THE TRANSITION IN THE RACE.

At this point I shall doubtless be expected to offer some remarks on the probable mode of transition between the brute and the human being. Having so fully considered both the psychology and philology of ideation, it may be thought that I am now in a position to indicate what I suppose to have been the actual stepping-stones whereby an intelligent species of ape can be conceived to have crossed “the Rubicon of Mind.” But, if I am expected to do this, I might reasonably decline, for two reasons.

In the first place, the attempt, even if it could be successful, would be superfluous. The only objection I have had to meet is one which has been raised on grounds of psychology. This objection I have met, and met upon its own grounds. If I have been successful, for the purposes of argument nothing more remains to be said. If I have not been successful, it is obviously impossible to strengthen my case by going beyond the known facts of mind, as they actually exist before us, to any hypothetical possibilities of mind in the dim ages of an unrecorded past.

In the second place, any remarks which I have to offer upon this subject must needs be of a wholly speculative or unverifiable character. As well might the historian spend his time in suggesting hypothetical histories of events known to have occurred in a pre-historic age: his evidence that such and such events must have occurred may be conclusive, and yet he may be quite in the dark as to the precise conditions which led up to them, the time which was occupied by them, and the particular method of their occurrence. In such cases it often happens that the more certain an historian may be that such and such an event did take place, the greater is the number of ways in which he sees that it might have taken place. Merely for the sake of showing that this is likewise the case in the matter now before us, I will devote the present chapter to a consideration of three alternative—and equally hypothetical—histories of the transition. But, from what has just been said, I hope it will be understood that I attach no argumentative importance to any of these hypotheses.

Sundry German philologists have endeavoured to show that speech originated in wholly meaningless sounds, which in the first instance were due to merely physiological conditions. In their opinion the purely reflex mechanisms connected with vocalization would have been sufficient to yield not only many differences of tone under different states as to suffering, pleasure, effort, &c., but even the germ of articulation in the meaningless utterance of vowel sounds and consonants. Thus, for example, Lazarus says:—“Der Process der eigenthÜmlich menschlichen Laut-Erzeugung, die Articulation der Tone, die Hervorbringung von Vocalen und Consonanten, ist demnach auf rein physiologischem Boden gegeben—in der urprÜnglichen Natur des menschlichen physischen bewegten Organismus begrÜndet, und wird vor aller WillkÜr und Absicht also ohne Einwirkung des Geistes obwohl auf Veranlassung von GefÜhlen und Empfindungen vollzogen.”[301]

This, it will be observed, is the largest possible extension of the interjectional theory of the origin of speech. It assumes that not only inarticulate, but also articulate sounds were given forth by the “sprachlosen Urmenschen,” in the way of instinctive cries, wholly destitute of any semiotic intention. By repeated association, however, they are supposed to have acquired, as it were automatically, a semiotic value. For, to quote Professor Friedrich MÜller, “Sie sind zwar Anfangs bedeutungslos: sie kÖnnen aber bedeutungsvoll werden. Alles, was in unserem Inneren vorgeht, wird von der Seele wahrgenommen. Sobald durch gewisse aÜssere EinflÜsse in Folge einer Combination mehrerer Empfindungen eine Anschauung entsteht, nimmt die Seele dieselbe an, Diese Anschauung hat—in Folge der durch eine der Empfindungen hervorgebrachten Reflexbewegung in den Stimmorganen—einen Laut zum Begleiter, welcher in gleicher Weise wie die Anschauung von der Seele wahrgenommen wird, diese beiden Wahrnehmungen, nÄmlich jene der Anschauung und jene des Lautes, verbinden sich miteinander vermÖge ihrer Gleichzeitigkeit im menschlichen Bewusstsein, es findet also eine Association der Laut-Anschauung mit jener der Sach-Anschauung statt, die Elemente der Sach-Anschauung bekommen an der Laute-Anschauung einen festen Mittelpunkt, durch den die Anschauung zur Vorstellung sich entwickelt. Wir sind damit bei der menschlichen Sprache angelangt, welche also ihrem Wesen nach auf der Substituirung eines Klang-oder Tonbildes fÜr das Bild einer Anschauung beruht.”[302]

