Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/49

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

Faculty of Speech and Speech-Centers

that we have been right-handed for many thousands of years at least. Everything seems to indicate that the majority of our kind always was right-handed; and it has been proved that all right-handed persons have their word-areas in the left brain. This establishes the relationship between the right-hand, or the principal gestural organ, and the speech-area.

The thinker slowly and laboriously invented the instruments with which to define his thoughts. Habit gradually gave to the instrument so much the mastery of the mind that as modern man approaches adult life he is only capable of thinking by means of the instruments of his earlier racial invention. One may visualize without language, but no one can think in terms other than words. This characteristic of mental process determines true thought. Emotion is a very different phenomenon. Feeling finds expression in a wide range of terms and in various media. Certain emotions may be expressed

25