136 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



used to describe motion, action, and passion; speech to 

 represent the infinite variety of sounds in nature, and, 

 with some modification, the creatures or objects that pro- 

 duced the sounds. But there are many disadvantages in 

 the use of gesture as compared with speech. It requires 

 always a considerable muscular effort ; the hands and limbs 

 must be free ; an erect, or partially erect, posture is 

 needed ; there must be sufficient light ; and, lastly, the 

 communicators must be in such a position as to see each 

 other. As articulate speech is free from all these disad- 

 vantages, there would be a constant endeavour to render it 

 capable of replacing gesture ; and the most obvious way 

 of doing this would be to transfer gesture from the limbs 

 to the mouth itself, and to utilize so much of the corre- 

 sponding motions as were possible to the lips, tongue and 

 breath. These mouth-gestures, as we have seen, necessarily 

 lead to distinct classes of sounds ; and thus there arose 

 from the very beginnings of articulate speech, the use of 

 characteristic sounds to express certain groups of motions, 

 actions, and sensations which we are still able to detect 

 even in our highly-developed language, and the more 

 important of which I have here attempted to define and 

 illustrate. 



It may be well to give an example of how definite 

 words may have arisen by such a process. Each of the 

 words — air, wind, breeze, blow, blast, breathe — has to us a 

 definite meaning, and a form which seems often to have 

 nothing in common with the rest. Yet they possess the 

 common character that the essential part of each is a 

 breathing, more or less pronounced and modulated ; and at 

 first they were probably all alike expressed by a strong 

 and audible breathing or blowing. For convenience and 

 to save exertion, this would soon be modified into an 

 articulate sound or word which would enable the act of 

 blowing to be easily recognized. Then, as time went on 

 and the need arose, some one or other of the different 

 ideas comprised in the word would be separated, and this 

 would be most effectually done by the use of different 

 consonants with the same fundamental form of breathing 

 or blowing, and the distinction caused by the r and I in 



