APHASIA IN RELATION TO LANGUAGE AND THOUGHT.
The relation of language to thought as a theme of discussion has busied the pens of philosophical writers from very early times, and the later aspects of the controversy do not promise a speedy agreement of views. Whatever new light, therefore, recent discoveries in science may shed on this much-vexed question ought to be welcomed as helping to increase of knowledge concerning a matter which cannot escape the serious consideration of the teachers of philology. At present Messrs. Max Müller and Whitney most strongly incline to opposite views; and before coming to the subject of aphasia as affecting the question, it may be well to take a cursory view of the field of controversy.
The old or scholastic belief is that language was in the first instance divinely communicated, and this opinion its upholders strove to maintain by a variety of reasons. Authority and tradition were chief among these, though they did not by any means neglect philological and ethnological considerations. In France the Vicomte de Bonald undertook the support of this view on the same line as that now held by Max Müller—viz., that it is impossible to have a purely intellectual conception without a corresponding word or series of words to represent it; whence, according to him, it follows that the word must have accompanied the thought, and, man being unable to originate the one without the other, both must have been originally communicated. Max Müller says: “As a matter of fact, we never meet with articulate sounds, except as wedded to determinate ideas: nor do we ever, I believe, meet with determinate ideas, except as bodied forth in articulate sounds.” He strongly insists on the correctness of this view, and argues it at length. Professor Whitney takes direct issue with him, and maintains that there is the widest separation between language and thought. According to him, language can be said to be of divine origin only in so far as man was created with the capacity for its formation just as he was created capable of making
clothes for himself, and of wearing them. Such being the state of the question, we will proceed to consider that abnormal condition of the nervous system which has been denominated aphasia, and afterwards indicate our opinion as to which view the facts established by it go to sustain.
Aphasia, defined by Dr. Hammond as a diseased condition of the brain, was not understood till quite recently. It is an affection of that organ by which the idea of language or of its expression is impaired. It is not mere paralysis of the vocal chords, nor of the muscles of articulation, nor the result of hysteria—which conditions are denominated aphonia, or voicelessness—but depends on a lesion or injury wrought in that portion of the brain which presides over the memory of words and their co-ordination in speech. The loss of the memory of words is styled amnesic aphasia, the other ataxic aphasia—two Greek derivatives which explain very clearly the two separate conditions. A single typical case will exhibit the usual manner of the approach of this trouble, its development and termination. An English banker, a resident of Paris, recently went out in his carriage well as usual, and on his return, as he was stepping to the sidewalk, fell heavily forward, but did not lose consciousness. His whole right side was paralyzed, and, on attempting to speak, he could not articulate a word; he barely succeeded in uttering a few unintelligible sounds. During twelve days the paralysis continued, but after that gradually subsided, till in the course of a few months he was able to move about. Strange to say, however, the power of speech did not return, and for eight months he
could no more than articulate a few words incoherently. Nothing in the case of this gentleman openly indicated an impairment of the intellect; for he could neither read nor write in consequence of his paralyzed condition. There was undoubted loss of the memory of words, since his vocabulary was limited to two or three; and there was likewise ataxic aphasia, since his words were jumbled unmeaningly together. The recorded cases of this disease are very numerous, many of them differing in their individual features, but all exhibiting a greater or less degree of both forms mentioned. The case just cited will suffice to enable the reader to understand the interest felt by psychologists and physiologists alike to ascertain whether, by the discovery of a uniform and constantly-recurring lesion in a certain portion of the brain, the seat of language in that organ might be determined. Dr. Gall, with the view of completing his system of phrenology, referred speech-function to that part of the brain lying on the supra-orbital plate behind the eye. Spurzheim, Combe, and others of the phrenological school held the same view. But this was a mere conjecture on their part, and it was not till minute anatomy had already localized several other important functions that a fair promise was held out that the brain-organ of speech might be likewise located. Experiments without number were made by Bouillaud, Cruveilhier, Velpeau, Andral, Broca, and Dax in France; Hughlings, Jackson, Sanders, Moxon, Ogle, Bateman, and Bastian in England; Von Benedict and Braunwart in Germany; Flint, Wilbur, Seguin, Fisher, and Hammond in America—all tending to confirm the localization
