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.
POSTERIOR SURFACES
In saying, as I have, that introspection is carried on by looking into ourselves with the inner surface of our eyes, I meant to say, in the first instance, that we must exclude all exterior vision, and then attempt to locate and follow up the course of events going on within us. While in this state we are strictly reduced to our personal and individual existence. In thus "watching," the function of our eyes, instead of being used for external material observation, is reversed; their function now being to observe internally and spiritually.
In connection with sounds, you will not only "in your mind's eye" see the places where they originate, and feel the course they are taking, but you will actually, functionally (in the mode of spiritually seeing and feeling), "see" and "feel" them. This vision and this feeling is far from being perfect, however,—not being accustomed to thus seeing and feeling,—but it may, when continuously exercised, become so in the course of time. While in this state, besides seeing the places interiorly, you may also see them exteriorly, by reflection as it were, and in a reverse order, "as in a looking-glass," in which case it is still an interior vision reflected exteriorly. As a matter of fact, I not only believe, but positively know, that every exterior functional surface has a corresponding posterior one.
Whenever a thing is brought home to us, either through our organs of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, or tasting, the outer surface of such respective organ constitutes the positive factor for such action, while its inner surface constitutes the negative factor thereof. Whenever the outer world is excluded, however, as during thought, introspection, and in our sleep, the inner surface of any of these organs becomes the positive, and the outer surface the negative, factor. In thus saying, "I see with the inner surface of my eyes," I do not mean this figuratively only, but literally, functionally, as well; as I could not see these places and locate them internally nor could I see any subject or object with "my mind's eye," if the faculty of seeing were not actually given to the posterior surface of the eye.
This will become clear when you consider that you will altogether fail to see internally when you attempt to use the anterior surface of your eye for the purpose of internal vision. Thus, the phenomena of vision which accompany thought or dreams, during sleep as well as in our waking moments, are not merely spiritual, but, in the sense of internal functional vision, are also material, so to say. All thought, in fact, is more or less of this same nature. We use the posterior surfaces of our organs of sense more frequently, in consequence, than we do their corresponding anterior surfaces. Physiologists will say there is no such a thing as an inner surface of the eye capable of seeing. This does not alter the fact that I actually, functionally, see with the posterior surface of my eyes, and that everybody else does the same thing.
I shall, in connection with vocal utterance, have occasion to call attention to numerous divisions of as positive a character as a wall of living tissue, of which there is not a trace to be seen by external vision; these divisions being channels, constantly used in one and the same direction, some for ingoing, others for outgoing streams of air and sounds. Of these channels, also, being invisible to the outer surface of the eye, science has never taken any notice. These invisible agencies are connecting links, mediating between cause and result, in connection with material-spiritual or spiritual-material phenomena of whatsoever nature brought to our consciousness. Hence the inability of science, in its ignorance of these agencies, to reconcile the one with the other by the aid of such material only as has been heretofore at its disposal. We may see proceedings going on which are mediating between cause and effect, by the assistance of the inner surface of our eyes. They disappear altogether, as well as any other "vision," upon an attempt being made at seeing them with the external surface of our eyes. Yet we may see inwardly with our eyes open, as we do when absent-minded, etc.
If we could invent a microscope by the aid of which we could look into ourselves in a spiritual sense, that is, through posterior surfaces, all the secret springs of our nature might be revealed to us. This ability to become cognizant of physiologico-psychological processes by the aid of the inner surfaces of our organs of sense, reveals a peculiar functional exercise of their faculties. In matters of memory they are not intended to aid in conveying to our consciousness impressions made at the present, but those made at a previous time. These impressions having been made on the soft tablets of our brain, either during our individual existence or that of our progenitors, and transmitted to us by dint of heredity, are brought to our consciousness by the aid of these inner surfaces, phonographically. They are awakened by association; and that organ of sense by the aid of whose anterior surface they were first received and recorded, now reawakens them by the aid of its posterior surface. Visions, consequently, are reflections made on the inner surface of the eyes, from impressions previously made upon the brain, in a similar manner to that by which sounds come forth from a phonograph. They could not assume shape if they were not thus reflected. It is owing to the nature of these reflections that they are more fleeting and evanescent than those made by the objects themselves upon the external surface of the eyes.
The anterior and posterior surfaces of all organs, by whose aid we exercise our faculties, which surfaces represent their poles and dual factors, the positive and the negative, the material and the spiritual, change places in conformity with whether an object is impressed upon them exteriorly or interiorly, in the present or the past, directly or indirectly, physically or spiritually. Things which are brought to our consciousness from the exterior world and in a direct manner—through our senses—may be said to be of a material nature; while those which come to us indirectly—through our inner consciousness—may be said to be of spiritual origin. The clearness of our visions naturally depends upon the clearness of the impression still remaining upon the tablets of the brain. The more stirring the event in the first instance, the deeper and more lasting, of course, the impression. All this, however, does not throw any light upon the process of abstract thought; nor am I in a position to aid in so doing. Yet it appears to me to be a sister proceeding; and that a nearer approach to an explanation of those more material phenomena may finally assist in arriving at an explanation of the causes of these more recondite and apparently purely spiritual phenomena.