The system of musical sounds is derived from the laws of motion and a particular election of numbers which give the greatest variety of simple ratios.
     There are three primary and pregnant ratios which produce the chords and scales. The first is the ratio of 1:2, producing Octaves, and nothing else; the second is the ratio of 2:3, producing Fifths; the third is the ratio of 4:5, producing Thirds.¹
     The ratio of 1:2 is essentially simple in its character, and any power of the prime 2 always produces a note like itself. It is a law in musical science that doubling or halving a number never changes its character. Whatever ratios and notes are produced from the first power, the square, and the cube of any number, the same kind of ratios and notes will be produced, in the genesis of octaves, by the doubles or halves of that number. On this account the prime 2 has unlimited powers in producing notes, and is used in the first place in getting a series of octaves from 1 as unity; and in the second place in getting the octaves, above and below, of the

1 See the Genesis of the Scale, Plate II.