326 RESEARCHES ON CORTICAL LOCALISATION AND 



Examples are common in which the mechanism of language is 

 employed in a purely mechanical manner. Imbeciles can at times 

 learn by rote long paragraphs, of the meaning of which they are 

 ignorant. Children learn a large portion of their lessons in this 

 way. Adults, even, may learn the Lord's Prayer backwards, or 

 sentences in an unknown foreign tongue. Direct evidence of the 

 purely mechanical nature of these performances is often afforded 

 by the inability of the subjects to complete their feat, if they are 

 stopped during its course, unless they start again at the commence- 

 ment. Occasionally quite remarkable examples of mechanical 

 memory and of mechanical employment of the word-centres are 

 met with. From the former aspect may be mentioned the re- 

 production of long verbal or musical compositions after a single 

 reading or hearing, and from the latter the performances of " cal- 

 culating boys." An interesting article on the latter subject has 

 recently been published by F. D. Mitchell. 



Examples of this mode of employment of the language 

 mechanism may be readily drawn from e very-day life. Many 

 word-complexes, which are frequently repeated, e.g. daily prayers, 

 are often gone through in a purely mechanical manner, whilst the 

 individual reproducing them is perhaps thinking of something 

 else. Again, it is appreciated by few that language, as normally 

 employed, is very largely a purely reflex, or, at any rate, automatic 

 function ; and that the significance of what is spoken is but feebly 

 appreciated by the speaker. In the majority of persons the word- 

 vocabulary which is in common use is very limited, and the phrase 

 vocabulary is both extremely limited, remarkably stereotyped, 

 and in many instances quite automatically employed. In edu- 

 cated, and particularly in " well brought up " persons, on the 

 other hand, the word and phrase vocabularies, though equally 

 stereotyped, are much more extensive in range. 



The voluntary employment of the language mechanism is 

 attended by greater executive difficulties than is the reflexly 

 induced and automatically performed mode which has just been 

 indicated ; and it is at times involuntarily incited, to the detri- 

 ment of the performer, by emotional disturbances. For example, 

 nervous persons, when in the presence of their real or imaginary, 

 social or intellectual, superiors, speak haltingly and from a limited 

 vocabulary owing to the attempt to converse, not automatically, 

 but to order. On the other hand, in the voluntary employment 



