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The formation of scales and of the web of harmony is a product of artistic invention, and is in no way given by the natural structure or by the natural behaviour of our hearing, as used to be generally maintained hitherto.

— Hermann von Helmholtz The Theory of Sound (1862)

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More quotes by Hermann von Helmholtz

As you are aware, no perceptions obtained by the senses are merely sensations impressed on our nervous systems.

Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (1881)

That member is then capable of the greatest variety of motions; it can compel the most varied instruments to execute the most diverse tasks.

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The quantity of force which can be brought into action in the whole of Nature is unchangeable, and can neither be increased nor diminished.

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The external work of man is of the most varied kind as regards the force or ease, the form and rapidity, of the motions used on it, and the kind of work produced.

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Each individual fact, taken by itself, can indeed arouse our curiosity or our astonishment, or be useful to us in its practical applications. But intellectual satisfaction we obtain only from a connection of the whole, just from its conformity with law.

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