Now, without at all doubting the important part which originally meaningless sounds may have played in furnishing material for vocal sign-making, and still less disputing the agency of association in the matter, I must nevertheless refuse to accept the above hypothesis as anything like a full explanation of the origin of speech. For it manifestly ignores the whole problem which stands to be solved—namely, the genesis of those powers of ideation which first put a soul of meaning into the previously insignificant sounds. Nearly all the warm-blooded animals so far share with mankind the same physiological nature as to give forth a variety of vocal sounds under as great a variety of mental states. Therefore, if in accordance with the above hypothesis we regard all such sounds as meaningless (or arising from the “purely physiological basis” of reflex movement), the question obviously presents itself, Why have not the lower animals developed speech? According to the above doctrine, aboriginal and hitherto speechless man started without any superiority in respect of the sign-making faculty, and thus far precisely resembled what is taken to be the present psychological condition of the lower animals.[303] Why, then, out of the same original conditions has there arisen so enormous a difference of result? If, in the case of mankind, associations of meaningless sounds with particular states, objects, &c., led to a substitution of the former for the latter, and thus gave to them the significance of names, how are we to account for the total absence of any such development in brutes? To me it appears that this is clearly an unanswerable difficulty; and therefore I do not wonder that the so-called interjectional theory of the origin of speech has brought discredit on the whole philosophy of the subject. But, as so often happens in philosophical writings, we have here a case where an important truth is damaged by imperfect or erroneous presentation. All the principles set forth in the above hypothesis are sound in themselves, but the premiss from which they start is untrue. This premiss is, that aboriginal man presented no rudiments of the sign-making faculty—that this faculty itself required to be originated de novo by accidental associations of sounds with things. But, as we now well know from all the facts previously given, even the lower animals present the sign-making faculty in no mean degree of development; and, therefore, it is perfectly certain that the “Urmenschen,” at the time when they were “sprachlosen,” were not on this account zeichenlosen. The psychological germ of communication, which probably could not have been created by merely accidental associations between sounds and things, must already have been given in those psychological conditions of receptual ideation which are common to all intelligent animals.

But to this all-essential germ, as thus given, I doubt not that the soil of such associations as the interjectional theory has in view must have been of no small importance; for this would naturally help to nourish its semiotic nature. And the reason why the similar germ of sign-making which occurs in the brute creation has not been similarly nurtured, I have already considered in Chapter VIII. For, it is needless to add, on every ground I disagree with the above quotations where they represent articulate sounds as having been aboriginally uttered by “Urmenschen” in the way of instinctive cries, without any vestige of semiotic intention.[304]

I will now pass on to consider the two other hypotheses; and by way of introduction to both we must remember that our materials of study on the side of the apes is very limited. I do not mean only that no single representative of any of the anthropoid apes has ever been made the object of even so much observation with respect to its intelligence as I bestowed upon a cebus. Yet this, no doubt, is an important point, because we know that of all quadrumana—and, therefore, of all existing animals—the anthropoid apes are the most intelligent, and, therefore, if specially trained would probably display greater aptitude in the matter of sign-making than is to be met with in any other kind of brute. But I do not press this point. What I now refer to is the fact that the existing species of anthropoid apes are very few in number, and appear to be all on the high-road to extinction. Moreover, it is certain that none of these existing species can have been the progenitor of man; and, lastly, it is equally certain that the extinct species (or genus) which did give origin to man must have differed in several important respects from any of its existing allies. In the first place, it must have been more social in habits; and, in the next place, it was probably more vociferous than the orang, the gorilla, or the chimpanzee. That there is no improbability in either of these suppositions will be at once apparent if we remember that both are amply sustained by analogies among existing and allied species of the monkey tribe. Or, to state these preliminary considerations in a converse form, when it is assumed[305] that because the few existing and expiring species of anthropoid apes are unsocial and comparatively silent, therefore the simian ancestors of man must have been so, it is enough to point to the variability of both these habits among certain allied genera of monkeys and baboons, in order at the same time to dispose of the assumption, and to indicate the probable reasons why one genus of ape gradually became evolved into Homo, while all the allied genera became, or are still becoming, extinct.

Again, and still by way of preliminary consideration, we must remember that the analogy of the growing child, although most valuable up to a certain point, is not to be unreservedly followed where we have to deal with the genesis of speech. For, as previously noted, to the infancy of the individual language is supplied from without, and has only to be learnt; while to the infancy of the race language was not supplied, but had to be made. Therefore, even apart from any question of heredity, we have here an immense difference in the psychological conditions between the case of a growing child and that of aboriginal man. Only in so far as the growing child displays the tendency on which I have dwelt of spontaneously extending the significance of denotative words, or of spontaneously using such words in apposition for the purpose of pre-conceptual predication—only to this extent may we hope to find any true analogy between the individual and the race in respect of that “transition” from receptual to conceptual ideation with which we are now concerned.[306]

There is another preliminary consideration which I think is well worth mentioning. The philologist Geiger is led by his study of language to entertain, and somewhat elaborately to sustain, the following doctrine. First he points out that man, much more than any other animal, uses the sense of sight for the purposes of perceptual life. By this he does not mean that man possesses a keener vision than any other animal, but merely that of all his special senses that of sight is most habitually used for taking cognizance of the external world. And this, I think, must certainly be admitted. Even a hitherto speechless infant may be seen to observe objects at great distances, carefully to investigate objects which it holds in its hands, and generally to employ its eyes much more effectively than any of the lower animals at a comparable stage of development. Now, from this relative superiority of the sense of sight in man, Geiger argues that before the origin of articulate speech he, more than any other animal, must have been accustomed to communicate with his fellows by means of signs which appealed to that sense—i.e. by gesture and grimace. But, if this be admitted, it follows that from the time when a particular species of the order Primates began to use its eyesight more than the allied species, a condition was given favourable to the subsequent and gradual development of a gesticulating form of ape-like creature. Here grimace also would have played an important part, and where attention was particularly directed towards movements of the mouth for semiotic purposes, articulate sounds would begin to acquire more or less conventional significations. In this way Geiger supposes that the conditions required for the origin of articulate signs were laid down; and, in view of all that he says, it certainly is suggestive that the animal which relies most upon the sense of sight is also the animal which has made so prodigious an advance in the faculty of sign-making. In this greater reliance on the sense of sight, therefore, we probably have another among the many and complex conditions which determined the difference in respect of sign-making between the remote progenitors of man and their nearest zoological allies—a difference which would naturally become more and more pronounced the more that vision and gesticulation acted and reacted on one another.

