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.