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The Athenaeum.
January 01, 1925
Image 17
The Athenaeum., January 01, 1925, Image 17
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About The Athenaeum. (Atlanta, GA) 1898-1925 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1925)
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Newspaper Page Text
THE ATHENAEUM
i2l
THE NEURO MUSCULAR THEORY OF THINKING
The general assumption by men of the past that thinking was
something very mysterious has given birth to many theories and
much speculation concerning its nature. This assumption early led
to the promulgation of theory of the dual nature of man—a theory to
which a large part of the masses still give credence.
The so-called mental man, or soul, was supposed to have an exis
tence apart from the physical and to have the physical man merely as
a temporary place of residence. Thinking was considered the func
tion of the mental man. Thinking was conceived of as an abstraction
which attached itself to things merely as a means of communicating
its product to others-
This theory with modifications and variations is found at the
basis of the theory of the present day proponents of pure thought.
They believe that it is possible for man to think without imagery.
An example follows::
A man sitting in his study hears his daughter playing a piece of
music at the piano. While listening he wonders whether that is a
familiar selection. Presently he realizes that he has heard it before
and that he is familiar with it for that part, he observes, is the trio.
A few moments later he recalls that during the process of recognition
of the piece he thought neither of the name of the selection nor of the
author. In fact only by additional thinking is he able to recall the
name. He concludes then that, since he has been thinking about
something and has even recognized it without a word image of it,
images or words are not necessary for thinking.
Many feel that thinking is something we can talk about and
discuss and whose manifestations we may observe, but whose essence
we shall never be able to discover. Still others believe that it is a
correlate of brain activity and goes on wholly within the cranium.
But late scientific observation and limited experimentation, al
though not entirely conclusive, lead us to take the position that not
only are words or some sort of symbols substitutable for words neces
sary for thinking, but also that in the process of thinking our mechan
ism of nerves and muscles actually forms the words or symobls. We
are warranted in believing that thinking is an integrated bodily pro
cess which covers all implicit language activity and all activity substi
tutable for language activity.
As language is the vehicle of thinking the genisis of language
necessarily involves the genesis of thinking. The infant has a native
equipment for the the production of vocal sounds and begins his
vocal career with a cry at birth. Every desire of the infant is expres
sed by crying. He makes a different cry or utters different sounds in
response to varied situations, as the violent cry of anger, the breath-
catching cry of intense fear, and the babling coo of delight By analy-
ing the various sounds made by infants it is found that their vocaliza
tion embraces all the elements that go to make up our spoken words.
The child learns its first words by imitation, or to use more exact
psychological phraseology, by means of the conditional reaction.
