nowhere does Descartes polemicize explicitly against Zarlino's
senario, maybe because it is c1ear that his new criterion is just as arbitrary
as the old one was.
Another relatively new feature has to do with the overtones. Descartes
appears to have been the first to use the phenomenon, already observed by
Aristotle, that every musical note seems to contain its higher octave, for
explaining the bad quality of the fourth. His argument is one we are already
familiar with:
... the perfeetion of a given consonance depends not only upon its qualities as a simple
unit, considered in its own right, but also at the same time upon a11 of its multiples.
The reason is that one never hears a consonance pure and simple without also hearing
the resonance of its multiples, since it has been said above that in a unison the resonance
of its higher octave is also contained. Considered in this light, it is clear [ ... I that
the major third consists of sma11er numbers than the fourth, and is therefore more
perfect. 145
Pirro rightly observed the basic fallacy in this argument, which was to be
166 CHAPTER 4
repeated by Mersenne and Huygens, narnely, that it takes into consideration

only the upper partial of the higher note of the interval in question. 146
Finally, in total contrast to the mathematical nature of Compendium
musicae, there is to be found one fleeting reference to tbe successive 'strokes'
musical notes consist of. The remark occurs in the context of a discussion of
sympathetic resonance. First by geometric means a proof is given far the
truth of Descartes' observation that resonance at the major seventeenth
(I: 5) is stronger than at the major third (4: 5). Then the proof is repeated
by means of an altogether different concept, that is introduced as folIows:
This may be conceived in the same way if someone would say that sound strikes the ear
with many strokes, and the higher-pitched the sound is, the faster this go es .... 147
This brief passage discords completely with its overall mathematical

context, and since the discovery of Beeckman's Journael we know why:
it was inserted by Descartes into an already completed manuscript at the
urging of his new friend for whom he had written the Compendium. 148
Thus it is known with great precision when Descartes' initiation into the
acoustical analysis of musical questions began. When, eleven years later,
Mersenne started to pick his brain on the explanation of consonance, he
appeared to know a great deal more about it.
4.2.2. The Scientific Analysis o[Musical Beauty
Nearly everything Descartes had to say about the science ofmusic after 1618
is contained in the letters he wrote to his friend Mersenne between 1629,
when he settled in the Netherlands for good, and 1640. This correspondence,
the main portion of which was published for the first time nine years after
Descartes' death,149 reveals that by now Descartes was c1early aware of the
vibrational nature of sound. "Sound", he says, "is nothing but a certain
trembling of the air, that comes to titillate our ear" .150 He has no difficulty
at all in attributing pitch to the frequency of the vibrations, and loudness
to the amount of 'agitated' air. 151 Unlike both Mersenne and Beeckman he
realizes that sound is a successive phenomenon, and that a single stroke of
astring results only in noise without identifiable pitch. 152 And, although
he shares Beeckman's mechanistic conviction that all natural phenomena
are to be explained in terms of matter and motion, he dismisses the latter's
globular conception of sound as "ridiculous". 153 Rather he adheres to the
stone-in-water account of the propagation of sound. He avoids the mistake
Beeckman had made, in that he compares sound with the ripples occasioned
by the throwing of the stone, and wind with a regular current. 1S4 He even
gives a c1ear description ofhow the regular movements ofsome object give rise
to the successive rare faction and condensation of the air, which is spherically
propagated in all directions. 1SS
When confronted with Mersenne's discovery of the overtones, Descartes
answered that he had observed them before (which, if he refers here to
Compendium musicae, is demonstrably untrue, as by then he knew no thing
more about the phenomenon than Aristotle did). By way of an explanation
he suggested that the overtones resulted from a certain inequality in, e.g.,
the thickness of the strings that produce them. The accompanying illustration
(see Figure 60) makes one wonder what Descartes reaUy understood con-
cerning the production ofsound by strings:
:s
Fig. 60. From: Letter to Mersenne, end of November, 1633 (illustration taken from the
Duteh translation by Glasemaker, p. 532).
The idea is, for the case shown, that in the course of the regular stroke CD
there occur three little strokes CE, EF, FD in between, so that the third
partial at the twelfth is heard. This explanation was meant only as a private
service to Mersenne, for, Descartes wrote, the phenomenon was not impor-
tant enough for a treatise to be published about it, and if Mersenne insisted
on doing so, he was begged not to mention Descartes' name in connection
with it. 1S6 Descartes' explanation of the natural tones produced by the
trum pet was just another description of the phenomenon in terms slightly
different from Mersenne's own. 1S7
Much more to the point was his re action to Mersenne's questions on con-
sonance. His explanation of consonance was nothing but a c1ear exposition of
168 CHAPTER 4
the coincidence theory, fonnulated in tenns and illustrated with figures

