The fact that inspiration always consists in an inspiration, an expiration, and an inspiration, while expiration consists in an expiration, an inspiration, and an expiration, is one of the most interesting observations I have made in connection with these studies.
These facts may be generalized in saying: There is no action connected with life which consists of a single movement in any one single direction; every action, of whatsoever nature, if it is outgoing, consisting of an outgoing, ingoing, and outgoing movement; if it is ingoing, of an ingoing, outgoing, and ingoing movement; every superior movement consisting of a superior, an inferior, and a superior; every inferior, of an inferior, a superior, and an inferior one; every left movement, of one to the left, to the right, and to the left; every right movement, of one to the right, to the left, and to the right; the last movement only being visible and accompanying action.
While our experiment is representative of the general principles underlying our mode of breathing, the act of breathing, proper, is subject to many variations. During their waking moments, or for conversation, with Anglo-Saxons respiration takes place by thorax and abdomen changing off, alternately, while with Germans they succeed one another in the same manner as they did in our experiment, commencing, however, with the thorax instead of with the abdomen, and with expiration instead of with inspiration, as follows:
This shows an indirect movement for Anglo-Saxon, a direct movement for German respiration. Hence, English enunciation is necessarily slow, German relatively quick. It also shows that the reserve force with Anglo-Saxons is held before it is expended; with Germans it is expended almost as fast as it is engendered.
As there is an apparent discrepancy between the last schedule and the previous one showing Anglo-Saxon mode of inspiration, I want to remind the reader that our "experiment" was made mainly to set forth the fact that we breathe through the œsophagus conjointly with breathing through the trachea; but it was not intended to show our regular mode of breathing.
Though Germans and Anglo-Saxons breathe in opposite directions, still there is an affinity between them in so far as they breathe along the same plane. Peoples who speak any of the Latin tongues, on the other hand, breathe along a different plane, and so do Slavonic, Mongolian, and other races. Anglo-Saxons and Germans, therefore, though opposed to one another in one sense, are affiliated in another; and both may be, therefore, as they often are, said to belong to the Teutonic race, together with other peoples along the borders of the North and Baltic Seas. In a similar manner, no doubt, other races possess their similitudes and dissimilarities.
It should scarcely require any further proof on my part after this and all I have previously said to show that, if any of the peoples now speaking Latin tongues were in place thereof to speak English or German, they would, in the course of time, cease to be Frenchmen, Spaniards, or Italians, as the case might be, and would become Anglo-Saxons or Germans; or that, if any of the Slavonic races or peoples would do the same, the same result would eventually ensue; and also that, if Anglo-Saxon or German peoples were to speak Latin or Slavonic tongues in place of their own, they would eventually cease to be Anglo-Saxons or Germans, and would become the people whose tongue they were speaking; always provided, of course, that such tongues were to be spoken idiomatically correctly. Should any one still doubt that language is the mainspring formulating peoples and nations in all that essentially belongs to them and distinguishes them as such, I confidently believe that that which I shall still further have to say on this subject will eventually convince even the most obdurate of the correctness of these assertions.
The preceding schedules both for English-and German-speaking peoples show their mode of breathing during their waking moments and for the purpose of conversation. During sleep and for the demands of the singing voice, however, thorax and abdomen interchange with one another in so harmonious a manner that their inspirations and expirations appear as one respective inspiration and expiration.
The following schedules will show the relation of metre and rhythm to breathing.