SIMPLE SOUNDS
Speaking of sounds in making experiments in connection with the movements of the tongue, it is of the first importance that these sounds should be simple and not vocal or compound. They must be sounds of the same order as we utter in whispering, or such sounds as we are apt to use when learning to speak a foreign tongue. They are the inharmonious sounds of the deaf, and those which distinguish the speech of a foreigner from that of the native-born.
The recognition of these sounds as the negative parts of speech has been one of my main accomplishments, and has been of the greatest assistance to me in my investigations.
Things complete tell no tales. We must decompose them, reduce them to their elements, if we want to arrive at the truth in matters of science. I have succeeded in doing with things spiritual—vocal sounds—what the chemist is doing with things material. In things complete, as they are shaped by the hand of nature, the elements of which they are composed are mingled in such a dexterous manner, are so happily blended, that they adjust, counterpoise, and complement one another, and thus live with and in one another.
These new forms have been created by the elements of which they are composed, abandoning their separate original forms and now appearing in a new form, as integral parts of an harmonious entity. These elements have not only abandoned their form, however, but in most instances have also changed their character; which in their original composition may have been of a discordant, violent, and even dangerous nature. Take but the atmospheric air and its elements for an example.
A similar state of affairs exists in connection with the phenomena of the material-spiritual world. While vocal sounds, when properly produced, stand for all that is harmonious and pleasing, their component parts, their positive and negative elements, by themselves, offer features of a contrary nature. They also offer us, the same as elements do to the chemist while making experiments, the opportunity for making an endless number of combinations. Unless you know what simple sounds—i. e., negative parts of vocal sounds—are, and know how to produce them, you will scarcely be able to make one class of experiments which I shall offer in great abundance to sustain my arguments.
When I shall reach the subject of vocal sounds proper, I shall more fully explain their exact nature. I will simply say this at present: A simple sound is the product of that hemisphere only to which it properly belongs. A vocal sound is aided and assisted by a complementary sound from the other hemisphere. The more perfect such aid, the more perfect will be its tone. Simple vowel sounds are short, abrupt, the same as consonant sounds when produced all by themselves and without the aid of a vowel sound uttered in conjunction with them.