that were remarkably sirnilar to those that were to be published by Galileo
in 1638. He made it appear to Mersenne as if the demonstration he gave now
in tenns of the coincidence theory was identical with a corresponding passage
in Compendium musicae, in which he had shown why the twelfth is sweeter
than the fifth. But in 1618 his only argument had been the numerical one
that the ratio 3: 1 is simpler than 3: 2. The aim of this subterfuge was to
cover up his indebtedness to Beeckman, of whom he now viciously wrote
to Mersenne that "if [eleven years] suffice to copy [this explanation], he is
entitled to attribute it to himself'. 158
Thus, just as Beeckman did, and Mersenne was to do in Hannonie univer-
seile, Descartes believed that the sweetness of the consonances depended
on how often the strokes coincided that were generated by sounding bodies
producing certain intervals. But he had quite different answers to the various
difficulties this theory entailed, and with which Mersenne busily confronted
him.
The problem of the fourth he had already solved in Compendium musicae
1
byan appeal to the first upper partial (p. 165). The fact that was consonant,
but not the simpler ratio ~, came in for a similar explanation: owing to "the
1
resonance of the half of the string 8", was really %.159 The distinguishing
criterion between consonance and dissonance was also taken from the early
treatise. The problem arose now in connection with the intervals with 7,
which were dismissed by Descartes because they could not be generated by
any of the first three bisections of the string. They are derived from the
fourth bisection, which also generates a lot of intervals that are certainly
dissonances, such as the tone ~. But if one interval from the fourth bisection
is to be accepted, one is forced to accept them all, and since this cannot be
done because of the dissonance of ~, they have all to be rejected.
Now what is it that distinguishes the intervals generated by the fourth,
fifth, etc. bisections from the higher ones? Compared with the involved
reflections Mersenne would devote to the search for a distinguishing criterion
in Hannonie universelle, Descartes' answer is appalling in its poverty: it is
because "all taken together exceed the capacity of the best ear". 160 This is
not to say, Descartes cautions, that no musicians could be found who are
quite able to distinguish some of them, such as ~, or even :~ . But the point
is that no one can distinguish them all , and therefore the whole lot has to
be discarded.
The validity of this argument would have been greatly enhanced if Des-
cartes had ever taken the trouble of showing what precisely is the musical
relevance of his process of continued bisection. Although superficially his

