104 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



CHAPTER VI. 



TONE AND GESTURE. 



Tone and Gesture, considered as means of communication, 

 may be dealt with simultaneously. For while it cannot be 

 said that either historically or psychologically one is prior to 

 the other, no more can it be said that in the earliest phases of 

 their development one is more expressive than the other. All 

 the more intelligent of the lower animals employ both ; and 

 the hissings, spittings, growling.s, screamings, gruntings, coo- 

 ings, &c., which in different species accompany as many 

 different kinds of gesture, are assuredly not less expressive of 

 the various kinds of feelings which are expressed. Again, in 

 our own species, tone is quite as general, and, within certain 

 limits, quite as expressive as gesture. Nay, even in fully 

 developed speech, rational meaning is largely dependent for 

 its conve)-ance upon slight differences of intonation. The 

 five hundred words which go to constitute the Chinese 

 language are raised to three times that number by the use of 

 significant intonation ; and even in the most highly developed 

 languages shades of meaning admit of being rendered in this 

 way which could not be rendered in any other. 



Nevertheless, the language of tone, like the language of 

 gesture, clearly lies nearer to, and is more immediately 

 expressive of the logic of recepts, than is the language of 

 articulation. This is easily proved by all the facts at our dis- 

 posal. We know that an infant makes considerable advance 

 in the language of tone and gesture before it begins to speak; 

 and, according to Dr. Scott, who has had a large experience 



