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ARISTOTLE ON THE VITAL PRINCIPLE.
[BK. II.
sound expressive of something—it is not, that is, as in coughing, a mere sound of the air inspired; and speech is the percussion, by the living principle, of the air in the trachea, against the trachea itself. As proof of which, we are unable to speak when holding the breath, that is, when we neither inspire nor expire; for the act of holding the breath sets in motion the air which is inspired. It is now manifest why fishes, having no pharynx, are without a voice; and they have no pharynx, because they neither admit the air nor breathe. It is foreign to our present purpose, however, to inquire into the cause of their having been thus constituted.
