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By the time this book will appear, nearly six years will have elapsed since I discovered the voice of the œsophagus, and almost five since I published a preliminary account of this discovery in a book entitled The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance.[1] This discovery, though the most comprehensive and far-reaching of any that has ever been made, not only in regard to the voice, but in regard to the better comprehension of our nature and our entire human existence, has remained as unknown to the world as if it had never been made. Yet some day, when its importance is recognized, it will take rank in the annals of the history of the human race as second to no other discovery that has influenced and shaped human thought in the proper recognition of the origin and the nature of man, spiritual as well as physical, his abilities and his limits, and his relative position, influence, and destiny in the economy of the universe.

[1] Edgar S. Werner. New York, 1894.

I have spent so many years of arduous labor on these investigations, and have become so thoroughly convinced of their truth, that I have ventured to make these assertions without the slightest compunction, or fear of final contradiction. Although the facts involved in these matters entitle me to these declarations, I would not have overstepped the bounds of modesty in so far as to make them had not my first experience forced upon me the conviction that the path of modesty in matters of this kind is not the one to success. I was so impressed with the exalted position of science, and so apprehensive of my own powers, that in my former publication I as much as apologized for my temerity in telling the scientific world things of which it did not have any previous knowledge. These last four years, however, have so enlarged my views and given me such a firm grasp and insight, that I no longer fear any man's judgment. I would, on the contrary, heartily welcome honest and competent criticism, being convinced that the same would not and could not but strengthen my position.

As a matter of personal gratification, I am indifferent to success; but I think the time has come when these matters should not continue to remain with me alone, but should become the property of all, not for my sake, nor simply for that of science, but for the sake of truth, and the benefit of mankind. Had my previous statements been given the consideration they deserved, other persons, in all probability, would have made some of the many discoveries, at least, that it has now been my privilege to make single-handed. Still, the field is inexhaustible; that which I have discovered being but an index hand to that which is still to be discovered. Having no reason to doubt but that I am a properly organized member of the human family, I consider myself entitled to speak of my personal experience as in like manner applicable to every other member of that family.

Having found it expedient to frequently address the reader in a "direct" manner, using the personal pronoun "you" in so doing, I must ask his pardon for this liberty. In thus addressing him, I trust we shall be in better rapport; all I shall have to say thus becoming, in a manner, a confession as from author to reader. While I confide in him and make him participate in these vital discoveries, I want him to confide in me, in so far as to take it for granted that all I shall say is truthfully meant, and that it has been arrived at, not superficially, but only after the most searching and long-continued investigations. We will thus become partners in a research as great as any that has ever agitated man's mind, or filled his soul with things of great moment. Having penetrated into matters which have heretofore been considered as occult, or inaccessible to man, my mode of proceeding will be found interesting as a guide to others wanting to pursue similar investigations.

In the beginning, it was all brought about by my simple desire, being a German, to speak the English language in the precise manner in which native-born persons speak it. For this purpose, I unwittingly pursued the same course which has been pursued by many others under similar circumstances; namely, that of introspection. Having been indefatigable in this course (which others must not have been), after pursuing the same for some time I was startled by unforeseen discoveries. They were phenomenal, and far beyond any previous design, hope, or expectation. After this, my original endeavor to speak the English language idiomatically correct became a matter of secondary importance. My eyes once opened, I continued to persevere in this course, and thus succeeded in penetrating deeper and deeper into matters heretofore deemed inaccessible to man.

Having pursued investigations by means of introspection now for a number of years, it has become an easy habit with me, and I can recognize and pursue processes by which results are obtained through inner motive powers, almost as plainly as such by which results are obtained through visible and tangible means. The facts thus observed and recognized as truths have become so numerous as to be almost overwhelming, in number no less than in importance; so much so, that I scarcely know where to turn or where to commence, to be able to communicate them all to others in due form and sequence. These facts are not temporary, but are constant; in so far as they can be conjured up at any time and under any circumstances, and are always of the same nature. They are of an entirely reasonable, practical, and, for the most part, mechanical nature; and are explanatory of the exercise of our faculties and functions, spiritually as well as materially. That these observations mirror actual proceedings going on within us for the production of vocal utterance, of breathing, motion, and locomotion, and the exercise of various other faculties and functions, it will be my endeavor, by actual demonstration, to prove through this and future publications.

