Ecology

UNITY AS THE KEY-NOTE OF NATURE

The Northern Buddhists, and all Chinamen, in fact, find in the deep roar of some of the great and sacred rivers the key-note of Nature.  Hence the simile.  It is a well-known fact in Physical Science, as well as in Occultism, that the aggregate sound of Nature—such as heard in the roar of great rivers, the noise produced by the waving tops of trees in large forests, or that of a city heard at a distance—is a definite single tone of quite an appreciable pitch.  This is shown by physicists and musicians.  Thus Prof. Rice (Chinese Music) shows that the Chinese recognized the fact thousands of years ago by saying that “the waters of the Hoang-ho rushing by, intoned the kung,” called the “great tone” in Chinese music; and he shows this tone corresponding with the F, “considered by modern physicists to be the actual tonic of Nature.”  Professor B. Silliman mentions it, too, in his Principles of Physics, saying that “this tone is held to be the middle F of the piano; which may, therefore, be considered the key-note of Nature.”