argument seems to be empirical, in that it appeals to the verdict of the ear
in judging consonances, in fact it is completely dependent on a musically
irrelevant apriori construction.
The more surprising is it to find Descartes really appealing to nothing but
the judgment of the ear in the related question of the scale of degrees of
consonance. For Descartes rejected out of hand this scale that seemed to
follow so inexorably from the coincidence theory he had adopted hirnself.
The argument he gave for this rejection is by far his most original, and his
most valuable, contribution to the science of music, so it deserves to be
discussed he re in some detail.
The essential point is that for Descartes the coincidence theory was quite
limited in its scope. It served very weIl to explain the 'perfection', or the
'sweetness' of the consonances, but it was irrelevant for passingjudgment on
their 'agreeability'. Three quotations from his letters to Mersenne may
elucidate his point of view:
For it should be observed that an these calculations [on coinciding strokes) serve only
for showing which consonances are the simplest, or, if you prefer, the sweetest and the
most perfect ones, but not on that ac count the most agreeable [ ... ). But in order to
determine what is most agreeable, one should consider the capacity of the listener,
that changes like taste, according to the person in question; thus some will prefer to hear
one single melody, others part-music, etc.; just as the one prefers what is sweet, and the
other what is somewhat bitter or acid, etc. 161
Concerning the sweetness of the consonances two things should be distinguished:
namely, what renders them simpler and more accordant, and what renders them more
agreeable to the ear. Now, as to what renders them more agreeable, that depends on the
places where they are employed; and there are places where even diminished flfths
and other dissonances are more agreeable than consonances, so that one could not
determine absolutely that one consonance is more agreeable than another. One could
indeed say, however, that, normally speaking, the thirds and sixths are more agreeable
than the fourth; that in cheerful songs major thirds and sixths are more agreeable than
minor ones, and the opposite in sad [songs), etc., in that there are more occasions where
they can be employed agreeably. But one can say absolutely which consonances are the
most simple and the most accordant ones; for that depends only on how often their
sounds unite, and how closely they approach the nature of the unison; so that one can
say absolutely that the fourth is more accordant than the major third, while ordinarily
it is not so agreeable, just as the cassia is definitely sweeter than olives, but not so
agreeable to our taste. 162
You annoy me as much by asking me how much more agreeable one consonance is than
another, as if you would ask me how much more agreeable I find it to eat fruit than fish. 163
These are radical statements; in essence they mean that, in Descartes'

view, there is no hope for science to solve the age-old problem of consonance,
170 CHAPTER 4
nor any point in pursuing it. Science can make valid statements insofar as
it can establish that musical intervals consist of simuItaneous pulses, and
how often these concur in this or that interval. But such statements have no
correspondence whatever with musical reality. The pleasure of music is one
thing, acoustical analysis another, and there is no way by which the former
could possibly be reduced to the latter.
It is important to notice that there are two different arguments involved
here. One concems the question of personal taste. Basically Descartes' argu-
ment is just amisapplied pun on the word 'sweet'. It is really not a valid
argument against attempts at explaining the correspondence between simple
frequency ratios and the experience of consonance, to say that we are not
always in the mood for them, or that not everyone agrees on how to judge
them. The first statement is trivial, the second simply untrue: given a modi-
cum of musical sensitivity, virtually no one disagrees as to the order of con-
sonance, when listened to out ofmusical context. This order of perception is
not quite in agreement with the order that follows from the coincidence
or the regularity theory, and that is why, starting with Beeckman, scientists
have tried to restore the agreement, rather than, as Descartes urged, despair-
ing of the possibility of such a restoration apriori. .
Descartes' other argument is on much firmer ground. It is about the
musical context alluded to above. For indeed all the theorizing we have
followed throughout this book concems the consonances when viewed
statically, on their own, isolated from their living environment, which is the
actual musical composition. Descartes points here to a very basic defect of
the entire scientific tradition whose history we are pursuing: even if one
could succeed in explaining the pleasure of the consonances, one has still
hardly begun to explain the pleasure of music.
But again: which musical scientist ever pretended that he did? Is it not
sufficient to say that, whatever their precise musical function, the conso-
nances certainly form a basic ingredient of virtually all music ever played,
so that to analyze them is an important step forward, though admittedly
far from the whole story?
It seems to me that the all-or-nothing attitude displayed here by Descartes
expresses a fundamental characteristic of his scientific style. Descartes'
approach to science was dominated by his quest for certainty. As is well
known, his entire method consists of deriving all that can validly be said
about nature from a few indubitable, 'c1ear and distinct' first principles.
But this implies, conversely, that whatever Descartes feIt uncertain about had
to be exc1uded from his research program. And not only from his research
program: whatever was uncertain to him, had to remain uncertain forever.