For the purpose of enabling others to pursue a similar course of studies, I shall take especial pains to point out my course of proceeding as plainly as I can—such course with me having been entirely rational, positive, and direct, and without in any sense disturbing my ordinary mode of existence. The course pursued in physiologico-psychological studies, in fact, does not differ greatly from that pursued in the study of purely psychological subjects, which is also carried on by means of introspection, though it is of a more positive nature.

When the following was first written (it is nearly two years ago now), I intended, at an early date, to publish a short treatise on the subject of the voice only. Since then, however, the same has assumed greater and greater proportions, embracing many other subjects. Still I have deemed it best not to change this introduction in consequence thereof.

Though not quite ready for another publication (the subject is so great and my knowledge so inadequate), I do not know that I should have ever been quite ready, but for several incidents, all happening about the same time, which have induced me to break the silence I have observed since the publication of my book, The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance. These incidents, though in themselves apparently insignificant, have impressed me with the belief that I owe it to the public and myself to say something in explanation of what I have already said, and to add thereto (partly, at least) what has since been ascertained.

In the November, 1896, number of Werner's Magazine, I noticed the following:

"A good example of the inadequacy of expressional terms in discussing vocal topics is shown by Mme. Clara Brinkerhoff and Mr. Emil Sutro. Mme. Brinkerhoff has been a contributor to this magazine, and has addressed musical bodies, for many years. Mr. Sutro is author of the book, The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance. Both of them maintain that the voice is something more or other than an expiratory current of air set into vibration by purely physical agencies. Mme. Brinkerhoff thinks that the voice is the utterance of the soul, and that the soul has its seat in the solar plexus. Mr. Sutro scoffs at the theory that the voice is only out-coming air vibrated at or by the cords situated in the larynx. He thinks that the ligaments under the tongue also serve as vocal cords, and that speech is the product of vibrating ingoing air as well as vibrating out-coming air. Just what they think the voice is neither of these persons makes clear to others. Their failure to express their thoughts, however, should not be taken as proof that they have not caught glimpses of truths of the greatest importance. Still, our impression is that their concepts are too vague to be put into intelligible language even if the expressional terms at hand were adequate. But, all things considered, the fact still remains that discussion will continue to be largely useless so long as one person does not know what the other person is talking about."

In addition to all this, the proceedings of various societies in New York alone, judging by their reports also contained in the November, 1896, number of Werner's Magazine, which is of unusual interest throughout, show how great is the interest which, at the present time, centres around this matter of the voice. In place of saying the "truth" in matters of the voice, as contained in my book, it would, perhaps, be more correct to have said, "the first ray of light that has ever penetrated the gloom and the mystery surrounding the nature of the voice." In Werner's Magazine it is stated:

"If Mr. Emil Sutro's book, The Basic Law of Vocal Utterance, be right, then other writers on vocal science are wrong. His statements are startling and revolutionary. He claims to have discovered a new vocal cord and to be able to prove that speech sounds are the product of inspiration as well as expiration. The significance of this is apparent when it is realized that all vocal authorities, heretofore, have taught that voice is vocalized expiration, and that speech is this vocalized expiration articulated into words.

"The author draws a sharp distinction between the air taken for life-purposes and the air taken for speech-purposes. He says that vital breathing can and should go on independent of artistic breathing, and that the two processes need not and should not disturb nor conflict with one another. He combats the theory that the lungs are a reservoir of air, which in the vocal act is pressed against the vocal cords of the larynx, thereby producing tone, which is resonated and modified by the parts above the glottis. He maintains that it is a physical impossibility to give sufficient force and rapidity to the lung air to put muscular and cartilaginous tissue into tonal vibration,—that this force and this rapidity can come only from the internal atmospheric pressure, and that, therefore, preparatory lung inhalation for voice-purposes obstructs rather than aids the vocal act. He gives a new explanation of the formation of speech sounds, and offers various novel theories.

