526 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



to enable the beast to reach a certain pinnacle is estimated 

 beforehand, and the proper orders given to the various muscles 

 which come into play. Any mistake or miscalculation as to the 

 weight to be moved, the direction of the movement, or the 

 momentum to be reckoned with would often mean instant death. 

 Now we cannot conceive any such mathematical process without 

 certain standard units of value, but how our nervous systems 

 work it out no one can say. Plainly such sums are continually 

 in progress whenever we move, and must be, even in their 

 simpler forms, infinitely more complex than anything attempted 

 by our astronomers in reckoning and foretelling the movements 

 of the heavenly bodies. The whole thing, whilst obvious as 

 our own existence, is so bewildering and mysterious that the 

 theological mazes in which the old School-men loved to lose 

 themselves are mere child's play in comparison. 



Our words at the best are a mere scratch pack of artificial 

 noises gathered by hook and by crook from all sorts of sources 

 during our progress from brute to man. The inward expres- 

 sions that they lamely stand for we know within ourselves 

 perfectly well, but can explain to others only a little better than 

 the dumb things about us. Whether any other method will be 

 ever found of tapping the wondrous mental reservoir by conduits 

 less continually choked by our imperfections of expression one 

 can only guess. Thought transference seems to offer the most 

 promise, if it ever can be better understood and got under control. 

 Should, however, such a consummation ever be reached it seems 

 certain that we should be put en rapport with those fellow- 

 creatures which we at present call dumb to an extent which it is 

 difficult to conceive. For the " unknown tongue " is probably 

 one and the same throughout nature. Here is a philosophic 

 possibility which writers of stories such as The Jungle Book 

 have often imagined, where the hero, generally a child, learns 

 the language of the beasts and the birds and is able to foregather 

 with them as one of themselves. 



So much for a speculation which at present I fear is as 

 profitless as it is fascinating — let us turn again to things more 

 material and within our reach. 



Human speech, whatever it was originally based upon, re- 

 quires certain bodily machinery to give it utterance, and there 

 are not wanting many perfectly clear and tangible evidences 

 which, from the writer's point of view, show how the develop- 



