shades of
meaning. "Therefore," said I to myself, "it is equally inadmissible to
exclude either affirmation."

The law is necessarily complex: let us bring together, that we may seize
them as a whole, both the contrary expressions and the circumstances
which produce them.

Vulgar and uncultured people, as well as children, seem to act in regard
to an ascensional vocal progression in an inverse sense to
well-educated, or, at any rate, affectionate persons, such as mothers,
fond nurses, etc.

No example has, to my knowledge, contradicted this remark.

But why this difference? What are its motive causes?

"Ha!" I cried, as if struck by lightning, "I've found the law! As with
the movements of the head, _sensuality_ and _tenderness_, these shades
of the voice may be traced back to two distinct sources: _sentiment_ and
_passion_. It is sentiment which I have seen revealed in mothers; it is
passion which we find in uncultured persons."

Sentiment and passion, then, proceed in an inverse way. Passion
strengthens the voice in proportion as it rises, and sentiment, on the
contrary, softens it in due ratio to its intensity. It was the confusion
of these different sources which caused a momentary obscurity in my
understanding.

Let us now formulate boldly the law of vocal proportions.

Given a rising form, such as the ascending scale, there will be
intensitive progression when this form should express passion (whether
impulse, excitement or vehemence).

There will be, on the other hand, a diminution of intensity where this
same form should express sentiment.

This law even seems regulated by a quantitative expression, the form of
which appeared to me like a flash of light. This is the formula:

Under the influence of sentiment the smallest and most insignificant
things that we may wish to represent proportion themselves to the degree
of acuteness of the sounds, which become softened in proportion as they
rise.

Under the influence of passion, on the contrary, the voice rises, with a
corresponding brilliancy, in proportion to the magnitude of the thing
it would express, and becomes lowered to express smallness or meanness.
Thus an ascending scale being given, it must be considered as a double
scale of proportion, agreeing alternately with an increasing or
decreasing intensitive progression, increasing under the influence of
passion and decreasing under the influence of sentiment.

Thus we would not use the same ton