It appears to me that this suggestion of Geiger admits of being strikingly supported by certain facts which are known to obtain in the case of deaf-mutes. Even when wholly uneducated, the born mute, as we have previously seen, habitually invents articulate sounds as his own names of things. These sounds are, of course, unheard by the mute himself, and their use must be ascribed—as I have already ascribed it—to the hereditary transmission of an acquired propensity. But the point now is that, although the majority of these articulate sounds appear to be wholly arbitrary (e.g. ga for “one,” schuppatter for “two,” riecke for “I will not”), a certain proportion are often clearly traceable to vocalizations incidental to movements of the mouth in performing the actions signified (e.g. mumm for “eating,” schipp for “drinking”).[307] Similarly, observation of a dog’s mouth, while in the act of barking, leads to an imitative action on the part of a mute as his sign for a dog, and this in turn may lead to the utterance of such an articulate sound as be-yer, which the mute afterwards uses as his name for a dog.[308] Now, if words may thus be coined even by deaf-mutes as a result of observing movements of the mouth, much more is this likely to have been the case among the “Urmenschen,” who were able not only to see the movements, but also to hear the sounds.

I will now adduce the two hypotheses above alluded to as conceivable suggestions touching the mode of transition. First, let us try to imagine an anthropoid ape, social in habits, using its voice somewhat extensively as an organ of sign-making after the manner of all other species of social quadrumana, and possibly somewhat more sagacious than the orang-outang mentioned in my previous work,[309] or the remarkable chimpanzee now in the Zoological Gardens, which, in respect of intelligence as well as comparative hairlessness and carnivorous propensities, appears to be the most human-like of animals hitherto discovered in the living state.[310] It does not seem to me difficult further to imagine that such an animal should extend the vocal signs which it habitually employs in the expression of its emotions and the logic of its recepts, to an association with gesture-signs, so as to constitute sentence-words indicative of such simple and often-repeated ideas as the presence of danger, discovery of food, &c. Nay, I do not think it is too much to suppose that such an animal may even have gone so far as to make sounds which were denotative of a few of the most familiar objects, such as food, child, enemy, &c., and also, possibly, of frequently repeated forms of activity; for this, as I have shown at considerable length, is no more than we actually observe to be done by animals which are lower in the scale of intelligence; and although it is not done by articulate signs (except in the psychologically poor instance of talking birds), this, as I have also shown, is a matter of no psychological import. Whether the denotative stage of language in the ape was first reached by articulation, or (as I think is very much more probable) by vocal sounds of other kinds assisted by gestures and grimace, is similarly immaterial. In either case the advance of intelligence which would thus have been secured would in time have reacted upon the sign-making faculty, and so have led to the extension of the vocabulary, both as to sounds and gestures. Sooner or later the vocal signs—assisted out by gestures and ever leading to a gradual advance of intelligence—would have become more or less conventional, and so, in the presence of suitable anatomical and social conditions, articulate. Thus far I cannot see anything to stumble over, when we remember all that has been said upon the conventional signs which are used by the more intelligent of our domesticated animals, and even by talking birds.[311]

This is the hypothesis which is countenanced by Mr. Darwin in his Descent of Man. He says:—“I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man’s own instinctive cries, aided by signs and gestures.... Since monkeys certainly understand much that is said to them by man, and, when wild, utter signal-cries of danger to their fellows; and since fowls give distinct warnings for danger on the ground, or in the sky from hawks (both, as well as a third cry, intelligible to dogs),[312] may not some unusually wise ape-like animal have imitated the growl of a beast of prey, and thus told his fellow-monkeys the nature of the expected danger? This would have been a first step in the formation of a language.”[313]

But Mr. Darwin adds another feature to the hypothesis now under consideration, as follows:—

“When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that primÆval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, probably first used his voice in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing, as do some of the gibbon-apes at the present day; and we may conclude, from a widely spread analogy, that this power would have been especially exerted during the courtship of the sexes,—would have expressed various emotions, such as love, jealousy, triumph,—and would have served as a challenge to rivals. It is, therefore, probable that the imitation of musical cries by articulate sounds may have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotional states.”[314]