of the function, though not agreeing as to the exact spot. The mode of procedure usually consisted in making a post-mortem examination of those who during life had suffered from aphasia; and though it was an extremely difficult matter to bring all the cases under a uniform standard, enough was discovered to assign the function in question to the left anterior lobe of the brain. We do not pretend to regard the question as settled; for no less authorities than Hammond in our own country, and Prof. Ferrier in England, seem to consider both hemispheres of the brain as equally concerned. Still, it is significant that out of 545 cases examined by different authorities, 514 favor the left anterior lobe of the brain, while but 31 are opposed to such a conclusion. Assuming, then, as amply demonstrated that some portion of the anterior convolutions of the brain is the seat of the faculty of speech, the question arises, Can that part of the brain which is concerned in the process of ideation continue to perform its functions—i.e., originate true ideas of which the mind is conscious—without the memory of the words which usually represent those ideas or the power to co-ordinate them? It is evident that, no matter how the question may be met, we possess in the discoveries to which aphasia has led a most important contribution to the controversy concerning the relation of language to thought; for if it can be shown that the mental faculties are unimpaired during the existence of the aphasic condition, the conclusion would go to favor Prof. Whitney’s view that thought is independent of speech; whereas if it can be shown that during the same condition the mental powers are very much debilitated or frequently suspended,
we find an unexpected support given to Max Müller’s opinion that without language there can be no thought. We would state in advance that the portion of the cerebral substance which is concerned in the production of thought—or, as neurologists have it, is the centre of ideation—entirely differs from that which is the reputed seat of the faculty of speech; so that the question may read: Does the centre of ideation continue to operate while the speech-centres are in a diseased condition? Aphasic individuals usually retain all the appearances of intelligence: their eyes are full of expression; their manner of dealing with surrounding objects is quite the same as if they were in possession of all their faculties; when asked to point out material objects, they unhesitatingly do so—in a word, to the extent that objects are their own language their intellect remains unimpaired. But they exhibit a remarkable deficiency in the power of co-ordination, since this is a pure relation not symbolized by anything material. Material objects possess in their outlines and sensible qualities enough to discriminate and individualize them; and hence, through perception, they reach the centres of ideation, and are as readily understood by the aphasic as though their names were fully known. This is made manifest in their writing when, as occurs only in a few cases, the aphasic retain the power of using the pen. Thus we read in Trousseau of the case of an aphasic named Henri Guénier, who could not write the word “yes,” though capable of uttering it in an automatic way without seeming in the least to understand its meaning. Yet he could write his own name, though nothing else, evidently for the reason that
the τὸ ἐγώ was the object of most frequent recurrence to his mind, and that which consequently he could most readily apprehend through its sensible characteristics, and could thereby connect with his own name; whereas “yes,” as the symbol of affirmation, found no counterpart in the sensible order. The same author relates the case of a man who, so far as he could make himself intelligible, boasted of retaining his intellective and memorative powers unimpaired, and yet, on being put to the test, he could not construct the shortest sentence coherently. When a spoon was held before him, and he was asked what it was, he gave no answer; when asked if it was a fork he made a sign of denial, but when asked if it were a spoon he at once replied in the affirmative. It must be remembered that in all these cases the power of utterance, so far as it is a muscular process, remained unimpaired, but there was true amnesic aphasia—i.e., the recollection of the words was lost.
There are some cases of partial aphasia which possess an interest quite peculiar, since its victims frequently regain the entire power of speech, and are able to relate the results of their experience. A celebrated professor in France spent a vacation-day reading Lamartine’s literary conversations, when towards evening he was attacked with partial aphasia. Fearing lest he was threatened with paralysis, he moved his arms and walked up and down the room, in doing which he experienced no difficulty; but when he resumed his reading, he found it scarcely possible to understand a sentence. The individual words were intelligible enough, but he could not follow out the sequence of the thoughts. Of course during the attack he could