Physical Evolution of Man 595 



and transmitting stimuli to the brain which were proenvironed 

 into the mental images that took shape on the tusks. 



So from the simian with extremely limited powers of expres- 

 sion, but with nearly upright habit, to the most primitive man 

 in whom speech was fairly evolved owing to upright habit and 

 skilled use of hand-arm; from this again to the neolithic man 

 with fair vocabulary, free upright gait, skill and rapid use of 

 hand-arm in many employments, as well as simple primitive 

 sign-writing; then to the early Chinese, Sumerian, and Egyp- 

 tian inhabitants, with good vocabulary, skillful use of hand- 

 arm in bold and equally in delicate manner, also with striking 

 pictographic writing; later to the advanced Medo-Persians, 

 Egyptians, Babylonians, Cretans, and Greeks with elaborate 

 and grammatically technical vocabulary, highly skilled use of 

 hand-arm, and condensed character writing, the stages of 

 advance as already accurately known to us are graded and 

 easy in series. Man's recent combinations of speaking, writ- 

 ing, and hand-arm action, in the elaboration of the telephone, 

 the phonograph, the grammophone, the Marconi machine, and 

 like instruments, is a high testimony to the marvelous progress 

 made by him during the past century. 



But it must be conceded that writing, which is the highest 

 art of the individual man, has been unrivaled in stirring the 

 brain to rapid action, and in drawing from it mental responses 

 that have become plans of proenvironal activity, for changing 

 the trend of national histories, the pathways of rivers, the bio- 

 logical connections of nature, and often even the relation of 

 the inorganic to the organic world. 



Noire (i9i), Geiger (192: 74), Sayce (193: II, 30^2), Darwin 

 (194), Max Mtiller (186), and Romanes (185) have all pro- 

 pounded views as to the stage at which language became 

 worthy of the name, in the higher anthroi)oid apes or in primi- 

 tive man. According to the physical basis on which tlie writer 

 has proceeded, the strong likelihood seems to be that language 

 became distinctly articulative only after, and probably a long 

 period after, the simian stage had been passed, and when con- 

 tinuous upright progression had evolved, conjointly with a 



