Analogies between hearing and seeing already existed in ancient Greek theories of perception. The present paper follows the evolution of such analogies until the rise of 17th century optics, with due regard to the diversity of their origins and nature but with particular emphasis on their bearing on the physical concepts of light and sound. Whereas the old Greek analogies were only side effects of the unifying concepts of perception, the analogies of the 17th century played an important role in (...) constructing optical theories by imitation of acoustic theories, or vice versa. This transition depended on several factors including the changing relations between optics, music, mathematics, and physics, the diversity of early modern concepts of sound, and the rise of a new physics based on experimentation and mechanical explanation. (shrink)

Gell. NA 3.10.13 citing Varro's Hebdomades uel de imaginibus, reports: Venas etiam in hominibus, uel potius arterias, medicos musicos dicere ait numero moueri septenario, quod ipsi appellant τν δι τεσσρων συμφωναν, quae fit in collatione quaternarii et ternarii numeri. He also states that doctors who make use of music theory declare that the veins, or rather arteries, in human beings move in accordance with the number seven; they call this motion ‘the consonance of the fourth’, which is produced by the (...) proportional relation of the numbers four and three. (shrink)