Such, then, is one way in which it appears to me quite conceivable that the faculty of articulate sign-making might have taken the first step towards the formation of speech. But, not to go further than this first step, I can see another possibility as to the precise method of attainment, and one which I think is still more probable. It is the opinion of some authorities in anthropology that speech was probably, and comparatively speaking, late in making its appearance; so that our ancestors in whom it did first appear were already more human than simian, and as such deserving of the name Homo alalus.[315] Now, if this were the case, the course of our hypothetical history would be even more easy to imagine than it was under the supposition previously considered. For, under the present supposition, we start with an already man-like creature, erect in attitude, much more intelligent than any other animal, shaping flints to serve as tools and weapons, living in tribes or societies, and able in no small degree to communicate the logic of his recepts by means of gesture-signs, facial expressions, and vocal tones. Clearly, from such an origin, the subsequent evolution of sign-making in the direction of articulate sounds would be an even more easy matter to imagine than under the previous hypothesis. For, let us try to imagine a community of Homo alalus, considerably more intelligent than the existing anthropoid apes, although still considerably below the intellectual level of existing savages. It is certain that in such a community natural signs of voice, gesture, and grimace would be in vogue to a greater or less extent.[316] As their numbers increased (and, consequently, as natural selection laid a greater and greater premium on intelligent co-operation, as in the case of social insects),[317] such signs would require to become more and more conventional, or acquire more and more the character of sentence-words and denotative signs.[318] Now, where the signs were vocal, the only ways in which they could be developed so as to meet this need would be, (1) conventional modulations of intensity, (2) of pitch, and (3) of time-intervals. But clearly, neither modulations of intensity nor of pitch could carry improvement very far, seeing that the human voice does not admit of any great range of either. Consequently, if any improvement at all were to be effected—and it was bound to be effected, if possible, by natural selection,—it could only be so in the direction of modulating time-intervals between vocal sounds. Now, such a modulation of time-intervals is the beginning of articulation.

That is to say, the first articulation probably consisted in nothing further than a semiotic breaking of vocal tones, in a manner resembling that which still occurs in the so-called “chattering” of monkeys—the natural language for the expression of their mental states. The great difference would be that the semiotic value of such incipient articulation must have been more largely intellectual, or less purely emotional: it must have partaken less of the nature of cries, and more of the nature of names. It seems probable that, as all natural cries are given forth by the throat and larynx, with little or no assistance from the tongue and lips, these first efforts at articulation would have been mainly restricted to vowel sounds, sparsely supplemented by guttural and labial consonants. This state of matters might have lasted for an enormous length of time, during which the liquid, and lastly the lingual consonants would perhaps have begun to be used. This is the order in which we might expect the consonants to arise, in view of the consideration that the gutturals and labials would probably have admitted of more easy pronunciation than the liquids and linguals by an almost speechless Homo.[319] From this point onwards, the further development of articulation would only be a matter of time and mental growth; but I think it is highly probable that the initial stages thus sketched probably occupied a lapse of time out of all proportion to that which was afterwards required for the higher developments.

Moreover, in this connection we must not neglect to notice the “clicks” of the African Bushmen and Hottentots, which appear to furnish us with direct evidence of the survival among these low races of a primordially inarticulate system of sign-making.[320] No one has studied the languages of these peoples with so much labour or so much result as the philosophically minded Dr. Bleek, and he says that the clicks which occur in the great majority of their words, “must be made an object of special attention if we would arrive at even an approximate idea of the original vocal elements from which human language sprang.”[321]

The clicks in question are four in number, or, according to Bleek, “at least six.” They are called the dental, palatal, cerebral, and lateral. The lateral click is the same as that which is employed by our own grooms when urging a horse. The dental is also used by European races as a sound expressive of disappointment, unspeakable contempt, &c. In books it is usually written “tut, tut,” which serves to show how hopeless is any attempt at translating a click into any articulate equivalent. The other two clicks are formed by the tongue operating upon the roof of the mouth. Some remote idea of the difficulty of rendering a language of this kind into any alphabetical form, may be gained by trying to pronounce one of the words which are printed in our European treatises upon them. For example, the Hottentot word for “moon” is printed khÃp, where stands for the lateral click, kha for a guttural consonant, and for a nasal twang.

With reference to this inarticulate kind of sign-making, which thus so largely prevails among the languages of low races in close organic connection with articulate, it seems worth while to record the following observation which was communicated by Professor Haeckel to Dr. Bleek, and published by the latter in his work already quoted:—

“The language of apes has not hitherto received from zoologists the attention which it deserves, and there are no accurate descriptions of the sounds uttered by them. They are sometimes called ‘howls,’ sometimes ‘cries,’ ‘clicks,’ ‘roars,’ &c. Now, I have myself frequently heard in zoological gardens, from apes of very different species, remarkable clicking sounds, which are produced with the lips, and also, though not so often, with the tongue; but I have nowhere been able to find any account of them.”

Upon the whole, then, it appears to me extremely probable that in these clicks we have survivals, in lowly developed languages, of a formerly inarticulate condition of mankind; or, as Professor Sayce remarks from a philological point of view, “the clicks of the Bushmen still survive to show us how the utterances of speechless man could be made to embody and convey thought.”[322]

In its main outlines the hypothetical sketch which I have given follows that which Mr. Darwin has drawn in his Descent of Man. As we have already seen, however, there is this important difference. Mr. Darwin entertains only the second of the three alternative hypotheses here presented, or the hypothesis which assumes that the rudiments of articulate speech began in the “ape-like,” or “early progenitors” of man. He does not seem to have entertained the idea of Homo alalus as a connecting link between these early progenitors and Homo sapiens. I may, therefore, here briefly give my reasons for thinking it probable that this connecting link had an actual existence.

