118 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



not have signified the idea of coming, and the word come 

 the idea of going ; the implication being that these, like 

 the great bulk of the words of every language, were pure 

 conventions and essentially meaningless : or that if they 

 once had a natural meaning it was now wholly lost and 

 undecipherable. But, Avith the cases of there and that in 

 my mind, it seemed to me clear that there was a similar 

 open-mouthed sound in go, with the corresponding mean- 

 ing of motion away from the person speaking; and this 

 view was rendered more probable on considering the word 

 with an opposite meaning, come, where we find that the 

 mouth has to be closed and the lips pressed together, or 

 drawn inwards, implying motion towards the speaker. 

 The expressiveness of these two words is so real and in- 

 telligible that a deaf person would be able to interpret the 

 mouth-gestures with great facility. The fact that words of 

 similar meaning in several other European languages are 

 equally exj^ressive, lends strong support to this view. 

 Thus for go, we have the French xct, the Italian vai, the 

 German geh, and the Anglo-Saxon gdn, all having similar 

 open-mouthed sounds ; while the corresponding words for 

 come — venez, vieni, Jcomm, and human — are all pronounced 

 with but slight movements of the mouth and lips, or even 

 with the lips closed. 



If, now, we assume that the word-gestures here described 

 afford us indications of the primitive and fundamental 

 expressiveness of what may be termed natural, as opposed 

 to mere conventional speech, we shall be prepared to find 

 that the same principle has been at work in the formation 

 of many other simple words, though in some cases its 

 application may be less obvious. We must, however, 

 always bear in mind that, though to us words are for the 

 most part mere conventions, they were not so to primitive 

 man. He had, as it were, to struggle hard to make 

 himself understood, and would, therefore, make use of 

 every possible indication of meaning afforded by the 

 positions and motions of mouth, lips, or breath, in pro- 

 nouncing each word : and he would lay stress upon and 

 exaggerate these indications, not slur them over as we do. 

 The various examples of these natural forms of speech 



