Of Harmony

It is my temper, and I like it the better, to affect all harmony: and sure there is musick even in the beauty, and the silent note which Cupid strikes, far sweeter than the sound of an instrument. For there is a musick where ever there is a harmony, order, or proportion: and thus far we may maintain the music of the Sphears; for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. Whatsoever is harmonically composed delights in harmony; which makes me much distrust the symmetry of those heads which declaim against all Church-Musick. For my self, not only for my obedience, but my particular Genius, I do embrace it: for even that vulgar and Tavern-Musick, which makes one man merry, another mad, strikes in me a deep fit of devotion, and a profound contemplation of the First Composer. There is something in it of Divinity more than the ear discovers: it is an Hieroglyphical and shadowed lesson of the whole World, and creatures of GOD; such a melody to the ear, as the whole World, well understood, would afford the understanding. In brief, it is a sensible fit of that harmony which intellectually sounds in the ears of GOD.

我生性耽爱一切之和谐，于此，我且颇以自得；确实，甚至在鸩彼得所奏放的无声音籁之中与美感之内，无不有音乐的存在，其吐音之佳妙迥出一般乐器之上。此亦缘音乐即在和谐、秩序与比例匀称之中，而星际乐声一说至少可以此为部分依据；其秩序井然之动作，节拍分明之步武，此在常人耳中虽悄无声息，然在颖慧者听来，确乃和谐无艺之妙乐。大凡和谐构成之物，必喜和谐，据此，则彼辈攻击一切教堂音乐者，其头脑之中是否尚有匀称二字，我实不能不深致疑虑。至于我自己，我对上述之音乐确实服膺无已，此固与我之虔诚信仰有关，亦系我的特殊禀赋所致；甚即通常旅店之俚俗音乐，所叙不出嬉乐激切之情，尚能使我对那最初制曲人于胸臆之中顿生仰慕之忱与遥深之想；其中圣洁处有非人耳所能察觉者。它是茫茫世界芸芸众生的一篇佶屈恢诡的天启，使上下尘寰彻悟之后捧供识者聆赏的一阙悠扬的妙乐。要言之，它是上彻天听的玲珑曼妙的仙籁的阵阵和谐。

本段文字节选自Thomas Browne的名著——《一位医生的信仰》（Religio Medici）的第二章第二节。