Let it be observed, in the first place, that there is no antagonism between the two hypotheses in question—the latter, indeed, being merely an extension of the former. For the latter adopts all Mr. Darwin’s views as to the importance of instinctive cries, danger-signals, &c., for the higher development of sign-making in that “ape-like animal” which was the brutal progenitor of Homo alalus.[323] Moreover, our hypothesis is entitled to assume, with Mr. Darwin’s, that this anthropoid ape was presumably not only more intelligent than any of the few surviving species, but also much more social. And this is an important point to insist upon, because it is obvious that the conditions of social life are also the prime conditions to any considerable advance upon the sign-making faculty as this occurs in existing apes. The only respect, therefore, in which the two hypotheses differ is in the one supposing that the faculty of articulate sign-making was a much later product of evolution than it is taken to have been by the other. That is to say, while Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis regards the commencement of articulation as a necessary condition to any considerable advance upon the receptual intelligence of our brutal ancestry, the present hypothesis regards it as more probable that this receptual intelligence was largely developed by gesture and vocal signs, before the latter can be said to have become properly articulate—the result being that a creature rather more human than “ape-like” was evolved, who, nevertheless, was still able to communicate with his fellows only by means of gesture-signs and vocal tones.

My reasons for regarding this hypothesis as more probable than the other are these.

First of all, on grounds of psychology, I see no reason to doubt that the receptual intelligence of an already intelligent and highly social species of anthropoid ape would admit of considerable advance upon that of any existing species without the aid of articulation—social habits making all the difference as to the development of sign-making with its consequent reaction upon mental development. Next, for these early stages of advance, I do not see that articulate sign-making would have conferred any considerable advantage over a further development of the more natural systems. For, so long as the only co-operation required had reference to comparatively simple actions, the language of tone and gesture would have admitted of sufficient development to have met all requirements. Lastly, if we take the growing child as an index of psychogenesis in the race, there can be no doubt that it points to a comparatively late origin of the faculty of articulation. Remembering the general tendency of ontogenesis to foreshorten the history of phylogenesis, it is, I think, most suggestive that—notwithstanding its readiness to imitate, and notwithstanding its being surrounded by spoken language—the infant does not begin to use articulate signs until long after it has been able to express many of its receptual ideas in the language of tone and gesture. It will be remembered that I have already laid stress upon the astonishing degree of elaboration which this form of language undergoes in the case of children who are late in beginning to speak (see pp. 220). And although it might be scarcely justifiable to take these cases as possibly representative of the semiotic language of Homo alalus (seeing that the child of to-day inherits the cerebrum of Homo sapiens); still I think it is no less certain that we should err on the opposite side, if we were to take the case of a child who is precocious in the matter of speech as a fair index of the grade of mental evolution at the time when articulation first began in the race (seeing that the history of the latter is probably foreshortened in that of the former). Yet, even if we were to do this, for the sake of argument, the result would still be most strongly to indicate that long before our remote ancestors were able to use articulate speech, they were immeasurably in advance of all existing brutes in their semiotic use of tone and gesture. For even a precocious child does not begin to make any considerable use of words as signs until it is well on into its second year, while usually this stage is not reached until the third. And, at whatever age it is reached, the general intelligence of the child is not only much in advance of that of any existing brute, but the direction in which this advance is most conspicuous is just the direction where, in the present connection, it is most suggestive—namely, in that of natural sign-making by tone and gesture.

In view, then, of these several considerations, I am disposed to think that the progress of mental evolution from the brute to the man most probably took place by some such stages as the following.

Starting from the highly intelligent and social species of anthropoid ape as pictured by Darwin, we can imagine that this animal was accustomed to use its voice freely for the expression of its emotions, uttering of danger-signals, and singing.[324] Possibly enough, also, it may have been sufficiently intelligent to use a few imitative sounds in the arbitrary way that Mr. Darwin suggests; and certainly sooner or later the receptual life of this social animal must have advanced far enough to have become comparable with that of an infant at about two years of age. That is to say, this animal, although not yet having begun to use articulate signs, must have advanced far enough in the conventional use of natural signs (or signs with a natural origin in tone and gesture, whether spontaneous only or intentionally imitative), to have admitted of a tolerably free exchange of receptual ideas, such as would be concerned in animal wants, and even, perhaps, in the simplest forms of co-operative action.[325] Next, I think it probable that the advance of receptual intelligence which would have been occasioned by this advance in sign-making, would in turn have led to a further development of the latter—the two thus acting and re-acting on one another, until the language of tone and gesture became gradually raised to the level of imperfect pantomime, as in children before they begin to use words. At this stage, however, or even before it, I think very probably vowel-sounds must have been employed in tone-language, if not also a few of the consonants. And I think this not only on account of the analogy furnished by an infant already alluded to, but also because in the case of a “singing” animal, intelligent enough to be constantly using its voice for semiotic purposes, and therefore employing a variety of more or less conventional tones, including clicks, it seems almost necessary that some of the vowel sounds—and possibly also some of the consonants—should have been brought into use. But, be this as it may, eventually the action and reaction of receptual intelligence and conventional sign-making must have ended in so far developing the former as to have admitted of the breaking up (or articulation) of vocal sounds, as the only direction in which any further improvement of vocal sign-making was possible. I think it not improbable that this important stage in the development of speech was greatly assisted by the already-existing habit of articulating musical notes, supposing our progenitors to have resembled the gibbons or the chimpanzees in this respect. But long after this first rude beginning of articulate speech, the language of tone and gesture would have continued as much the most important machinery of communication: the half-human creature now before our imagination would probably have struck us as a wonderful adept at making significant sounds and movements both as to number and variety; but in all probability we should scarcely have been able to notice the already-developing germ of articulation. Nor do I believe that, if we were able to strike in again upon the history thousands of years later, we should find that pantomime had been superseded by speech. On the contrary, I believe we should find that although considerable progress had been made in the former, so that the object then before us might appear deserving of being classed as Homo, we should also feel that he must needs still be distinguished by the addition alalus. Lastly, I believe that this most interesting creature probably lived for an inconceivably long time before his faculty of articulate sign-making had developed sufficiently far to begin to starve out the more primitive and more natural systems; and I believe that, even after this starving-out process did begin, another inconceivable lapse of time must have been required for such progress to have eventually transformed Homo alalus into Homo sapiens.

