Sound is the reflection of the Divine image. In sound there are three
reflex images: The reflex of life; of the intellect; and of love. They
result from the parallel and simultaneous action of three agents: The
projective (life), reflective (intellect), and vibrative (love).
Sound contains three sounds: That of the _tonic_, the _dominant_, and
the _mediant_. The tonic (Father) necessarily generates the dominant
(Son), and the mediant (Holy Ghost) proceeds necessarily from the first
two.
Pythagoras discovered this law. Passing before a blacksmith's shop, he
heard the sound of heavy hammer strokes upon a forge. He recognized
perfectly that each blow gave out beside the principal tone (tonic) two
other tones, which corresponded to the twelfth and seventeenth of the
tonic. Now, the twelfth reversed is nothing but the fifth or dominant,
and the seventeenth becomes, by a double reversion, the third or mediant
of the tonic.
Let us say, then, that every tone necessarily contains the tonic its
generator, the dominant its engendered, and the mediant which proceeds
from the other two. The reuenion of these three tones which makes them
into one, forms the perfect chord. Full and absolute consonance is the
expression of union, of love, of order, of harmony, of peace; it is the
return to the source of goodness, to God.
If a fourth form should be added to the perfect chord, to consonance,
there would necessarily be a dissonance.
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