CHAP. 20. (22.)—OF THE HARMONY OF THE STARS.
Pythagoras, employing the terms that are used in music,
sometimes names the distance between the Earth and the
Moon a tone; from her to Mercury he supposes to be half
this space, and about the same from him to Venus. From
her to the Sun is a tone and a half; from the Sun to Mars is
a tone, the same as from the Earth to the Moon; from him
there is half a tone to Jupiter, from Jupiter to Saturn also
half a tone, and thence a tone and a half to the zodiac.
Hence there are seven tones, which he terms the diapason
harmony[1], meaning the whole compass of the notes. In
this, Saturn is said to move in the Doric time, Jupiter in the
Phrygian[2], and so forth of the rest; but this is a refinement
rather amusing than useful.
1. "Dia\ pasw=n, omnibus tonis contextam harmoniam." Hardouin in
Lemaire, ii. 287.
2. These appellations appear to have originated from different nations
having assumed different notes as the foundation or commencement of
their musical scale. The Abbé Barthelemi informs us, that "the Dorians
executed the same air a tone lower than the Phrygians, and the latter a
tone still higher than the Lydians; hence the denomination of the Dorian,
Phrygian, and Lydian modes." It appears to have been a general practice to employ the lowest modes for the slowest airs; Anacharsis's Travels,
iii. 73, 74.