A letter to Henry Cline, Esq on imperfect developments (sic) of the faculties mental and moral, as well as constitutional and organic aon on the treatment of impediments of speech.

  • Thelwall, John, 1764-1834.
Date:
1810
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Henry Cline, Esq on imperfect developments (sic) of the faculties mental and moral, as well as constitutional and organic aon on the treatment of impediments of speech. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by UCL Library Services. The original may be consulted at UCL (University College London)

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    the laws of physical necessity, under which those org^ans acl^—the efficient sources of the melody of language; and (by retroactive inference) the sources and appropriate remedies of lingual defects. In this structure, and in these laws, I imagined, also^ —that I discovered, (and I have since been satisfied that I did discover) the causes why certain combi- nations and successions of sound, that baffle all the discriminations of mere grammatical analysis, and all ascertainment from the customary rules of quan- tity^ should produce an agreeable impression^— while others^ equally undefinable, by the ordinary dogmas of criticism^ should be productive of a discordant effiect, upon the ear; and why cer- tain modes of effort, in the pronunciation of speech^ should give smoothness and facility to the flow of spoken language; while other modes of effort were necessarily productive of dissonance and disgust^ and were readily aggravated into absolute Hesitation and Impediment. From the want of knowledge of these principles I believe it is, that so little has been d^ne, with any certainty, towards an effective remedy of the defects of utterance ; and, from the same cause,—in conjunction with the habits of silentstudy, andsilentcomposition, to which