It is now time to consider a branch of this hypothesis which has been suggested by the philologist Professor NoirÉ, to which allusion has already been made in an earlier chapter.[326]

Before Mr. Darwin had published his views, Professor NoirÉ had elaborated a theory of the origin of speech which was substantially the same as that which I have already quoted from the Descent of Man.[327] The only difference between the two was that, while Darwin referred the origin of articulate speech from instinctive cries, &c., to the anthropoid apes, NoirÉ referred it to a being already human. In other words, NoirÉ adopted what I have here called the third hypothesis, which assumes a speechless form of man as anterior to the existing form.[328] But, as a result of further deliberation, NoirÉ came to the conclusion that “the objects of fear and trembling and dismay are even now the least appropriate to enter into the pure, clear, and tranquil sphere of speech-thought, or to supply the first germs of it.” Accordingly, he discarded the view that these germs were to be sought in instinctive cries and danger calls, in favour of the hypothesis that articulation had its origin in sounds which are made by bodies of men when engaged in common occupations. Having already explained the elements of this Yo-he-ho theory, it will here be enough to repeat that I think there is probably some measure of truth in it; although I likewise think it self-evident that this cannot have been the only source of aboriginal speech. In what proportion this branch of onomatopoeia was concerned in the genesis of aboriginal words—supposing it to have been concerned at all—we have now no means of even conjecturing. But seeing that there are so many other sources of onomatopoeia supplied by Nature, and that these other sources are so apparent in all existing languages, while the one suggested by NoirÉ has not left a record of its occurrence in any language,—seeing these things, I conclude, as before stated, that at best the Yo-he-ho principle can be accredited with but a small proportional part in the aboriginal genesis of language.[329] Therefore, with respect to this hypothesis I have only three remarks to make: (1) that it is plainly but a special branch of the general onomatopoetic theory; (2) that, as such, it not improbably presents some measure of truth; and (3) that, consequently, it ought to be regarded—not as it is regarded by its author NoirÉ and its advocate Max MÜller, namely, as the sole explanation of the origin of speech, but—as representing only one among many other ways in which, during many ages, many communities of vociferous though hitherto speechless men may have slowly evolved the art of making articulate signs.

Probably it will be objected to this third hypothesis, in all its branches, that it amounts to a petetio principii: Homo alalus, it may be said, is Homo postulatus. To this I answer, Not so. The question raised has been raised expressly and exclusively on the faculty of conceptual speech, and it is conceded that of this faculty there can have been no earlier phase than that of articulation. Consequently, if my opponents assume that prior to the appearance of this earliest phase it is impossible that any hitherto speechless animal should have been erect in attitude, intelligent enough to chip flints, or greatly in advance of other animals in the matter of making indicative gesture-signs, assisted by vocal tones,—if my opponents assume all this, it is they who are endeavouring to beg the question. For they are merely assuming, in the most arbitrary way, that the faculty of conceptual thought is necessary in order that an animal already semi-erect, should become more erect; in order that an animal already intelligent enough to use stones for cracking nuts and opening oysters, should not only (as at present) choose the most appropriate stones for the purpose, but begin to fashion them for these or other purposes; in order that an animal already more apt than any other in the use of gesture and vocal signs, should advance considerably along the same line of psychical improvement.[330] The hypothesis that such a considerable advance might have gradually taken place, up to the psychological level supposed, may or may not be true; but, at least, it does not beg the question. The question is whether the distinctively human faculty of conceptual ideation differs in kind or in degree from the lower faculty of receptual ideation; and my present suggestion amounts to nothing more than a supposition that receptual ideation may have been developed in the animal kingdom to some such level as it reaches in a child who is late in beginning to speak.[331] If any opponent should object to this suggestion on the score of its appearing to beg the question, he must remember that this question only arises—in accordance with his own argument—at the place where the faculty of sign-making ministers to that of introspective thought. The question as to how far the lower faculties of mind admit of being developed apart from (or, as I believe, antecedent to) the occurrence of introspective thought, is obviously quite a distinct question. And it is a question that can only be answered by observation. Now, I have already shown that in the case of intelligent animals—and still more in that of a growing child—the faculties of receptual ideation do admit of being wrought up to an astonishing degree of adaptive efficiency, without the possibility of their having been in any way indebted to the distinctively human faculty of conceptual thought.

