Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/77

Rh The two new notes divide the two thirds of the scale in the same way: a new interval of 90 cents, which is that called in European music a Pythagorean semitone ($2⁄2$$5⁄4$$6⁄3$), appearing between one of the new notes and Tche, and the other and the higher octave of Koung. These two are the subsidiary notes of the Chinese scale, and were called the two "pien," the name signifying literally "changing into." That next below Tche was called " pien-Tche," and that next below Koung, "pien-Koung." The whole series was called the "seven principles" (Tsi-Ché). This is the identical determination of the intervals of a seven-step octave scale, which, given in the theory of Pythagoras, remained the foundation of the European musical system for two thousand years thereafter, and was definitely relinquished only during the sixteenth century. The Tsi-Ché of China and the diatonic scale of classical and mediæval Europe may be alike defined as an order of intervals in which a (Pythagorean) semitone alternates first with two and then with three major tones.

While in China music has been founded in the main upon the simpler scale of five steps, evidence of the antiquity of the "pien" is not wanting. In answer to theorists who regarded them as an innovation, Prince Tsai-yu (1596) declares that one