Physiology of the nervous system / by J. P. Morat ; translated and edited by H. W. Syers.

  • Jean-Pierre Morat
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Physiology of the nervous system / by J. P. Morat ; translated and edited by H. W. Syers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    688/716 (page 656)
    sensory elements. By a kind of converse redexion, the impulse which has descended into the muscle leaves it to ascend towards the brain by the nerves of the muscular sense. Motor, like sensorial, images are practically aggregations in which either motricity or sensibility are associated in unequal proportions. By their mutual association in the exercise of the function of spoken or written language, these sensorial and motor systems describe an arc with a larger ex- tension, indicating the general course of the impulse, but which is complicated by a certain number of partial internal cycles which must be taken into account in tlie analysis of the general mechanism. Voluntary determination.—Thus, by association of sensations in time, by their diverse forms and the mutual comparison of these forms, by the representations- arising from this, by the formation of images, by the organization of the latter, 6rst into concrete, later into abstract ideas, and by the methodical classidcation of tliese data in the mind, a store of personal experiences is laid up, which goes on increasing in proportion to the number of new sensations added to the preceding and to the eontinuanle of the process of organization to which the5>- are sub- mitted. Tliis store is greater than we oiu'selves imagine. Consciousness only ])artially illuminates it, and usually does so on the arrival of a new sensation ev'oking the series of psychical acts which are in harmony with it. Mechanisms habitually unconscious aid in abbreviating these ojjerations. Their automatism suppresses deliberation, which would involve delay. Deliberation has no in- ducnce except as regards the function of direction, which is alone enlightened by consciousness. It is this deliberation which causes the voluntary act. It ia this Avhich determines the answer, delays or precipitates it, and dictates its mean- ing, according to motives which have been more or less carefully estimated and compared. Automatic language.—The most deliberate ]tremeditated speecli allows in its performance of the intervention of numerous and compli- cated automatisms. It may even become entirely automatic, as some- times happens in a reading or recitation delivered without regard being paid to the sense of the words. In this case impulses reach tlie muscles- in a predetermined order, of which the brain alters nothing, resembling, in a sense, the more or less complicated electrical waves which, in a telephone, proceed from the manipulating to the recejitive apparatus. Tlie reflex arc of automatic speech may connect : (1) vision with phonation (automatic reading) ; (2) hearing with phonation (echo of speech) ; (3) vision with writing (copying) ; (4) hearing with Avriting (dictation). In these examples, language becomes reflex, that is to say, uncon- scious, without ceasing to be cerebral. Conversely, it may remain conscious and have no external motor effect. Language, in fact, has the very closest connexion Avith thought, and thought is a continuous phenomenon. i\Ian expresses his thought in speech, but he first thinks that Avhich his speech expresses. 3. Internal language We possess an internal language similar to external language, the;