Treatise on Universal Harmony

PREFACE TO THE READER.

thunder. I leave aside several other difficulties that are found in the sciences, and in the arts both liberal and mechanical, in order to return to Music, which, in my opinion, has no fewer difficulties than the other sciences, because of sound, which one cannot see, and of which it seems one cannot provide reasons as evident as one does for light; for we do not perceive what path the agitated air takes when it spreads out and strikes the wall that sends the same sound back to us, which is called an Echo; and we do not know to what point its condensation and rarefaction arrive in all sorts of sounds, nor how much more sound penetrates into the solid of the air when it is high-pitched original: "aigu", than when it is low-pitched original: "graue". I do not wish to extend this discourse further, as one will be able to judge easily the difficulties and the utilities of this Work original: "Oeuure" by the simple reading of the Summary original: "Sommaire" of the books that I place here, so that one may see in a twinkling of an eye all that it will contain.