THE LAWS OF SPEECH. 205 



the sky by printers of great strength : one interpretation of attempts 

 to teach the deaf mute, by gestures, that the Bible was believed to be 

 a revelation from God. Another deaf mute supposed that the primary 

 object of going to church was to honour the clergy a primitive 

 conception which, by the way, seems by no means an unnatural 

 thought in days when medievalism and extreme devotion to cleri- 

 calism reign rampant around us. If the deaf mute, with every claim 

 to the possession of a truly human brain and body, appears to be 

 well-nigh in the condition of the dog in the absence of abstract ideas, 

 it is not difficult to frame the important generalisation that to speech 

 the typical man owes most if not all of those qualities and traits which 

 so sharply demarcate him from lower forms of life, to which he never- 

 theless nearly approaches through the deaf mute, the idiot, and the 

 lowest savage. It is the presence of this descending ratio that gives 

 countenance to the details and ideas with which we have been 

 hitherto dealing, and in which the origin of man and man's language 

 from lower states of existence and from lower concepts of things has 

 been contended for. 



The case of Laura Bridgman, born in 1829, reported by more 

 than one authority on mental diseases, presents us with an instruc- 

 tive illustration of the growth of the power of sign-language, and of 

 the evolution of ideas to correspond therewith. When two years 

 old this girl became blind and deaf from the effects of scarlet fever, 

 her sense of smell and of taste being blunted. At seven years of 

 age she was described as of lively disposition, and was then taken 

 by Dr. Howe to Boston, U.S , where for twenty years she pursued her 

 studies, and was enabled to speak readily and rapidly by signs, to 

 read books written in the raised v characters of the blind, and to 

 write letters. In teaching her, Dr. Howe selected articles, such as a 

 pin, spoon, pen, and key, the names of which were monosyllabic. 

 Laura felt the articles, and then felt her instructor's finger, as he 

 traced the letters of the name on the raised alphabet. In this way 

 the letter-signs became familiar, and were associated with the things 

 indicated ; so that ultimately she could select the letters and place 

 them in order as the name of the object indicated. After a time 

 the principle of imitation which had hitherto alone guided her was 

 replaced by the use of written language. She began to form abstract 

 ideas, to think of the qualities and shapes of things as apart from 

 the things themselves, and hence arose the perfect exercise of a 

 language which, though spoken through signs, was nevertheless a true 

 and typically human method of using ideas and concepts as a means 

 of communication and expression. One of the most interesting 

 observations in this case was that, when asleep and dreaming, Laura 

 Bridgman spoke on her fingers, as she did when involved in a reverie 

 and when thinking alone ; such a fact demonstrating anew the conten- 