On the whole, then, it seems to me probable, on grounds of psychology alone, that the developmental history of intelligence in our race so far resembled this history in the growing child that, prior to the advent of speech, receptual ideation had attained a much higher level of perfection than it now presents in any animal—so much so, indeed, that the adult creature presenting it might well have merited the name of Homo alalus. And, as we shall see in my next volume, this inference on psychological grounds is corroborated by certain inferences which may reasonably be drawn from some other classes of facts. But in now for the present taking leave of this question, I desire again to repeat, that it has nothing to do with my main argument. For it makes no essential difference to my case whether the faculty of speech was early or late in making its first appearance. Under either alternative, so soon as the denotative stage of articulation had been reached by our progenitors in the way already sketched on its psychological side, the next stage would have consisted in an extension of denotative signs into connotative signs. As we have now seen, by a large accumulation of evidence, this extension of denotative into connotative signs is rendered inevitable through the principle of sensuous association. In other words, I have adduced what can only be deemed a superabundance of facts to prove that, in the first-talking child and even in the parrot, originally denotative names of particular objects are spontaneously extended to other objects sensuously perceived to be like in kind. And no less superabundantly have I proved that this process of connotative extension is antecedent to the rise of conceptual thought, and, therefore, to that of true denomination. The limits to which such purely receptual connotation may extend, I have shown to be determined by the degree of development which has been reached by the faculties of purely receptual apprehension. In the parrot this degree of development is but low; in the dog and monkey considerably higher (though, unfortunately, these animals are not able to give any articulate expression to their receptual apprehensions); in the child of two years it is higher still. But, as before shown, no antagonist can afford to allege that in any of these cases there is a difference of kind between the mental faculties that are respectively involved; because his argument on psychological grounds can only stand upon the basis of conceptual cognition, which, in turn, can only stand upon the basis of self-consciousness; and this is demonstrably absent in the child until long after the time when denotative names are connotatively extended by the receptual intelligence of the child itself.

Thus, there can be no reasonable question that it is psychologically possible for Homo sapiens to have had an ancestry, which—whether already partly human or still simian—was able to carry denotation to a high level of connotation, without the need of cognition belonging to the order conceptual. Whether the signs were then made by tone and gesture alone, or likewise by articulate sounds, is also, psychologically considered, immaterial. In either case connotation would have followed denotation up to whatever point the higher receptual (“pre-conceptual”) intelligence of such an ancestry was able to take cognizance of simple analogies. And this psychological possibility becomes on other grounds a probability of the highest order, so soon as we know of any independent evidence touching the corporeal evolution of man from a simian ancestry.

Now, we have already seen that pre-conceptual connotation amounts to what I have termed pre-conceptual judgment. The qualities or relations thus connotated are not indeed contemplated as qualities or as relations; but in the mere act of such a connotative classification the higher receptual intelligence is virtually judging a resemblance, and virtually predicating its judgment. Therefore I think it probable that the earliest forms of such virtual predication were those which would have been conveyed in single words. And, as we have seen in the foregoing chapters, there is abundant and wholly independent evidence to show, that this form of nascent predication continued to hold an important place until so late in the intellectual history of our race as to leave a permanent record of its occurrence in the structure of all languages now extant.

The epoch during which these sentence-words prevailed was probably immense; and, as we have before seen, far from having been inimical to gesticulation, must have greatly encouraged it—raising, in fact, the indicative phase of language to the level of elaborate pantomime. Out of the complex of sentence-words and gesture-signs thus inaugurated, grammatical forms became slowly evolved, as we know from the independent witness of philology. But long before grammatical forms of any sort began to be evolved, a kind of uncertain differentiation must have taken place in this protoplasmic material of speech, in such wise that some sentence-words would have tended to become specially denotative of particular objects, others of particular actions, states, qualities, and relations. This “primitive streak,” as it were, of what was afterwards to constitute the vertebral column of articulated language in the independent yet mutually related “parts of speech,” must in large measure have owed its development to gesture. Now, by this time, gesture itself must already have acquired an elementary kind of syntax, such as belongs even to semiotic movements of an infant who happens to be late in beginning to speak.[332] This elementary kind of syntax would necessarily be taken over by, or impressed upon, the growing structure of speech, at all events so far as the principles and the order of apposition were concerned. Moreover, this sign-making value of apposition would at the same time have been promoted within the sphere of articulate signs themselves. For, as we have previously seen, as soon as words become in any measure denotative, they immediately begin to undergo a connotative extension;[333] and with this progressive widening of signification, words require to be more and more frequently used in apposition. Quite independently of any as yet non-existing powers of introspective thought, the external “logic of events” must have constantly determined such apposition of receptually connotative terms, as we have already so fully seen in the case of the growing child. Thus the conditions were laid for the tripartite division—the genitive case, the adjective, and the verb. Not till long subsequent ages, however, would this division have taken place in its fulness. During the time which we are now contemplating, there could have been no distinction at all between the genitive case and the adjective; neither could there have been any verbs as independent parts of speech. Nevertheless, already some of the denotative signs would have been used as names of particular objects, others of particular qualities, and yet others of particular actions, states, and relations. Not yet deserving to be regarded as fully differentiated parts of speech, these object-words, quality-words, &c., would have resembled those with which we are all well acquainted in nursery language, and which still survive, in a remarkably large measure, among many dialects of a low order of development. Now, as soon as these denotative names became at all fixed in meaning within the limits of the same community, those which respectively signified objects, qualities, actions, states, and relations, must necessarily have been often used in apposition; and, as often as they were thus used, would have constituted nascent or pre-conceptual propositions.

