TEMPERAMENT OF THE SCALE OF MUSIC. 328. When the considerate reader reflects on the large and o almost numberless dissertations on this subject, by the most eminent philosophers, mathematicians, and artists, both of ancient and modern times, and the important points which divided, and still divide, their opinions, he will not surely expect, in a Work like this, the decision of a question which has hitherto eluded their researches. He will rather be dis posed, perhaps, to wonder how a subject of this nature ever acquired such importance in the minds of persons of such ac knowledged talents as Pythagoras, Aristotle, Euclid, Ptole my, Galileo, Wallis, Euler, and many others, who have writ ten elaborate treatises on the subject; and his surprise will increase, when he knows that the treatises on the scale of mu sic are as numerous and voluminous in China, without any appearance of their being borrowed from the ingenious and speculative Greeks.