588 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



when articulated by man. In order to ascertain then how the 

 simple articulation shown by some birds, mammals, and spe- 

 cially by some apes, evolved into the simplest language now 

 s])oken by man, we ought to consider the primitive or root 

 words, and the root ideas or actions back of these, and that are 

 most naturally associated with them. Here again Romanes 

 well suggests that "although gesture language is not in my 

 opinion so efficient a means of developing abstract ideation as 

 is spoken language, it must nevertheless have been of much 

 service in laying the foundation of the whole mental fabric 

 which has been constructed by the faculty of speech." Also 

 "where a vocabulary is scanty or imperfect, gesture is sure to 

 be employed as the natural means of supplementing speech." 

 Here we would again emphasize the undoubted fact that such 

 gesture-language is 'practically wholly conducted through the arm 

 and hand. 



According to eminent philologists the root words of the three 

 great types of human language amount to from 120 to about 

 500. Thus Max Miiller reduced all Sanskrit words to 121, and 

 regarding these Romanes truly remarks, a "most interesting 

 feature of a general kind which the list presents is that it is 

 composed exclusively of verbs." This peculiarity also of the 

 ultimate known roots of all languages, which shows them to 

 have been "expressive of actions and states, as distinguished 

 from objects and qualities" is important. But a most striking 

 circumstance is that of the total number about 68 to 70, or more 

 than 60 per cent., are wholly connected with motion of the hand 

 or arm. Thus to abstract the first twenty -five, of which such is 

 true, we have "dig, weave (or sew), crush (or pound), sharpen, 

 smear, scratch, divide (or share), . cut, gather, stretch, mix, 

 scatter, sprinkle, shoot (throw at), pierce (or split), join (or 

 fight), tear, smash, measure, kindle, milk, pour, separate, glean, 

 and cook." 



We need not follow the discussion into which Romanes 

 enters with Max Miiller, as to whether these were truly primi- 

 tive, or rather the selected survivors of a still more primitive 

 language in which action and objects were both named. The 



