words, but sends a brain impulse based upon the kinaesthetic or
motor image of the muscular action necessary to accomplish that
act. But for our purpose in this experiment, we can assume that
the brain sends the message in terms which, if interpreted in
words, would be "pick up the pencil." Suppose that when that brain
message reaches your thumb and forefinger, instead of reaching for
the pencil, they immediately close and clap or stick, refusing to
act. Your hand is unable to pick up the pencil. That, then, is
similar to stammering. The hand is doing practically what the
vocal organs do when the stammerer attempts to speak and fails.
But, on the other hand, if, when the message was received by your
thumb and finger, it made short, successive attempts to pick up
the pencil, but failed to accomplish it, then you could compare
that failure to the uncontrolled repetitions of stuttering. This
inability to control the action of the thumb and forefinger would
be the result of a lack of co-ordination between the brain and the
muscles of the hand, while stuttering or stammering is the result
of a lack of co-ordination between the brain and the muscles of
speech.

WHAT CAUSES LACK OF CO-ORDINATION: But even after it is known that
stuttering and stammering are caused by a lack of co-ordination
between the brain and the organs of speech, still, the mind of
scientific and inquiring trend must ask, "What causes the lack of
co-ordination?" And that question is quite in order. It is plain
that the lack of co-ordination does not exist without a cause.
What, then, is this cause?

An inquiry into the cause of the inco-ordination between brain and
speech-organs leads us to an examination of the original or basic