Unlike the other heroes of the Scientific Revolution, Descartes did not
believe in the essentially cumulative character of science. Up to his own time
mankind had waIlowed in ob scurantist , Aristotelian error. But it was given
to his and only his generation, and in particular to its most clear-headed
representative, Rene Descartes, to discover aIl truths God permitted man
to gain knowledge of. Therefore whatever Descartes had to leave unexplained
was by definition inexplicable. It was this approach to science 164 that led
him time and again to making untenable priority claims, such as the one
against Beeckman. It was this posture of the prophet to whom it has aIl
been revealed, that made him so often utter such statements as the following:
I would like people to think that, if what I have written [ ... ) on any [ ... ) matter
that I have treated in more than 3 lines in my printed works, appears to be wrong, all the
rest of my Philosophy is worthIess. 165
It is clear that a scientist who displayed such a view on his own work
had to be very careful as to the subjects he feIt reaIly certain about. And
it is also clear that music did not belong to them. 166 The main conclusion
drawn by Pirro from his analysis of Descartes' composition rules in Com-
pendium musicae is precisely the great uncertainty feIt by the author in
these matters. 167 This is strikingly confirmed by Descartes' own confession
that he could not distinguish a fifth from an octave,168 nor judge whether
someone had correctly sung ut re mi Ja solla, or do so hirnself. And that is
why in his view the study of music belonged, not to the world of mathematics
and physics, about which one could judge with certainty, but to the moral
world, which permitted contradictory statements of equal, and therefore
limited, validity.169
To establish the fact that Descartes feIt so uncertain about musical matters
is not equivalent to denying him aIl ability in this field. On the contrary.
For the one surviving case in which Descartes wrote an extensive analysis of
a musical piece, it has been shown by Walker how extraordinarily sensitive
a musical critic he was. l70 And who else than a really competent judge of
musical matters could have made a perceptive observation like the following:
As to the Music of the ancients, I believe that it had something more powerful than ours,
not because they were more knowIedgeabIe, but because they were Iess so: which is
why those who had much talent for music, and were not skilled in the rules of our
diatonic [scale) , accomplished more by the sheer force of imagination than can be
done by those who have corrupted this force by their theoretica1 knowledge. What is
more, the ears of the listeners not being accustomed to this regulated music, as are ours,
could be surprised much more easily.l 71
172 CHAPTER 4
Besides demonstrating once more Descartes' conviction that musical practice

and musical theory are quite different things, this passage is an eloquent
expression of the fact that new and powerful musical effects rapidly tend to
lose their original impact as the listener gets used to them, so that what
seems outrageous to one generation is nothing but a cliche to the next. To
have sensed this basic truth of all musical history is not the smallest accom-
plishment of the extraordinary musical theorist that was Descartes.
4.2.3. The Perception of Consonance
There is nothing in external objects that can excite in us any sensation, apart from their
figures, sizes, and movements. l72
This caption from Principia philosophiae, Descartes' main scientific work,

neady sums up one of the foundations of his mechanical philosophy. A basic
difference between his and Beeckman's mechanicism is that he believed in
an infinite divisibility of matter, and therefore rejected atomism. 173 But for
the problem to be discussed here, the mechanistic explanation of the sense
of hearing, this difference was irrelevant. Both tried to account for sense
perception in terms of the motions of certain particles of matter. Descartes
did so in a treatise written around 1633, that was not published until twelve
years after his death: Traite de l'homme ('Treatise of Man').174 Its basic
issue was the mechanical explanation of the functioning of the human body.
In order to do so Descartes had performed many anatomical dissections,
and had taught himself physiology, a discipline he greatly reformed in the
process. 175 In describing the human body as if it were a machine, a cIock-
work-like automaton, he emphatically did not aim at explaining away the
soul, but only at showing that many functions commonly attributed to
the soul could be explained at least equally well by the action of material
particles inside the body. Thus Descartes certainly did not deny body-mind
interaction; he only pushed it back as far as possible.
The mechanistic point of view implied that it was not at all necessary
to posit a resemblance between a particular sensation and the object that
produced it. We do not perceive the regular vibrating of the air as vibrating,
but rather as sound, and the problem is to explain by what mechanism this
comes abol1t. 176
Descartes' general theory of sense perception centers around the anatomy
of the nerve. l77 While in Beeckman's corresponding account the particulate
'spirits' are made responsible for both the sensory and the motor functions,
Descartes attributes these different functions to different parts of the nerve.

