BIOS Reporter – Volume 2, No.4 – October 1978

The faculty of hearing is one which we tend to take for granted. Not simply, that is, in the sense that we do not appreciate it until deprived of it, but also, in the sense that we frequently fail to make proper use of it. A person who is used to the noise and bustle of the city can learn again to relish his powers of hearing when left alone in the depths of the countryside on a calm summer’s evening. At first, he will only be aware of the great silence which surrounds him; then, after a little, he will begin to discover that this is deception into which his ears – long used to only the crudest of sounds, and out of practice in the detection of subtle murmurings upon the breeze – have led him. Gradually, a whole unthought world of aural discovery opens up for him, and, rather as the gourmet savours each mouthful of a subtlely blended meal, so he comes again to relish the subtle delicacies which the faculty of hearing offers…