"Many readers will hesitate to accept his views, yet as long as vocal science is still in a formative condition and involved in so much chaos and uncertainty, any attempt at a solution should receive careful consideration."

I have cited this able review in full, written by one whose life has been one act of devotion to the solution of these questions, as it will at once introduce the reader into the drift of my investigations as far as they had advanced up to that time.

I have continued to steadily devote myself to the further prosecution of my investigations, never publishing anything, scarcely ever speaking on this subject to any one. The subject appeared to me so great and so far above my ability to master it that I, at first, looked around for assistance among those I deemed most likely to be able to render it. But no one had any assistance to offer, no one scarcely seemed even to comprehend what I was after. Thus, at last, almost in despair, I made up my mind that I must undertake this task single-handed; and I have been at it, scarcely without interruption, ever since.

Meanwhile, the play of "Much Ado about Nothing," or "The Farce about the Larynx," continued to go on bravely all over the world. I have watched it with a sense of pity, rather than amusement. It appeared to me, more than anything else, like a game of blind man's buff, in which all the participants were blindfolded; my own horizon, meanwhile, being illumined by roseate tints representing continuous new discoveries, like a May morn before the rising of the sun.

The voice has been treated as a separate mechanical issue, while it is the outcome of a series of both physical and spiritual issues. While the old school is reproducing, in its minutest details, the dead branch of a tree, I am portraying, in its majestic proportions, the broad expanse of a living oak.

These anatomical details may interest scientists; they are valueless to the singer, as he has no control over the movements of the larynx. He need but "attack" his note in the right way, and all these muscles, sinews, cartilaginous tissues, etc., will fall into line, involuntarily and unsolicited.

Now that I am offering innumerable proofs in corroboration of my assertions, I want scientists to take these matters seriously, and not to look upon this book, also, as some may possibly have felt inclined to do in regard to my previous publication, as a "scientific curiosity" merely. There are no greater problems before the world to-day than are treated here.

During all these years of unrequited labor, which extend far beyond the day on which I made my memorable discovery, my personal affairs meanwhile constantly suffering, with but one notable exception no hand was held out to me in succor. In view of this fact (and it is the experience of many who, in the privacy of their souls, are struggling after the light), I want to ask this question: With all the noble institutions for learning, why are there none to assist those who are attempting to solve questions to be taught for the benefit and advancement of mankind? True, there are scholarships and fellowships for students, but they are not available to persons advanced in years who have duties to perform and families to support. When successful in the end, their reward—if there is any—often comes too late to be of any practical value.

Such would be the case with me should any material acknowledgment come to me now, having of late attained to the leisure I had so much longed for, thanks to my previous labor and a brave son's devotion and valued aid and assistance. No man, however, will ever know how long I have been kept under the ban of purely materialistic endeavors, while these higher things were occupying my mind and clamoring for recognition. A sum equal to that representing a single day's expenditure for falsely teaching matters connected with the voice, alone, the world over, not to speak of other matters of still greater importance, would have sufficed for a number of years, if not for a lifetime, to place me in a position to devote myself exclusively to the exposition of the correct principles underlying these important subjects. As it has been with me, no doubt it is and always has been with many others in different fields of research.

Since the publication of my previous book, I have had four years of continuous experience, during which the statements therein made have been strengthened and enlarged, so that I am now ready to support them with an endless array of proof. That book, however, was the beginning of what some day will be regarded as a greater movement in the right direction than any previous one, for attaining an insight into nature's occult work in creating, developing, and sustaining the living organism, and the exercise of its faculties and functions, more especially man's faculties and functions. The subject, however, is of so subtle a nature that it cannot be treated like a mathematical problem or a chemical analysis; still, I shall do the best I can with such means as are at my command.

Recently an acquaintance who is interested in vocal culture asked me how I was getting along, and I answered, telling him something like what I have said in the preceding. He replied:

"That is the trouble with you Germans. This is a live world, a practical world; we want facts, results—something we can turn to account and make use of."