A nerve should be thought of as consisting of a very thin tube, made of
a skin-like tissue, that extends from the skin of the various extremities of
the body towards pores in the brain. Through this tube run extremely thin
threads (to the modem reader the comparison with an electricity cable is
virtually irresistible; see Figure 61).
Fig.61. From: The Dutch translation of L 'homme by Glasemaker, Fig. 2.
These fme threads are responsible for perception: whenever amaterial particle
touches, however lightly, the outer extremity of a nerve, the threads are
moved thereby, and, just like a tense string, instantaneously transmit the
motion to the other end inside the brain. There, two different things happen.
At the outer surface of the brain the pulled threads open the entries to
certain pores that contain very fine particles, the 'animal spirits'. These
have been produced in the blood and, because of their very fme-ness, have
been ftltered out of it into the brain. As soon as the pores are opened by the
pull given by the little threads, the animal spirits run down the nerves in
question and inflate the innervated muscles, thus instantaneously causing a
certain motion of the body to take place. For example, the sense experience
of burning one's foot at a fire, which is occasioned by fire particles and trans-
mitted through the nerve threads to the brain, may imrnediately lead to the
motor action of withdrawing the bumt foot, through the sheer interplay of
material particles inside the body (Figure 62).
174 CHAPTER 4
Fig.62. From: The Dutch translation of L'homme by Glasemaker, Fig. 7.
The actual process of perception takes place inside the brain, where the
soul is located:
... when God will later join a rational soul to this machine [ ... I, He will place its
chief seat in the brain and will make its nature such that, according to the different
ways in which the entrances of the pores in the internal surface of this brain are opened
through the intervention of the nerves, the soul will have different feelings.! 78
Thus sensations vary according to which pores are opened by which nerve-
threads, and according to the various patterns to be discerned in the process.
It remains to specify the details of the process for an five different modes
of sense perception. As always, by far the most attention is devoted to
explaining vision; the sense of hearing is settled in just two pages. Descartes
is clearly aware that he has to explain two distinct matters: how regular
vibrations of the air are perceived as sound, and how regular vibrations of the
air that coincide frequently are perceived as consonant sound.
The former has now become easy enough: the only thing needed is a
description of how the vibrational motion of the air is transmitted to the
outer end of the auditory nerve. The 'little shocks' from the outer air strike
the eardrum that transmits them to the three ossicles and to the air inside
the middle ear. l79 No mention is made of the inner membrane; the auditory
nerve is supposed to be connected directly with the ossic1es, and its motion
leads, in the manner described, to the opening of the pores inside the brain
that enables the soul to perceive the little shocks as sound.
Descartes then mentions several properties of the resulting sound that
are already familiar to us, such as its successive nature and its pitch. But
these attributes are not at all described as dependent on the particular way
in which they are perceived. This is also true of his subsequent analysis of
consonance. Whereas the application to consonance of the mechanistic
research program purported to explain what it is that turns the frequent
coincidence of the little shocks produced by consonant intervals into a
pleasant sensation, in fact the latter feature appears simply to be taken for
granted as a self-explanatory attribute of the perceiving soul.
This is precisely the same gap we have found in the case of Beeckman
(Mersenne was to be the first to notice it: see p. 108). But whlle Beeckman
had given at least some indication that something was still lacking from his
explanation (see p. 139), apparently Descartes was fully convinced that he
had given a complete solution to the problem of consonance.
We have also seen that Beeckman had tried to leap over the gap by his
introducing a general psychologicallaw, stating that sense perception required,
first, a certain duration, then variation, and fmally areturn to the original
stimulus. A similar law had already been stated by Descartes in Compendium
musicae:
Among the sense-objects the most agreeable to the soul is neither that which is perceived
most easily nor [that which is perceived I with the greatest difficulty; but it is that
which does not quite gratify the natural desire by which the senses are drawn towards
the objects, yet is not so complicated that it tires the senses.
Finally it is to be observed that in all things variety is most pleasing. 180
And this principle he now invoked again, in order to explain why the order
of degrees of consonance that follows from the coincidence theory is not
in fact quite matched by experience. So now we appear to have come full-
circ1e: Descartes, who set out to explain the sensations of the soul by means
of processes of the body, did in fact complete his account of the sensation
of consonance by appealing to a hypothetical property of the soul.
4.2.4. Conclusions
In the preceding account of the strange mixture of Descartes' musical insights,

