Chap. II. THE PRINCIPLE OF ANTITHESIS. 61 



to a large extent, as Eengger asserts/ those of man. 

 An animal when going to attack another, or when afraid 

 of another, often makes itself appear terrible, by erect- 

 ing its hair, thus increasing the apparent bulk of its 

 body, by showing its teeth, or brandishing its horns, 

 or by uttering fierce sounds. 



As the power of intercommunication is certainly of 

 high service to many animals, there is no a priori im- 

 probability in the supposition, that gestures manifestly 

 of an opposite nature to those by which certain feelings 

 are already expressed, should at first have been volun- 

 tarily employed under the influence of an opposite state 

 of feeling. The fact of the gestures being now innate, 

 would be no valid objection to the belief that they 

 were at first intentional; for if practised during many 

 generations, they would probably at last be inherited. 

 Nevertheless it is more than doubtful, as we shall imme- 

 diately see, whether anv of the cases which come under 

 our present head of antithesis, have thus originated. 



With conventional signs which are not innate, such 

 as those used by the deaf and dumb and by savages, 

 the principle of opposition or antithesis has been par- 

 tially brought into play. The Cistercian monks thought 

 it sinful to speak, and as they could not avoid holding 

 some communication, they invented a gesture language, 

 in which the principle of opposition seems to have been 

 employed. 2 Dr. Scott, of the Exeter Deaf and Dumb 

 Institution, writes to me that " opposites are greatly 

 used in teaching the deaf and dumb, who have a lively 

 sense of them." Nevertheless I have been surprised 



1 ' Xaturgeschichte der Saugethiere von Paraguay,' 1830, 

 s. 55. 



2 Mr. Tylor gives an account of the Cistercian gesture- 

 language in his ' Early History of Mankind ' (2nd edit. 

 1870, p. 40), and makes some remarks on the principle of 

 opposition in gestures. 



