lesions which the theory isolated. The complication of the theories of aphasia being thus self-destructive, it is no wonder that modern pathology, becoming more and more sceptical with regard to diagrams, is returning purely and simply to the description of facts.[1]
But how could it be otherwise? To hear some theorists discourse on sensory aphasia, we might imagine that they had never considered with any care the structure of a sentence. They argue as if a sentence were composed of nouns which call up the images of things. What becomes of those parts of speech, of which the precise function is to establish, between images, relations and shades of meaning of every kind? Is it said that each of such words still expresses and evokes a material image, more confused, no doubt, but yet determined? Consider then the host of different relations which can be expressed by the same word, according to the place it occupies and the terms which it unites. Is it urged that these are the refinements of a highly-developed language, but that speech is possible with concrete nouns that all summon up images of things? No doubt it is, but the more primitive the language you speak with me and the poorer in words which express relations, the more you are bound to allow for my mind's activity, since you compel me to find out the relations which you leave
- ↑ Sommer, Addressing a Congress of Alienists. (Arch. de Neurologie, vol. xxiv, 1892).
