To prove the correctness of the above assertion, press your hand against the left side of your thorax anteriorly, and you will find it difficult to inhale. If you press your hand against the right side of your thorax, on the other hand, you will have no difficulty in inhaling. Next, press your hand against the right side of your abdomen, and you will not be able to exhale; but if you press your hand against its left side, you will experience no trouble in exhaling. In pressing your hands one against the left side of the breast and the other against the right side of the abdomen, you will have trouble in breathing.
Pressures produced in the precisely opposite manner in every respect, on the part of a German-speaking person, will produce effects of precisely the same nature. A German, in pressing the right side of his abdomen, will not be able to inspire freely, but pressing its left side will not hinder him from doing so. Pressing the left side of his thorax will impede his expiration, while the pressing of its right side will not prevent him from doing so. These results will become more obvious when these pressures are continued for some time. All the pressures mentioned are to be applied anteriorly. Pressures of the same nature applied posteriorly produce opposite results with Anglo-Saxons as well as Germans.
Similar results may be obtained by producing pressures on the median line of either thorax or abdomen, front as well as back. Such will also be the case when pressures are produced on either side from the armpits downward or from the hips upward. More satisfactory results, however, than those obtained through mechanical pressure can be obtained by making the respective parts rigid. It will scarcely be necessary for me to mention all these various causes and consequent results in detail, as any one interested in these matters can work them out for himself from that which I have said.
RISE AND FALL, OR RHYTHM
The thorax is productive of the falling, the abdomen of the rising voice, the former being the representative of the impression for sounds, the latter of their expression.
An Anglo-Saxon's voice, inspiring, as he does, into the thorax, and expiring from the abdomen, will first fall and then rise. A German's voice, on the contrary, inspiring, as he does, into the abdomen, and expiring from the thorax, will first rise and then fall.
This is the fundamental cause of the difference between the idiomatic expression of these two peoples, and primarily also of the difference existing between their national traits physically as well as mentally.
Every original word in either of these languages will illustrate these facts:
´ ` ´ ` ´ ` ´ `
Vater, Mutter, Bruder, Schwester.
Take the same words in English, and the accent will be reversed: