which is a word of the same general import with manner, is used as a technical term in grammar, metaphysics, and music. For its import in Grammar, see that article, n° 80.

metaphysics, seems properly to denote the manner of a thing's existence: but Locke, whose language in that science is generally adopted, uses the word in a sense somewhat different from its ordinary and proper signification. "Such complex ideas, which, however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependencies on, or affections of, substances," he calls mode. Of these modes, there are, according to him, two sorts, which deserve distinct consideration. Firstly, there are some "which are only variations, or different combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture of any other, as a dozen or a score; which are nothing but the ideas of so many distinct units added together;" and these he calls simple modes. Secondly, "there are others compounded of simple ideas of several kinds put together to make one complex one; v.g. beauty, consisting of a certain composition of colour and figure, causing delight in the beholder; theft, which being the concealed change of the possession of anything without the consent of the proprietor, contains, as is visible, a combination of several ideas of several kinds;" and these he calls mixed modes. For the just distinction between ideas and notions, as well as between ideas and the qualities of external objects, which in this account of modes are all confounded together, see Metaphysics.

music; a regular disposition of the air and accompaniments relative to certain principal sounds upon which a piece of music is formed, and which are called the essential sounds of the mode.

There is this difference between the mode and the tone, that the latter only determines the principal sound, and indicates the place which is most proper to be occupied by that system which ought to constitute the basis of the air; whereas the former regulates the thirds, and modifies the whole scale agreeably to its fundamental sounds.

Our modes are not, like those of the ancients, characterized Mode.

racterized by any sentiment which they tend to excite, but result from our system of harmony alone. The sounds essential to the mode are in number three, and form together one perfect chord. 1. The tonic or key, which is the fundamental note both of the tone and of the mode; (See Tone and Tonic). 2. The dominant, which is a fifth from the tonic; (See Dominant). 3. The mediant, which properly constitutes the mode, and which is a third from the same tonic. As this third may be of two kinds, there are of consequence two different modes. When the mediant forms a greater third with the tonic, the mode is major; when the third is lesser, it is minor.

The major mode is immediately generated by the resonance of sounding bodies, which exhibit the third major of the fundamental sound; but the minor mode is not the product of nature; it is only found by analogy and inversion. This is equally true upon the system of Sig. Tartini as upon that of M. Rameau.

This last author, in his various and successive publications, has explained the origin of this minor mode in different ways, of which his interpreter M. d'Alembert was satisfied with none. It is for this reason that he has founded this origin on a different principle, which cannot be better explained than in the words of that eminent geometrician. See Music, Art. 28, 29, 30, and 31.

When the mode is once determined, every note in the scale assumes a name expressive of its relation to the fundamental sound, and peculiar to the place which it occupies in that particular mode. We subjoin the names of all the notes significant of their relative values and places in each particular mode, taking the octave of ut as an example of the major mode, and of la as an example of the minor.

Major, ut re mi fa sol la si ut, Minor, la si ut re mi fa sol la.

It is necessary to remark, that when the seventh note is only a semitone distant from the highest in the octave, that is to say, when it forms a third major with the dominant, as si natural in the major mode, or sol sharp in the minor, that seventh sound is then called a sensible note, because it discovers the tonic and renders the tone appreciable.

Nor does each gradation only assume that name which is suitable to it; but the nature of each interval is determined according to its relation to the mode. The rules established for this are as follow:

1. The second note must form a second major above the tonic, the fourth note and the dominant should form a fourth and fifth exactly true; and this equally in both modes.

2. In the major mode, the mediant or third, the sixth and the seventh from the tonic, should always be major; for by this the mode is characterized. For the same reason these three intervals ought always to be minor in the minor mode; nevertheless, as it is necessary that the sensible note should likewise there be perceived, which cannot be effectuated without a false relation whilst the sixth note still remains minor; this occasions exceptions, of which in the course of the air or harmony care must be taken. But it is always necessary that the clef, with its transpositions, should preserve all the intervals, as determined with relation to the tonic, according to the species of the mode. For this a general rule will be found at the word Clef, in Rousseau's Musical Dictionary.

As all the natural chords in the octave of ut give, with relation to that tonic, all the intervals prescribed for the major mode, and as the case is the same with the octave of la for the minor mode, the preceding example, which was only given that we might have an opportunity of naming the notes, may likewise serve as a formula for the rule of the intervals in each mode.

