Page:Herschel - A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1831).djvu/103

 stood, before we can have a true and complete knowledge of sound:—1st, The excitement and propagation of motion. 2dly, The production of sensation. These, then, are two other phenomena, of a simpler, or, it would be more correct to say, of a more general or elementary order, into which the complex phenomenon of sound resolves itself. But again, if we consider the communication of motion from body to body, or from one part to another of the same, we shall perceive that it is again resolvable into several other phenomena. 1st, The original setting in motion of a material body, or any part of one. 2dly, The behaviour of a particle set in motion, when it meets another lying in its way, or is otherwise impeded or influenced by its connection with surrounding particles. 3dly, The behaviour of the particles so impeding or influencing it under such circumstances; besides which, the last two point out another phenomenon, which it is necessary also to consider, viz. the phenomenon of the connection of the parts of material bodies in masses, by which they form aggregates, and are enabled to influence each other's motions.

(80.) Thus, then, we see that an analysis of the phenomenon of sound leads to the enquiry, 1st, of two causes, viz. the cause of motion, and the cause of sensation, these being phenomena which (at least as human knowledge stands at present) we are unable to analyse further; and, therefore, we set them down as simple, elementary, and referable, for any thing we can see to the contrary, to the immediate action of their causes. 2dly, Of several questions relating to the connection between the