It is this that science has done for us: It has clogged up all these natural avenues to our existence by teaching that we breathe through the trachea alone, in consequence of the muscle of the diaphragm forming an air-tight partition between the upper and lower compartments of our bodies; being ignorant of the fact of that other great tube of the œsophagus, also opening into the oral cavity, performing the same functions for the abdomen which the trachea does for the thorax. In place of all these millions of openings through which we inspire and expire, science teaches that we breathe through a single tube, into and out of an _air-tight sack_,--a mechanically impossible proceeding. By some ill-defined process, air is supposed to find its way into the thorax and out again after depositing its oxygen in the blood-vessels. Meanwhile, the balance of our body is left to shift for itself, not the slightest particle of fresh food ever finding its way into any portion thereof, except indirectly through the blood-vessels. To my simple and untaught understanding it appears that if such a state of affairs really existed--no matter how rapid the circulation of the blood--the entire hemisphere of the abdomen would be given over to putrefaction in an exceedingly short space of time. Breathing, however, as we do, through the œsophagus, in like measure with the trachea, and through every other opening in our epidermis in addition, our body is constantly, uninterruptedly, permeated with fresh air in its every avenue, vessel, capillary tube, cell, etc., which sustains us by its life-giving qualities, and takes away with it the constantly accumulating refuse. The muscle of the diaphragm has been the air-tight door to the cell of the condemned, whose portal has been guarded by ignorance and every oppression, suppression, fear, superstition, anxiety, bigotry, narrowness, prejudice, etc., that the human mind is capable of. It has given us over to self-accusation as a natural and vital element. It has shut us up into the narrowest limits, and kept us from communing with the universe and the spirit of the universe. It has excluded from us the grace, the beauty, the light, the liberty, the eternity of the _spirit_, and prevented us from recognizing ourselves as integral parts of the universe and of the causes which sustain it and sustain us. It has prevented us from communing with them as free agents _in our own name and by our own right_, without interference or the intercession of any person or agency whatsoever, in the past or the present. Have I placed too great a value on the discovery of the "voice of the œsophagus"? I feel convinced that the further exposition of my observations will justify me in all I have said. DIAPHRAGMS