"The modest statement that "one sound contains three different sounds" has been disputed on the ground that "a simple vibration is surely a most possible thing, and therefore also a simple sound." There are no simple effects in Nature. Gravity gradually retards a rising body, and accelerates a falling body; an inclined plane is a diminished falling body; a pendulum is an interrupted inclined plane; and a musical string vibrating is a double compound pendulum, having its center of oscillation and velocity acting spontaneously and simultaneously on each side of the center of gravity.
Another objection to a sound being made up of different sounds was that "these sounds would beget other sounds, and this would go on ad infinitum. Thus a musical note should consist at once of every possible sound; and yet we know that this would be a jarring noise." It did not occur to these objectors that as Nature mixes her chemical elements in very various proportions, and adapts them to our constitutions and our wants, she could likewise mix her musical elements in such proportion as not to offend our ears." [Scientific Basis and Build of Music, page 18]