Had D. C. Ramsay lived to weld together his findings in musical science, there would have been fewer, it any, of these desultory notes. The Editor, in endeavoring to arrange his materials so as to give sequence and fullness to them as far as possible, has thought it better to allow these fragments to appear thus as Brevia, than to intertwine them with even the kindred studies of another to any great extent, feeling assured that the light Ramsay has let in upon musical science will lead the way probably to further findings, and certainly to more perfect settings of what, being found, is here set forth in a first edition of his works.

There are very few things in music which have not change written upon them. TWELVE and THREE, however, are stable. There is nothing that will disturb the propriety of the circle of twelve fifths, as in the tempered system of music; for, although the mathematical-intonation indulges in thirteen keys, the thirteenth is simply the first of a new cycle of twelve.
     The working model of three fifths is that which possesses musical life-powers; and these life-powers go with it wherever it goes, and they go with nothing else. [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 74]