374 ORGANIC GROWTH 



not sufficiently delicate. It is true of course that the develop- 

 ment of speech causes modifications in the brain and nervous 

 system, but primarily only such modifications as relate directly 

 to speech, and only at a later time those which are connected 

 with the higher mental development made possible by speech. 

 If not only is our highly-evolved language derived from a 

 simple sound-language, but there are at the present day 

 tribes who have never advanced beyond the latter stage, then 

 no fundamental distinction exists between the language 

 formed by the voices of animals and human speech. It 

 depends, as I have said, merely on the structure of the larynx 

 that the animals most nearly related to man have no well- 

 developed vocal language. Such animals contrive to make 

 themselves understood in other ways ; the apes convey a great 

 deal of meaning by facial expression, while insects, e.g. the 

 Hymenoptera, especially the ants, have evidently a highly- 

 evolved means of communication in the tactile language of 

 their antennae. 



But if the development of speech depends on the structure 

 of the larynx, we ought to be able to point out evident ana- 

 tomical differences in this organ even among different races of 

 men. This objection I have often heard expressed by 

 eminent philologists, with the addition, " But nothing of 

 the kind has ever been found ; " whence it was then concluded 

 that the structure of the larynx has nothing to do with the 

 origin of dialects or with the evolution of language. It is 

 quite true that nothing of the kind has been found ; but to 

 anatomists and physiologists such a discovery is not neces- 

 sary to enable them to ascribe the modifications of language 

 essentially to anatomical causes, in other words, to the 

 acquisition and inheritance of anatomical and physiological 

 peculiarities depending on habitual use. Schleicher takes 

 exactly the same view of this question as myself, and in 

 quoting his words I am brought back to a subject already 



