Page:Bergson - Matter and Memory (1911).djvu/166

 strokes. Probably he was unable to separate and distinguish them. Another patient declares that he perceives the words of a conversation, but as a confused noise. Lastly, the patient who has lost the understanding of the spoken word recovers it if the word is repeated to him several times, and especially if it is pronounced with marked divisions, syllable by syllable. This last fact, observed in several cases of word deafness where acoustic memories were unimpaired, is particularly significant.

Strieker's mistake was to believe in a complete internal repetition of the words that are heard. His assertion is already contradicted by the simple fact that we do not know of a single case of motor aphasia which brought out word deafness. But all the facts combine to prove the existence of a motor tendency to separate the sounds and to establish their diagram. This automatic tendency is not without (as we said above) a certain elementary mental effort: how otherwise could we identify with each other, and consequently follow with the same diagram,