176 CHAPTER 4
part of them so poor, part of them so brilliant, two subjects may be singled
out for further consideration, and, in particular, for comparison with the
performance of contemporary musico-scientists. These subjects are Descartes'
scepticism towards the scientific analysis of consonance, and his contribution
to the mechanistic explanation of auditory sense perception.
We have come across the sceptical attitude before in the cases of Vincenzo
Galilei and Marin Mersenne. The interesting thing is that three entirely
different motives led these three men to virtually the same conclusion.
Galilei was a professional musician. Now it is quite common for musicians
(and for many musicologists as weil) to consider music one thing, and science
quite another. They know from their own experience the primary importance,
in composing music, of something as totally irrational as inspiration. How,
then, could this art, which in its very name testifies to being a gift of the
Muses, ever be reduced to the emotionally empty concepts of arithmetic,
geometry, physics, and physiology? If that were possible, music could be
composed by an automaton, and it would indeed become conceivable to
construct mechanicaHy 'the best melody of all those that can be imagined'.
However, the very same scientist who thought this to be a sensible enter-
prise, Marin Mersenne, did not believe that the coincidence theory of con-
sonance could be adapted in such a way that it would produce a table of
degrees of consonance that matched experience. His doubts in this matter,
as we have seen, were greatly encouraged by Descartes. The amazing thing is
that their shared sceptical attitude towards the explanatory power of the
coincidence theory sprang from views on science that could not have been
more opposite. While Mersenne doubted every scientific conclusion because
one could never be quite sure whether the same phenomenon could not be
explained somewhat differently as weH, Descartes believed that he could
derive certain science from a few indubitable principles. But, as we have
seen, this implied that for every phenomenon he did not feel able to draw
certain conclusions about, only radical uncertainty remained. And thus what
foilowed for the one from an excessive confidence in science, was to the
other a consequence of his excessive dis trust. It was only by a mutual mis-
understanding that both scientists could appear to agree on the fundamental
unsolvability of the problem of consonance.
Let us next compare the performance of our two mechanicists, Beeckman

