Schoenberg on higher overtone tuning

Arnold Schoenberg, Arnold. Theory of Harmony, Vienna 1911, University of
California Press, 1983,
p. 314.
Until a short time before [musicians] had been on the right track, as,
following the dictates \of the material, they imitated the overtones. But
then they tempered the system, and the system tempered the burning urgency to
search. They had concluded a truce. But they did not rest (rasten) in
order to rearm and regroup (rüsten); they rested in order to rust (rosten).
The tempered system was an emergency measure, and an ingenious one, for the
emergency was grave and the measure ample. It was an ingenious
simplification, but it was a makeshift. No one, having wings, would rather fly in an
airplane. The airplane is also an ingenious makeshift; but if we could fly
merely by an act of will, we should gladly do without the machine. We
ought never to forget that the tempered system was only a truce, which should
not last any longer than the imperfection of our instruments requires. We
ought not to forget that e still must account for the tones actually
sounding, again and again, and shall have no rest from them nor from ourselves –
especially from ourselves, for we are the searchers, the restless, who will
not tire before we have found out -- we shall have no rest, as long as we
have not solved the problems that are contained in tones. We may indeed
always be barred from actual attainment of this goal. But more certainly,
we shall have no rest before we do; the searching spirit will not stop
pursuing these problems until it has solved them, solved them in a way that
comes as close as anyone can to actual solution. I thin, then, contrary to the
point of view of those who take indolent pride in the attainments of others
and hold our system to be the ultimate, the definitive musical system –
contrary to that point of view, I think we stand only at the Beginning. We
must go ahead! (Arnold Schoenberg, Theory of Harmony, p. 314)
JR