The reader, however, may ask, and I feel it incumbent upon me, as well, to tell him, What was the nature of these results? Wherein consisted these discoveries? They covered a large field and whole range of knowledge. They had reference more particularly to vocal sounds. These, in fact, had almost exclusively occupied my mind for many years. These apparently simple factors, vocal sounds, I have since ascertained are the outcome of laws, forces, and agencies, and combinations of all these, which largely make up the sum and substance of our spiritual existence. The direct nature of vocal sounds, therefore, cannot be well treated upon till some understanding has been arrived at of the nature of the elements out of which they are composed. I was rash enough to attempt to explain them, especially the consonant sounds, in this little book of mine, from a standpoint I had then arrived at. Others have tried to explain them from a much narrower standpoint still. From that standpoint I offered explanations as to our mode of speaking, breathing, as to defective speech, etc. Although this was an advanced standpoint, and well worthy the consideration of scientists, it was a standpoint far beneath the one I have arrived at since. In attempting to scale a mountain I had reached a point from which I could overlook the valley immediately beneath my feet. I have since gone up much higher. Yet there are towering heights still above me which I shall never be able to reach. From this it will be seen how difficult it would be for me to state in a few paragraphs what I had actually ascertained. That book, however, will increase in value in the course of time, not only for the knowledge it contains, but historically, so to say, as the beginning of an evolution which, it seems to me, will eventually embrace all sciences in regard to man; when treated, as they will be, from a standpoint of inner as against one of outer consciousness, from the standpoint of the soul and the heart, as in the inadequacy of our expressions I have to call them, as against that of the head and the senses. I have since arrived at a plan according to which these matters will be treated in a more systematic manner. In _this_ volume, besides many novel subjects, I have been enlarging upon and elucidating many superficially mentioned in my book, _The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance_. Still, the matters treated upon even in _this_ book cover so much ground, and had to be condensed to such an extent, that many of these also will require further enlargement and elucidation. This will be attempted to be done in future publications. Meantime I trust these matters will be taken in hand by others, who by their writings will relieve me of some of this additional labor. Take it all in all, there is so much of this work that I feel as if I had swallowed the ocean and was now called upon to give an account of its contents. THE VOICE OF THE ŒSOPHAGUS AND ITS VOCAL CORDS