Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/73

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Faculty of Speech and Speech-Centers

of new functions over those that came by inheritance.

The mysteries of words, then, when slightly penetrated or pushed backward, are seen to involve educational and ethical problems of importance. All training indeed, whether artistic, scientific, or moral, no longer can be regarded vaguely as “mental,” but must be recognized as involving physical changes in nervous substance; and that only through the modification of nervous substance may any training produce permanent or practical results.

No doubt, all the arts and crafts have their special centers in the cortex of the brain. In learning the art of painting, for example, it is as necessary to modify some part of the brain-substance as it is in the process of acquiring a language. The same principle applies to all the handicrafts, as has been proved repeatedly by clinical experience.

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