246 THE HUMAN BODY. 



voice is living sound, as the glance of the human eye is 

 animated light. 



Ventriloquy. Those who created the word ventriloquy 

 evidently believed in a voice produced by some other organ 

 than the larynx. But in these days every one knows that 

 what is called ventriloquy consists in concealing the origin 

 and nature of the voice. The ventriloquist speaks with his 

 lips nearly closed, and he so modifies the sound of his voice 

 as to make it seem like that of a child, or a woman; he 

 makes us believe that it comes from a chimney or a cavern, 

 from the far distance, from the sky, or from the bowels of the 

 earth. In the last century the French Academy of Sciences 

 appointed a commission to study the phenomena of ven- 

 triloquy in a man exceedingly skilful in the art, but acting in 

 good faith and making no mystery of his power. It is to 

 the uncertainty as to the direction of the sounds, and to the 

 errors into which we are easily led by the organ of hearing, 

 more than to anything else, that the ventriloquist owes his 

 success. They may deceive ignorant and credulous people, 

 but they are generally content to amuse their auditory, and 

 in that they succeed. 