The probability certainly is that immense intervals of time would have been consumed in the passage through these various grades of mental evolution; but when we remember the great importance of this kind of evolution to the species which had once begun to travel in that direction, we cannot wonder that survival of the fittest should have placed a high premium upon the instrument of its attainment—or, in other words, that the faculty of sign-making, when once happily started, should have been successively pushed onwards through ascending grades of efficiency, so that it should soon become as unique in the mammalian series as, for analogous reasons, are the flying powers of the Chiroptera. But however long or however short the time may have been that was required for our early progenitors to pass from one of these stages of sign-making to another, so soon as the denotative name of an object was brought into apposition with the denotative name of a quality or an action, so soon was there uttered the virtual statement of a virtual judgment, even though the mind which formed it was very far indeed from being able either to think about its judgment as a judgment, or to state a truth as true.

Thus we perceive that two different principles were presumably concerned in the genesis of what I have called pre-conceptual predication. The first consists in the natural and inevitable extension of denotative into connotative terms, through the force of merely receptual association. The second consists in the no less natural and inevitable apposition of denotative terms themselves, whereby a receptually perceived relation is virtually—though not conceptually—predicated as subsisting between the objects, qualities, states, actions, or relations which are denoted. Of course it is evident that these two modes of development must have mutually assisted one another: the more that denotative signs underwent connotative extension, the greater must have been their predicative value when used in apposition; and the more frequently denotative signs were used in apposition, the greater must have become the extension of their connotative value.

Lastly, it is desirable throughout all this hypothetical discussion to remember that we have the positive evidence of philology touching two points of considerable importance. The first point is that, as in the aboriginal sentence-words there was no differentiation of, or distinction between, subject and predicate; so, until very late in the evolution of predicative utterance, there was—and in very many languages still continues to be—an absence of the copula. Nay, even the substantive verb, which has been unwittingly confounded with the copula by some of my opponents, was also very late in making its appearance.

The second point is that, although “pronominal elements”—or verbal equivalents of gesture-signs indicative of space-relations—were among the earliest of verbal differentiations, it was not until after Æons of ages had elapsed that any pronouns arose as specially indicative of the first person.[334] Now, this point I consider one of prime importance. For it furnishes us with direct evidence of the fact that, long after mankind had begun to speak, and even long after they had gained considerable proficiency in the art of articulate language, the speakers still continued to refer to themselves in that same kind of objective phraseology as is employed by a child before the dawn of self-consciousness. This, of course, is what on antecedent or theoretical grounds we should infer must have been the case; but it is surely a matter of great moment that our inference on this point should admit of such full and independent verification at the hands of philological research. As we have now so repeatedly seen, the distinction between ideas as receptual and conceptual turns upon the presence or absence of self-consciousness, in the full or introspective signification of that term. And, as we have likewise seen, the outward and visible sign of this inward and spiritual grace is given in the subjective use of pronominal words. But if these things admit of no question in the case of an individual human mind—if in the case of the growing child the rise of self-consciousness is demonstrably the condition to that of conceptual thought,—by what feat of logic can it be possible to insinuate that in the growing psychology of the race there may have been conceptual thought before there was any true self-consciousness? Obviously this cannot be insinuated without denying those identical principles of psychology on which my opponents themselves rely. Will it, then, be said that the criterion of self-consciousness which is valid for a child is not valid for the race—that although in the former the rise of self-consciousness is marked by the change from objective to subjective phraseology, in the latter a precisely similar change is not to be accredited with a similar meaning? If this were to be suggested, it would not merely be quite gratuitous as a suggestion, but directly opposed to the whole of an otherwise perfectly parallel analogy. In point of fact, then, there is obviously no escape from the conclusion that in the race, as in the individual, the development of true, or “inward,” from receptual, or “outward,” self-consciousness was a gradual process; that its birth in the former is not merely a matter of inference—overpowering though this inference be,—but a matter of actual fact which is recorded in the archives of Language itself; and, therefore, that the central question upon which the whole of the present treatise has been engaged cannot any longer be regarded as an open question. It has been closed, part by part, as the witness of philology has verified, stage by stage, the results of our psychological analysis; and now, eventually, the verification has extended to the central core of the matter, revealing in all its naked simplicity the one decisive fact, that in the childhood of the world, no less than in that of the man, we may see the fundamental change from sense to thought: in the one as in the other do we behold that—

“As he grows he gathers much,

And learns the use of ‘I,’ and ‘me,’
And finds ‘I am not what I see,

And other than the things I touch.’

“So rounds he to a separate mind

From whence clear memory may begin,
As thro’ the frame that binds him in

His isolation grows defined.”