This impatience (and who can blame those who are suffering, or those who, being young and talented, want to be led into the right path) throws the door wide open to all kinds of charlatanism—charlatanism which is honest and charlatanism which is dishonest, the former, being more readily trusted, often working the greater harm. The best teaching for the present, in default of a science, is that which is based simply on experience; the pseudo-science now being taught being worse than no science at all.

While the exercise of speech is next to universal with all men, no one has any idea of how it is exercised; the wisest being as much in the dark as the least informed.

This is what so eminent a man as Oliver Wendell Holmes had to say on the subject in one of his lectures, delivered not many years before his death:

"Talking has been clearly explained and successfully imitated by artificial contrivances. We know that the moist membranous edges of a narrow crevice (the glottis) vibrate as the reed of a clarionet vibrates, and thus produce the human bleat. We narrow or widen, or check or stop the flow of this sound by the lips, the tongue, the teeth, and thus articulate, or break into joints, the even current of sound. The sound varies with the degree and kind of interruption, as the 'babble' of the brook with the shape and size of its impediments—pebbles, or rocks, or dams. To whisper, is to articulate without bleating, or vocalizing; to coo, as babies do, is to bleat, or vocalize, without articulating. Machines are easily made that bleat not unlike human beings. A bit of India-rubber tube tied around a piece of glass tube, is one of the simplest voice-uttering contrivances. To make a machine that articulates, is not so easy." [The Italics are Dr. Holmes's.]

It is not the humorist Holmes, however, who has said this, as one would suppose that it was, but it is the writer, scientist, and thinker, who was in dead earnest when he gave unto the world this "definition of the gift of speech."

Any comment on my part would but weaken the sense of the ludicrous this "explanation" of so great a subject, even from a mere mechanical standpoint, must arouse in the reader. Yet Dr. Holmes's "explanation" is not any more preposterous than that of many other scientists of the present day.

Teachers have said that, not being a teacher, I could not know anything about the voice. As if they had the sole patent right to the voice, and others held their voices but from them, in fee! I, however, took the liberty of looking into my own voice and trying to find out whence it came and what it was made of. It is not much of a voice, to be sure; yet it has the common attributes of all voices. Besides, I should like to know who, in truth, is a teacher. He who over a narrow path follows the footsteps of others, or he who strikes out boldly for the root and the truth of a matter, and, disregarding precedents, goes down to the very bowels of the earth, if need be, to bring it to the surface?

The knowledge of even the best of us is not much more than some froth on the surface of the well of truth. Yet that froth is all these timid souls have dared to examine. They have not had the courage to dive down deep into its fathomless flood. Many a truth has been taught by those who had been considered innocent of any knowledge thereof. I am one of these "innocents," and, on the whole, am not sorry for not having been imbued more with the knowledge, or supposed knowledge, of the present day.

We are so much the slaves of habit that we become reconciled to any condition, almost, no matter how undesirable or absurd it may be. Thus biological science has been going along in a rut for centuries, but little having been ascertained of vital importance; nor could this have been otherwise, considering the modes of investigation. I was not surrounded by so many trees that I could not see the woods. My perspective was as clear as a bird's, that soars above and beyond the smoke of the city and the dust in the eyes of the heirs of generation upon generation of anatomical and physiological research, burying beneath its lumber the clear insight of the soul. Thus, ignorance with me may indeed have been bliss. Yet I do not want to place myself in a position as deprecating science, having the highest appreciation for all its endeavors. I deprecate science only in so far as, dealing with matter, it attempts to draw inspiration therefrom as to spiritual issues; and the voice certainly is a spiritual issue.

The following appears in the Encyclopædia Britannica, under the heading of "Animal Magnetism":

"Mr. Heidenhain, after stating that in conformity with the manner in which one muscle is affected, others become similarly affected, proceeds to say: 'Probably the reflex excitement would extend still farther, but I naturally consider it out of the question to try whether the muscles of respiration would become affected. It is easily understood that such experiments require the greatest caution and may be very seldom carried out.'"

Valiant Mr. Heidenhain, brave explorer on a new and "dangerous" field of research. This is the Ultima Thule which any of these bold adventurers have endeavored to reach. My work began where theirs came to an end. Though I have not reached the "North Pole," I have gone far beyond anyone else.