and Descartes, in the field of music. Strangely enough, the content of the
former's scattered diary notes shows more consistency over time than the
musical ideas of the latter, who devoted aseparate treatise to the subject.
Also, the scope of Beeckman's work on music was broader, and most of his
analyses were more subtle, and took into account more relevant phenomena,
than those of Descartes. But in one important respect Descartes did a much
better job, in that he did not believe that his commitment to the mechanical
philosophy forced him to posit the existence of specific sound particles.
In contrast to Beeckman, he was clearly aware that the consequences would
be 'ridiculous', and thus he avoided a few absurdities Beeckman was quite
willing to stand up for.
Fina1ly, in the field for which the mechanical philosophy had in store
its most original contribution to the science of music, namely the ac count
of auditory sense perception, Beeckman's and Descartes' explanations were
remarkably similar. They were the first to bring together two lines of research,
each of which had a long tradition of its own, but neither of which had ever
had anything to do with the other. Whatever Beeckman's and Descartes'
colleagues in musical science knew of anatomy and physiology still went
back to Galen, whereas the most recent information a modem anatomist
like Casseri had picked up conceming the problem of consonance was taken
from Aristotle. 181 The only ones fruitfully to combine much of the latest
research in both fields (more often than not done by themselves) were
Beeckman and Descartes, stimulated as they were by the kind of questions
suggested by the mechanical philosophy they both adhered to. Compared
to this, the details on which they differed were of minor importance. For
instance, Beeckman knew somewhat more about the anatomy of the middle
ear. Descartes attributed the transmission of an outside stimulus towards
the brain not to the spirits, but to fine nerve-threads. Most importantly,
Beeckman transmitted stings caused by globules, Descartes little shocks
produced by vibrations. Yet the overall result was the same, both in what it
accomplished and in what it failed to do. How much both men accomplished,
in the context of their time, may be gathered from abrief comparison with
the performance of the two other originators of the mechanical philosophy:
Gassendi and Hobbes.
Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655) devoted most of his scientific efforts to
the resurrection of atomism, a doctrine that ever since Democritus and
Epicurus had expounded it had been suspected of being essentially atheistic.
Just as his predecessors had done, Gassendi accounted for acoustical phe-
nomena by positing specific sound atoms. He managed somehow to combine
this hypothesis with the wave account of the propagation of sound. As to
consonance, he adopted the coincidence theory, which, however, he did not
at a1l relate to the corpuscular nature of sound he believed in. In no way does
178 CHAPTER 4
it appear that he was even aware of the discrepancy between the tab1e of
degrees of consonance that follows from the theory, and musical reality.
Concerning the perception of sound he restricted hirnself to an abstract
of Epicurus' ideas on the subject. In short, in avoiding all 'the open questions
elicited by the coincidence theory, he ipso facto failed to contribute anything
useful to the science of music. 182
Something similar is true of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). He, too,
seemed to think that the coincidence theory established a complete match
with the phenomena. In his view the pulses emitted by asounding body ran
up and down the eardrum in the same ratio as the source that produced them.
Through connected blood vessels the pulses were propaged towards the heart,
where they were transformed into the sensation of sound. (This account of
sense perception is even pre-Galenic, and goes back to Aristotle). 183
From this we can clearly see how much more creative both Beeckman
and Descartes were, both in respect of anatomy and physiology, and of
the musical problems generated by the adoption of either the regularity or
the coincidence theory of consonance. No contemporary scientist did better,
in the field of the perception of consonance, than they. Yet our account of
their analyses has revealed that even they had not been able to explain what
it is that transforrns the regularity to be observed in the consonances into the
sensation of musical beauty, precisely as had been predicted by Kepler.
Regularity was taken from the eardrum towards the entrance of the auditory
nerve, but there it stopped. Similarly, the perception of sound itself was
taken inwards, inside the brain, but there it stopped. The crucial transition
from the motion of particles to the experience of sound was not made; only
the place where it was supposed to occur had been shifted. The inevitability
of such an outcome has been brilliantly described by Dijksterhuis:
This shortcoming is [ ... ] a characteristic property of mechanistic science, which, be-

cause it recognizes no other realities than the geometrico-mechanical qualities of atoms
and groups of atoms, fundamentally cannot know anything but situations which in turn
can be described by geometrico-mechanica1 characteristics; consequently, with respect to
the world of perceptional facts, it can never do more tllan establish as far as possible a
one-to-one correspondence between the elements of its world-picture and those of
the world of consciousness. It merely depends on the meaning attached to the words in
question whether the establishment of such a correspondence is to be ca11ed an expla-
nation or a description. It may undoubtedly be called an explanation in the sense of
making things clearer and more transparent ... [ ... ].
While for science the mechanistic conception was stimulating and productive, it
confronted philosophy with the difficult problem ofthe real relation between the world
of our perceptions and feelings and the world of the mechanical processes outside, which
is so entirely different in character. The natural sciences were faced with the difficult
but promising task of devising mechanical systems to account for physical facts; phi-
losophy, on the other hand, had to solve the hopeless problem of deriving psychic from
physical phenomena. [ ... I
Mechanistic natural science endeavoured to extend the province in which its ex-
planatory principles were still applicable in the direction of the perceiving subject. It
produced theories of perception in which atoms were supposed to penetrate from out-
side into the pores and channels of the organs of sense, thus producing a motion in the
nerves and the animal spirits - conceived to be material - which was thought to be
transmitted by these spirits to the brain and thence possibly through arteries to the
heart. It will, however, be evident that in this way the line of demarcation at which
mechanistic thought definitely had to stop was simply moved a little inwards, but that
the metaphysica1 problem of the relation between physical and psychic phenomena
remained as unsolved as ever. 184
Thus there was no alternative: 17th century mechanicism had reached its
limits. Yet to have been the first to perceive, clearly and distinctly, that the
theory of consonance stood to gain from a detailed inquiry into the anatomy
and physiology of the sense of hearing, remains the great merit of the first
propounders of the mechanical philosophy.

