322 RESEARCHES ON CORTICAL LOCALISATION AND 



abstract thought, to continually revert to concrete examples. 

 Many results of the higher reasoning processes would in fact be 

 quite unintelligible to the reader in the absence of concrete illus- 

 tration, and, what is even more important, the author himself 

 would not infrequently find a tortoise successful in its race with a 

 hare. Philosophic disputes have as a rule depended largely on 

 .questions of definition, or on the employment of the same words 

 under slightly different connotations. Forms of words are worse 

 than useless unless their exact meaning is appreciated, and many 

 discussions and disputes have arisen owing to the critic holding 

 strictly to these, and thereby rendering it difficult or impossible 

 for their originator to make his intentions quite clear and in- 

 telligible. 



The necessarily imperfect employment of the language 

 mechanism, owing to the occasional impossibility of satisfactorily 

 discovering a form of words in which to clearly express the exact 

 meaning of the writer or speaker, is in fact one of the most fruitful 

 sources of disputation. It is not intended to imply by this remark 

 that such a person knows what he wishes to express. He is aware 

 that the phrases he employs do not express what he desires, and 

 at times his uncompleted cerebral processes may reach their goal 

 through the suggestion by another individual of a suitable form 

 of words. 



On the other hand, from the purely didactic aspect, a speaker 

 occasionally finds his only safe refuge in generalities which are 

 capable of varied interpretation. Many a sermon is acceptable 

 to, and is approved by, a congregation, which would be up in 

 arms if the preacher produced concrete illustrations of his meaning, 

 e.g. his views with regard to certain political questions, &c. 



The nature and mode of employment of the symbolic mechanism 

 of language will now be briefly discussed. 



The whole of the higher intellectual processes are dependent 

 on, and develop pari passu with, the evolution of language. Till 

 of recent years the majority of, and even now many, individuals 

 depend on the sense of hearing for the acquisition of the greater 

 portion of their (human) psychic content, though persons who read 

 and write perhaps gain an equal amount by means of the sense 

 of sight, and the more intellectual members of the race probably 

 acquire the greater part by means of the latter sense. It may, 

 however, be remarked that in some normal intelligent reading- 