This rule is not, as one might imagine, established upon principles that are merely arbitrary: it has its source in the generation of harmony, at least in a certain degree. If you give a perfect major chord to the tonic, to the dominant, and the sub-dominant, you will have all the sounds of the diatonic scale for the major mode: to obtain that of the minor, leaving still its third major to the dominant, give a third minor to the two other chords. Such is the analogy of the mode.

As this mixture of major and minor chords introduces into the minor mode a false relation between the sixth and the sensible note, to avoid this false relation, they sometimes give the third major to the fourth note in ascent, or the third minor to the dominant in descending, chiefly by inverting the chords; but these in this case are licences.

There are properly no more than two modes, as we have seen: but there are twelve different sounds in the octave which may be made fundamental sounds, and of consequence form as many keys or tones; and as each of these tones are susceptible of the major or minor mode, music may be composed in twenty-four modes or manners. Nay, in the manner of writing music, there are even thirty-four passable modes; but in practice ten are excluded; which when thoroughly examined are nothing else but a repetition of the other ten, under relations much more difficult, in which all the chords must change their names, and where it must cost any one some trouble to know what he is about. Such is the major mode upon a note raised above its natural pitch by a semitone, and the minor mode upon a note depressed by a semitone. Thus, instead of composing upon sol sharp with a third major, it is much more eligible to operate upon la flat, which will give you an opportunity to employ the same tones; and instead of composing upon re flat with a third minor, you will find it more convenient to choose ut sharp for the same reason; viz. on one hand to avoid a fa with a double sharp, which would be equivalent to a sol natural; and on the other hand a si with a double flat, which would become a la natural.

The composer does not always continue in the same mode, nor in the same key, in which he has begun an air; but, whether to alter the expression or introduce variety, modes and keys are frequently changed, according to the analogy of harmony; yet always returning to those which have been first heard; this is called modulation. From thence arises a new division of modes into such as are principal and such as are relative; the principal is that in which the piece begins and ends; the relative modes are such as the composer interweaves with the principal in the flow of the harmony. (See Modulation).

Others have proposed a third species, which they call a mixed mode, because it participates the modulation of both the others, or rather because it is composed of them; a mixture which they did not reckon an inconvenience, but rather an advantage, as it increases the variety, and gives the composer a greater latitude both in air and harmony.

This new mode, not being found by the analysis of the three chords like the two former, is not determined, like them, by harmonies essential to the mode, but by an entire scale which is peculiar to itself, as well in rising as descending; so that in the two modes above-mentioned the scale is investigated by the chords, and in this mixed mode the chords are investigated by the scale. The following notes exhibit the form of this scale in succession, as well rising as descending:

mi fa sol la si ut re mi.

Of which the essential difference is, as to the melody, in the position of the two semitones; of which the first is found between the first and the second note, and the last between the fifth and sixth; and, with respect to the harmony, the difference consists in this, that upon its tonic it carries a third minor in the beginning, and major in ending, in the accompaniment of this scale, as well in rising as descending, such as it has been given by those who proposed it, and executed at a spiritual concert, May 30, 1751.

They object to its inventor, That his mode has neither chords nor harmony essential to itself, nor cadences which are peculiar to it, and which sufficiently distinguish it from the major or minor mode. He answers to this, That the distinction of his mode is less in harmony than in melody, and less even in the mode itself than in the modulation; that in its beginning it is distinguished from the major mode by its third minor, and in its end from the minor mode by its plagal cadence. To which his opponents reply, That a modulation which is not exclusive cannot be sufficient to establish a mode; and that his must inevitably occur in the two other modes, and above all in the minor; and, as to his plagal cadence, that it necessarily takes place in the minor mode as often as transition is made from the chord of the tonic to that of the dominant, as has long been the case in practice, even upon final notes, in plagal modes, and in the tone proper to the fourth. From whence it is concluded, that his mixed mode is not so much a particular species, as a new denomination for the manner of interweaving and combining the major and minor modes, as ancient as harmony, practised at all periods; and this appears to be so true, that, even when he begins his scale, its author will neither venture to give the fifth nor the sixth to his tonic, for fear lest by the first the tonic should be determined in the minor mode, or the mediant in the major mode by the second. He leaves the harmony equivocal by not filling up his chord.

But whatever objections may be made against the mixed mode, whose name is rather rejected than its practice, this will not prevent the author from appearing as a man of genius, and a musician profoundly learned in the principles of his art, by the manner in which he treats it, and the arguments which he uses to establish it.

Mode Major. See Interval.

Mode Minor.