The World as Will and Idea, Vol. II — Arthur Schopenhauer, trans. Haldane & Kemp

Sight is an active, hearing a passive sense. Therefore sounds affect our mind in a disturbing and hostile manner, and indeed they do so the more in proportion as the mind is active and developed ; they distract all thoughts and instantly destroy the power of thinking.

On the other hand, there is no analogous disturbance through the eye, no direct effect of what is seen, as such, upon the activity of thought (for naturally we are not speaking here of the influence which the objects looked at have upon the will) ; but the most varied multitude of things before our eyes admits of entirely unhindered and quiet thought Therefore the thinking mind lives at peace with the eye, but is always at war with the ear.

This opposition of the two senses is also confirmed by the fact that if deaf and dumb persons are cured by galvanism they become deadly pale with terror at the first sounds they hear (Gilbert's " Annalen der Physik," vol. x. p. 382), while blind persons, on the contrary, who have been operated upon, behold with ecstasy the first light, and unwillingly allow the bandages to be put over their eyes again.

All that has been said, however, can be explained from the fact that hearing takes place by means of a mechanical vibration of the nerve of hearing which is at once transmitted to the brain, while seeing, on the other hand, is a real action of the retina which is merely stimulated and called forth by light and its modifications ; as I have shown at length in my physiological theory of colours.

But this whole opposition stands in direct conflict with that coloured-ether, drum-beating theory which is now everywhere unblushingly served up, and whicl seeks to degrade the eye's sensation of light to a mechanics vibration, such as primarily that of hearing actually is while nothing can be more different than the still, gentlt effect of light and the alarm-drum of hearing. If we ad( 2to this the remarkable circumstance that although we hear with two ears, the sensibility of which is often very different, yet we never hear a sound double, as we often see things double with our two eyes, we are led to the conjecture that the sensation of hearing does not arise in the labyrinth or in the cochlea, but deep in the brain where the two nerves of hearing meet, and thus the impression becomes simple.

But this is where the pons Varolii encloses the medulla oblongata, thus at the absolutely lethal spot, by the injury of which every animal is instantly killed, and from which the nerve of hearing has only a short course to the labyrinth, the seat of acoustic vibration.

Now it is just because its source is here, in this dangerous place, in which also all movement of the limbs originates, that we start at a sudden noise ; which does not occur in the least degree when we suddenly see a light ; for example, a flash of lightning.

The optic nerve, on the contrary, proceeds from its thalami much further forward (though perhaps its source lies behind them), and throughout its course is covered by the anterior lobes of the brain, although always separated from them till, having extended quite out of the brain, it is spread out in the retina, upon which, on stimulation by light, the sensation first arises, and where it is really localised.

This is shown in my essay upon sight and colour. This origin of the auditory nerve explains, then, the great disturbance which the power of thinking suffers from sound, on account of which thinking men, and in general all people of much intellect, are without exception absolutely incapable of enduring any noise.

For it disturbs the constant stream of their thoughts, interrupts and paralyses their thinking, just because the vibration of the auditory nerve extends so deep into the brain, the whole mass of which feels the oscillations set up through this nerve, and vibrates along with them, and because the brains of such persons are more easily moved than those of ordinary men. On the same readiness to be set in 3motion, and capacity for transmission, which characterises their brains depends the fact that in the case of persons like these every thought calls forth so readily all those analogous or related to it whereby the similarities, analogies, and relations of things in general come so quickly and easily into their minds ; that the same occasion which millions of ordinary minds have experienced before brings them to the thought, to the discovery, that other people are subsequently surprised they did not reach themselves, for they certainly can think afterwards, but they cannot think before.

Thus the sun shone on all statues, but only the statue of Memnon gave forth a sound. For this reason Kant, Goethe, and Jean Paul were highly sensitive to every noise, as their biographers bear witness.1 Goethe in his last years bought a house which had fallen into disrepair close to his own, simply in order that he might not have to endure the noise that would be made in repairing it.

Thus it was in vain that in his youth he followed the drum in order to harden himself against noise. It is not a matter of custom. On the other hand, the truly stoical indifference to noise of ordinary minds is astonishing. No noise disturbs them in their thinking, reading, writing, or other occupations, while the finer mind is rendered quite incapable by it.

But just that which makes them so insensible to noise of every kind makes them also insensible to the beautiful in plastic art, and to deep thought or fine expression in literary art; in short, to all that does not touch their personal interests.

The following remark of Lichtenberg's applies to the paralysing effect which noise has upon highly intellectual persons: "It is always a good sign when an artist can be hindered by trifles from exercising