Earliest Man 



123 



man's existence on the earth. ... In 

 the beginning, when man first seized a 

 stone to help him get through some hard 

 or stony ground in burrowing for roots, 

 he was scarcely out of the purely simian 

 stage. His brain was small, the fore- 

 part undeveloped, and his jaws massive. 

 Long before the end of the stone age, 

 indeed before the end of the paleolithic 

 age, he emerges a complete man, the true 

 Homo sapiens." 



The paleolithic age marks the time 

 when man acquired added skill in mak- 

 ing stone implements. Many other 

 rude arts, such as pottery and weaving, 

 must have been acquired at about this 

 time, Mr. Migeod thinks. It was a 

 period of rapid mental development: 

 "This would entail his power of speech 

 developing too. When at length the 

 end of the paleolithic age came, it may 

 be accepted that m.an's speech was 

 sufficiently developed to be recognizable 

 as the speech of Homo sapiens as it 

 might be at the present day among the 

 less advanced people of the earth who 

 are without a literature. 



"That this is so is shown unmistakably 

 by the advanced stage of all the arts at 

 the end of the paleolithic age in Europe. 

 All the then existing arts indicate co- 

 operation and a multitude of social 

 activities. None of them could have 

 had their existence without a ready 

 means of vocal communication; and 

 terms would already have been invented 

 that would cover every conceivable 

 subject in the sphere of man's compre- 

 hension in those ages. 



"Eolithic man was left behind as 

 scarcely a true man yet. He was at 

 best Homo primigenius, not Homo 

 sapiens. During the paleolithic age he 

 became the latter. 



HOW SPEECH BEGAN 



"It will be useful to consider what 

 can have been the primary moving 

 cause of the production of speech. This 

 is, in the writer's opinion, the same as 

 that which has originated the arts, and 

 that is the instinct inherent in all living 

 things, whether of the animal or vegetable 

 world, to propagate their species. 



"It is this instinct that makes plant 

 life one season of the year put on its most 

 vivid dress. It is this same instinct 



which makes living things do the same. 

 At the breeding season male birds put 

 on their most brilliant and gorgeous 

 phmiage. Various animals, too, have 

 given to them some change in their 

 appearance. It is at the spring, or 

 corresponding period of the year ac- 

 cording to the latitude, that this new 

 energy pervades the world. Animals 

 which at other times of the year have 

 no instinct except to feed themselves, 

 at this particular season develop new 

 faculties. Some birds know all at once 

 how to build the most elaborate nests for 

 the expected new generation. Many 

 animals begin to look for comfortable 

 homes where their young can be reared 

 in safety; and, above all, their voices 

 are heard as they are heard at no other 

 season of the year. 



"Now what is the nature of the sounds 

 that come from all these birds and ani- 

 mals? There is a school of thought 

 that tries to reduce all human speech to 

 original roots, and to find a minimum of 

 basal roots that they can point to as the 

 first beginnings of human speech. It 

 would seem, however, that there is 

 something wrong there and out of 

 harmony with the observed facts relat- 

 ing to animal life in general, and to 

 simians in particular. One hears mono- 

 syllabic utterances, if such they can be 

 called, proceeding from animals, it is 

 true. Much more commonly it is a 

 complex or polysyllabic sound, largely 

 influenced by tones. Monosyllabic 

 sounds cannot, of course, be absent, for 

 the simple reason that if there are sounds 

 of two or three syllables it is hard not to 

 conceive a monosyllable possible. Such 

 monosyllables are interjections or com- 

 mands, and are entirely non-descriptive, 

 such as may be the multiple utterances 

 of which so many animals are capable. 

 As to what these multiple sounds mean, 

 man has, of course, but little means of 

 knowing, any more than he knows a 

 strange language on first hearing it. The 

 fact remains, however, that one or more 

 ideas are conveyed to another being of 

 the same species. The unit of predica- 

 tive speech is therefore a compound or 

 multiple utterance, or in other words a 

 complete phrase. 



"It may perhaps be assumed that 

 cries to his mate would be the first form 



