2863. These figures of the air are only perceived by the Ear. The ear is the only sense in which the motor system is represented in a pure state, devoid of any vegetal signification, and simply endowed with nervose nobility. The ear is therefore the only organ which can perceive the primary motion of the matter; for like acts only in or upon its like.
2864. The metals are the ear of nature, the salt her tongue, the resin her nose, the earth her hand.
2865. The power or capacity excited by sonorous figures of covibrating according to the same laws, constitutes Hearing; the phenomenon is called Sound. Hearing is a primary motion in the musculo-osseous system of the ear, which is communicated to the auditory nerve. The auditory sense is æther-sense, metal-sense. Hearing is magnetizing.
2866. The sonorous figures are formed in the auditory organ, and even in the auditory nerves, just as they have been represented upon an infinitely small scale in the air. The nerve becomes in hearing a sonorous figure.
2867. It is not the mere motion in the auditory organs which produces the sensation of sound; the nerve certainly perceives each movement in the ears, because none is possible apart from or without primary motion; only such a motion is no sound, but only a noise. What has been written in the tingling metal according to eternal laws, is transcribed or copied in the auditory nerve; it is only this writing, but no massive motion of the air, which is legible by the nerve.
2868. Melody is a retrogression of the matter into æther, of the formed world into the primary world; through melody is the spirit of the world revealed. The ear is the first liberation of the animal from all terrestrial matter; through the ear the animal becomes for the first time spiritual.
2869. Melody is the voice of the universe, whereby it proclaims its scheme, or its innermost essence. Hence the wondrous, mysterious action of harmony, the secret sovereignty of music. Music is the expression of the ardent desire to revert to the primary idea. It makes man unconsciously yearn after a condition which he knoweth not; it transports him unconsciously into this condition of divine repose and godly bliss.
Speech.
2870. That which melodizes proclaims its spirit: the melody of animals displays their internal law.