534 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



ing relic is not able to offer evidence bearing upon our present 

 inquiry. 



The question as to whether the Piltdown " woman " and other 

 very early men could talk, which has been discussed a good deal 

 in the papers, seems to the writer of very little profit. We have 

 only to go among some of the more backward races of the earth 

 to find that methods of vocal communication sufficient for their 

 needs are obtained by guttural noises, hisses, grunts, and clicks 

 which involve very little use of the machinery for clear articula- 

 tion employed among ourselves. An examination of the writer's 

 collection shows, however, that wherever one has a race which 

 has risen far enough for those complex social institutions to 

 come into play which are the foundation of all civilised life and 

 which involve storytelling and oratory, a prominent chin has 

 become developed and the genial tubercles are well shown. It 

 seems more than probable that such developments from a state 

 of almost inarticulate savagery have gone on independently in 

 various parts of the world. 



It is scarcely necessary to dwell upon the influence of 

 articulate speech on human progress after civilised methods of 

 life had once been adopted. Among all the peoples of the world 

 the capable speaker has won prominence and prosperity beyond 

 his fellows, and hence would be one of the winners in the con- 

 tinual struggle which eliminated the unfit. Parliamentary 

 institutions — using the term in its broadest sense — have left their 

 mark upon the human countenance; for there seems good reason 

 for supposing that not only the lower jaw, but also the nose and 

 the cheek-bones (the hollow chambers of which have a great 

 deal to do with the resonance and quality of the voice), have 

 been shaped amid such evolutionary forces. 



A good deal of the matter discussed in the present article 

 seems to be practically virgin soil to the anthropologist, and the 

 present writer is quite prepared to find that many of his pioneer 

 efforts to get at the truth may be corrected when more capable 

 investigators give earnest attention to the subject. It appears 

 to him, however, a line of research of great promise, which may 

 enable us to glean knowledge obtainable in no other way con- 

 cerning the dark places of early human history. 



