Into the Forge

Abstract

Pythagoras knew not to trust his ears. Sage and scientist, he understood that such organs of perception might well reveal the truth. But he was also aware that they might lead him into error. As Boethius relates in Institutions of Music, Pythagoras “put no credence in them,” since the ears, being bodily parts like all others, are subject to incessant change.1 Sometimes they vary on account of external and accidental circumstances; sometimes they begin to differ by necessity, as when they age. Pythagoras could hardly have expected more from acoustical devices made by men. Musical instruments were, for him, “sources of much variability and inconstancy” (“FM,” 18; TM, 46–47). More than once, he had studied the nature of strings. Their tones may change for reasons almost too numerous to enumerate. Depending on their matter, depending on their length and width, depending on the air about them and the force with which one plucks them, cords will inevitably produce different noises. Pythagoras had observed that other instruments are of a like nature. The sole certainty about them is that, sooner or later, they must abandon “the state of their previous stability” (“FM,” 17), causing their tones to change perceptibly. In awareness of the implications of these facts, Pythagoras had resolved to liberate himself and his investigations, as much as he could, from the troubling consequences of sensible things. He