The "r" which came to the surface from beneath my tongue by way of the œsophagus was the cathode, the negative end of this sound. The product of its combination with the simple "r" (which came to the surface from over and above the tongue by way of the trachea) I had hitherto produced when attempting to speak English, was the vocal "r" sound of the English language; the "r" I had hitherto produced having been the anode—the positive and first part of this sound only. As Roentgen's cathodic light has illuminated the physical body, so have cathodic sounds illumined for me the spiritual body of my mundane existence. I am endeavoring to show my fellowmen this "new light," whose lustre, also invisible on ordinary occasions, when once seen is so great that it will never again fade from the memory of the beholder. As time progresses, it will continue to penetrate ever more deeply into regions hitherto considered to be impervious to any kind of light; regions whose phenomena have been called supernatural, or, at least, beyond the sphere of the knowledge of man. All other anodes or cathodes of which we have obtained any knowledge belong to physical phenomena only. The cathode I have discovered belongs to our spiritual life, being a part of a living vocal sound.
Think of it! To be able to divide the essence of life and to obtain two living parts, each endowed with a life of its own! This is a nearer approach to the knowledge of life than any ever attained before. A vocal sound is an entity. From entities we cannot learn anything. They are phenomena complete in themselves. Regarding their innermost nature, they have always been to us as a closed book. They offer us no vantage-ground; no opening, no breach, through which we can enter into the mysterious process of their existence. No matter whether such life or existence be that of the minutest parasite of a minute vegetable growth, that growth itself, or the giant of the forest; whether it be that of a microbe or the microbe of a microbe; whether it be the essence of a thought, a sigh, a tear, a look, a vocal sound, or of a human being—their innermost natures are all alike mysterious to us. I have succeeded in analyzing a vocal sound, and this apparently simple proceeding has opened up to me endless vistas in endless directions. I have reduced this entity into its natural elements, and have again put these together. After resolving it into two lives I have again formed it into one. I can bring about this analysis as well as this synthesis at will at any time.
All know what is meant by vocal sounds, yet few, I repeat, know what are simple sounds, though constantly used by everybody while whispering or uttering exclamations, while surprised, alarmed, frightened, etc. My accomplishment, therefore, is but the recognition of the nature of a thing constantly before us and brought to our consciousness through our ear.
Simple sounds are the anodes, the beginnings of sounds. There is no life in them, no rhythm, no melody, no light, no grace, no beauty. These are imparted to them by the fusion of the cathode element of vocal sounds with this, the anode; the spiritual with the material. The anode is formed first. It is the passive element, the female, the patient, the waiting, which must have been before the male, the impatient, the aggressive. The thing to be fructified must have been before that which fructifies.
The anode is quiescent until the cathode comes along, joins it, and infuses life into it. The creation of a vocal sound is an act of generation. The cathode, after overwhelming the anode, penetrates it and diffuses itself throughout it, and thus forms a union whose result is the production of a vocal sound. Similar unions between anodes and cathodes are formed a myriad-fold every moment during time's progress, and result in the creation of an electric spark, or a succession of sparks, called an electric light, or any other light or fire, or of a thought, or of the embryo to a new life of any and every description, etc.; while a discord, a stutter, a smouldering fire, the sight of a thing too dimly seen to be recognized, a cut or broken limb, a suspense, a disappointment, a suppressed action or passion, etc., are anodes not joined by their cathodes. By the juncture of a cathode with an anode we exercise our faculties, we become conscious of a sight, a sound, an odor, a taste, etc.; the anode being vested in the thing to be seen, heard, smelled, or tasted,—the cathode in ourselves.
While the anode of a vocal sound may be uttered audibly, the cathode, by itself, cannot be uttered—the spiritual cannot be materialized except in conjunction with the material. The anode, the physical, is inert until the cathode, the spiritual, has formed a juncture with it, has been alloyed with it. Every phenomenon of which we become conscious is the result of a process of this nature. The more perfect the union, the more perfect the outcome or result, the phenomenon.
In our ordinary speech this alloy, this union, is of a mutable and evanescent, in oratory and song it is of a more continuous and lasting, nature. With persons speaking a foreign tongue, and with the deaf, it is superficial, imperfect; in many cases, in fact, we hear only anodes, no union having been effected. The amalgamation, the alloy of the finer with the coarser, the higher with the lower, the spiritual with the material, is not at all or but imperfectly performed; the coarser element prevails and makes its presence felt in every utterance. The more perfect the union between anodes and cathodes in vocal utterance, the higher will be the performance, the more perfect the speech, the more beautiful the song, the more stirring, the more soulful; the nearer they come to our hearts.
How do I know all this? I will tell you: By watching the beginning of a vocal sound; the performance actually going on within us, while such sound is first being created. This performance is of an inverse order as between German and English, in so far as the anode for German vocal sounds is located to the right, the cathode to the left. The cathode approaches the anode from left to right; while in the creation of an English vocal sound the anode is to the left, the cathode to the right, and the latter approaches the former from right to left. The location where the union appears to take place is in the chest, near the heart; for German sounds, to the right thereof, for English to the left. As a matter of fact, however, it is in the heart itself.
What does the motion in which anode and cathode approach each other—which is not direct as it at first appears to the observer, but vastly circuitous—signify?
The circulation through the vascular system of the elements (of the æther) creating vocal sounds, or the circulation of vocal sounds. The proofs that this important fact actually obtains will be furnished very positively and very circumstantially at a later date in connection with that part of these expositions which treats on vocal sounds.