Page:Bergson - Matter and Memory (1911).djvu/165

 result. For, by hypothesis, the auditory memories can still be recalled to consciousness; by hypothesis also, the auditory impressions still reach consciousness; there must therefore be in consciousness itself a gap, a solution of continuity, something, whatever it is, which hinders the perception from joining the memories. Now, we may throw some light on the case if we remember that crude auditory perception is really that of a continuity of sound, and that the sensori-motor connexions established by habit must have as their office, in the normal state, to decompose this continuity. A lesion of these conscious mechanisms, by hindering the decomposition, might completely check the up-rush of memories which tend to alight upon the corresponding perceptions. Therefore the 'motor diagram' might be what is injured by the lesion. If we pass in review the cases (which are, indeed, not very numerous) of word deafness where acoustic memories were retained, we notice certain details that are interesting in this respect. Adler notes, as a remarkable fact in word deafness, that the patients no longer react even to the loudest sounds, though their hearing has preserved all its acuteness. In other words, sound no longer finds in them its motor echo. A patient of Charcot's, attacked by a passing word deafness, relates that he heard his clock strike, but that he could not count the