154 Instinct and Intelligence 



her instruction she passed through a preliminary 

 course similar to that followed by Laura 

 Bridgeman. As her sense of touch became 

 more delicate, her tutor, by signs made with her 

 fingers in the palms of her pupil's hands spelt 

 the names of things in common use. Referring, 

 however, to this period of her life, H. Keller 

 remarks that " in the still, dark world in which 

 I lived there was no sentiment, no tenderness." 

 The signs made and received were, as in the 

 case of Laura Bridgeman, mechanical, the out- 

 come of work done by the living matter of her 

 basal ganglia; the hemispheres of her brain 

 were as yet hardly brought into play through 

 the cerebral centres of touch. This condition 

 of things continued for a considerable time. 

 One day, however, H. Keller and her tutor 

 came to a stream of water, into which the latter 

 placed her pupil's hands, and while there traced 

 on the palms of them the letters w-a-t-e-r. 

 H. Keller states: "My whole attention being 

 fixed upon the motion of the water and the 

 motion of my instructor's fingers, I recognised 

 a connection between the two, and that water 

 meant something that was flowing over my 