4 The Mechanistic Approach

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4 The Mechanistic Approach

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CHAPTER 4

THE MECHANISTIC APPROACH

Isaac Beeckman's signature (written with the left hand, mirrored).

4.1. ISAAC BEECKMAN

Isaac Beeckman (1588-1637) was one of the strangest characters of the

The resulting fragmented nature of Beeckman's writings also poses a

a consistent picture of Beeckman's musical thought, am I not constructing

These quotations illustrate clearly some basic characteristics of Beeckman's

4.1.1. The Corpuscular Theory 0/ Sound

This sentence sums up a good deal of the fundamentals of Beeckman's

all directions by the vibrating motion of the object in question. A number of

Rejecting the Wave Theory

Beeckman's adopting a corpuscular theory of sound was not due to a failure

Thus it appears to be perfectly clear to Beeckman how successive con-

And now Beeckman has no difficulty at all in explaining why we can

Frequency and Pitch

Fig.40. From: Beeckman's Joumael (ed. by De Waard), Vol. I, p. 54.

Beeckman indeed stood to his commitment to applied scienee: Mersenne's

Pitch, Loudness, and Tone Quality

Sensation Wave theory

Sensation Pulse theory

philosophy the globules can be said to differ in size, in shape, in density,

Sensation Particle theory

pitch velo city

Combining these attributions with his new, anti-Aristotelian ideas on

are inversely proportional to pitch: a note of given frequency is produced

Sensation Alternative particle theory

piteh size ---,). quantity

4.1.2. The Nature ofConsonance

In accordance with the dual nature of Beeckman's analysis of sound in

are smaller in proportion to frequency, the ratios of the consonances are

On the basis of these two principles: the increasing continuity of every

The Degree ofConsonance ofthe Fourth

And now Beeckman has achieved his purpose :

Next, in order to compare C - E - c and C - F - c (that is, chords given

The Degree ofConsonance ofthe Thirds and the Sixths

The bisection thraugh languishing posited by Beeckman has consequences

Beeckman even goes so far as to quantify pairwise degrees of 'goodness'.

Sympathetic Resonance and the Distinction Between Consonance and

However, there were two important differences. The first had to do

And he immediately added:

As could be expected from Beeckman, his own explanation of resonance

Next, 1: 7 is four degrees worse than 1: 3. Thirdly, the derivation of 6: 7 fra m 1: 7

In the same way 7: 8 is a dissonance, since its derivation from 1: 7

The Ear and the Soul

Before plunging into Beeckman's investigations as to the nature of such

frequency ratios of the consonant intervals, is turned into pleasing sound.

Fig.51. (From: Pierce and David (1958), p. 133; reprinted by permission).

Let us pause here, and briefly review Beeckman's attempts at defming

Accounting tor Small Deviations trom Pure Consonance

Not only is this an early semi-quantitative description of tuning by beats,

Let us look into the meaning ofthis fascinating passage.

Another very important instance of superposition is the phenomenon of beats. When

Despite the absence, in Beeckman's acoustics, of the concept of super-

by coinciding sounds and silences. But nevertheless Beeckman appears to be

Summary of Beeckman 's Theory of Consonance

provides a elose analogy to sympathetic resonance, which is used for estab-

Starting from this mechanical analogy, throughout the years Beeckman

This account completes the fundamentals of the corpuscular theory of the

4.1.4. Intermezzo: Consolations for the Physicist

Here, perhaps, is the appropriate point to interrupt the discussion for a

All this is only by way of a comment on Beeckman's performance in the

4.1.5. The Division 01 the Octave