92 LESSONS FEOM NATUEE. [CHAP. IV. 



words represented by the Sanskrit vad, to go, the Latin 

 vado, he says (Ibid. p. 195) : &quot; To this root there seems no 

 sufficient ground for assigning an imitative origin, the traces 

 of which it has at any rate lost if it ever had them.&quot; Again, 

 as to early words he says (Ibid. p. 207) : &quot; It is obvious that 

 the leading principle of their formation is not to adopt 

 words distinguished by the expressive character of their 

 sound, but to choose somehow a fixed word to answer a given 

 purpose&quot; As to the arbitrary way in which articulate words 

 are used to express sounds, and the small amount of real 

 resemblance existing between them, he tells us (Hid. p. 182) : 

 &quot; The Australian imitation of a spear or bullet striking is 

 given as toop ; to the Zulu when a calabash is beaten it says 

 boo&quot; He concludes (Ibid. p. 208) : 



&quot; I do not think that the evidence here adduced justifies the setting 

 up of what is called the Interjectional and Imitative theory as a 

 complete solution of the problem of original language. Valid as this 

 theory proves itself within limits, it would be incautious to accept a 

 hypothesis which can, perhaps, satisfactorily account for a twentieth of 

 the crude forms in any language, as a certain and absolute explanation 



of the nineteen-twentieths whose origin remains doubtful Too 



narrow a theory of the application of sound to sense may fail to include 

 the varied devices which the languages of different regions turn to 

 account. It is thus with the distinction in meaning of a word by its 

 musical accent, and the distinction of distance by graduated vowels. 

 These are ingenious and intelligible [intellectiial !] contrivances, but 

 they hardly seem directly emotional or imitative in origin.&quot; 



Thus it seems that Mr. Tylor is unable to bring forward 

 any evidence of a speechless condition of man, but that he is 

 constrained to admit all available evidence points in the 

 opposite direction, and that it shows speech to be universal 

 amongst existing races. Even those abnormal and unfor 

 tunate beings the deaf-mutes are seen to be intellectually 

 endowed with language, so that they infinitely more resemble 

 a man that is gagged than they do an irrational animal. 

 The essential community intellectually existing between 

 them and us is shown by our occasional use of what Mr. 

 Tylor calls &quot; picture words,&quot; where &quot; a substantive is treated 



