A Philosophical Essay of Musick

SIR,

Having often tired you with discourses on several parts of music, wherein you desired to receive satisfaction without obtaining the effect I proposed for myself, I reflected upon the saying: "No man understands that which he cannot so express as to make another understand it." I doubted whether the hypothesis I entertained was not founded upon errors which I had swallowed without any due examination. I resolved, for a trial of it, to trace my notions as near to their principles as I could and set them down in a methodical way, so that I might discover whether? they were well deduced from one another and from such experiments? as I had in memory.

Having done this, I send them to you as the severest judge I know. It has not been your custom to flatter me, and now I desire your censure original: "censure"; here meaning a formal judgment or critical review rather than a condemnation, if I may impose it upon you to give it in writing. In doing so, you will be obliged to quote what I say truly before you object to it, and to stand by those allegations and inferences you will set down as your own; in both of these respects, I had a great disadvantage in verbal discourse.

I shall anticipate your condemnation of the style for being too contracted and obscure; you must take the fault upon yourself when you know it does not proceed from any aversion I have to philology original: "Philologie"; here referring to the love of learning, literature, and polished language, but because I thought it would be labor lost to enlarge upon these points. When writing to so great a philosopher and musician as you are, I cannot fail to be understood.