C/IAP. III. 



Mental Powers. 



87 



leigh Wedgwood, the Eev. F. Farrar, and Prof. Schleicher, 55 and 

 the celebrated lectures of Prof. Max Miiller on the other side, 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. When we treat of sexual selection we -shall see that 

 primeval 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 expres- 

 sive of various complex emotions. The strong tendency in our 

 nearest allies, the monkeys, in microcephalous idiots, 0li and in 

 the barbarous races of mankind, to imitate whatever they hear 

 deserves notice, as bearing on the subject of imitation. Since 

 monkeys certainly understand much that is said to them l>y 

 man, and when wild, utter signal-cries of danger to their 

 fellows; 67 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), M 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 clanger ? This 

 would have been a first step in the formation of a language. 



As the voice was used more and more, the vocal organs would 

 have been strengthened and perfected through the principle of 

 the inherited effects of use ; and this would have reacted on the 

 power of speech. But the relation between the continued use of 

 language and the development of the brain, has no doubt been 

 far more important. The mental powers in some early pro- 

 genitor of man must have been more highly developed than in 



55 ' On the Origin of Language,' 

 by H. Wedgwood, 186(3. 'Chapters 

 on Language,' by the Rev. F. W. 

 farrar, 1865. These works are 

 most interesting. See also ' De la 

 phys. et de I'arole,' par Albert 

 _emoine, 1865, p. 190. The work 

 on this subject, by the late Prof. 

 Aug-. Schleicher, has been translated 

 by Dr. Bikkers into English, under 

 the title of ' Darwinism tested by 

 the Science of Language,' 1869 



56 Vogt, ' Memoire sur les Micro- 

 cephales,' 1867, p. 169. With re- 

 spect to savages, I have given some 

 facts in my ' Journal of Researches,' 

 &c, 1845, p. 206. 



57 See clear evidence on this head 

 in the two works so often quoted, 

 by Brehm and Rengger. 



38 Houzeau gives a very curious 

 account of his observations on this 

 subject in his ' Facultes Mentales 

 des Animaux,' torn, ii., p. 348. 



