Articulate speech, even
when employed by a primitive savage, always expresses a judgment. Even in
the simple psychic process of recalling the name aroused by the sight of a
common object in daily use, and in affixing the verbal sign to that object,
a judgment is expressed. But that judgment is based upon innumerable
experiences primarily acquired through our special senses, whereby we have
obtained a knowledge of the properties and uses of the object. This
statement implies that the whole brain is consciously and unconsciously in
action. There is, however, a concentration of psychic action in those
portions of the brain which are essential for articulate speech;
consequently the word, as it is mentally heard, mentally seen, and mentally
felt (by the movements of the jaw, tongue, lips, and soft palate), occupies
the field of clear consciousness; but the concept is also the nucleus of an
immense constellation of subconscious psychic processes with which it has
been associated by experiences in the past. In language, articulate sounds
are generally employed as objective signs attached to objects with which
they have no natural tie.
In considering the relation of the Brain to the Voice we have not only a
physiological but a psychological problem to deal with.
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