Chap. XXVIL] CEREBRAL iMENTAL SUBSTRATA. 595 



much more * iiistiuctive ' act than Writiiij]^, so that it is 

 moreiy a result of the tendency ahove alluded to that the 

 Kiiui}sthetic Impressions, pertaining to the more deeply 

 ingrained motor acts, have become proportionately more 

 vague and irrecoverable. Be this explanation correct or 

 not, the fact itself is obvious. Let any one shut his eyes, 

 place his fingers in the position for writing, and make in 

 the air such movements as would be needed for writing 

 the word ' London ; ' immediately afterwards let him 

 articulate the same word and compare, in regard to 

 relative distinctness, the two sets of Kinaesthetic Impres- 

 sions. The difference appears to the writer to be most 

 marked. 



The fact that Thought in a child, or in an ' absent-minded * 

 person, is apt to be accompanied with muttered Articulations may 

 be easily understood when we consider to what an extent Speech 

 soon becomes a mere reflex or ' ideo-motor ' act, and that the 

 phenomenon in question occurs especially in those persons, or under 

 those conditions, in which Volitional Control is in abeyance and 

 reflex actions are most prone to manifest themselves. Again, that 

 Articnla,tion should (where it is not intended) so frequently accom- 

 pany the attempt to read made by an illiterate person or by a 

 child, is simply due to the fact that during the process of learning 

 to read (from which they have not yet emerged), their attempts 

 are always accompanied by vocal articulations — as in the process 

 of reading aloud to a teacher. To stop at the mere realization of 

 the Visual Impression, and thus undo their previous habit, is aii 

 accomplishment to which these persons and many children have 

 not yet attained. 



To speak, therefore, of the ' ideas ' of Words as * motor 

 processes,' or to say that, ** a suppressed articulation is, 

 in fact, the material of our recollection, the intellectual 

 manifestation, the idea of Speech," is, in the writer's 

 opinion, both misleading and erroneous — though the latter 

 is a view which has been put forth and advocated by 

 no less an authority on psychological subjects than Pro- 



