324 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



does elect to argue thus, the following brief considerations 

 will effectually dislodge him. 



If the term " predication " is extended from a conceptual 

 proposition to a sentence-word, it thereby becomes deprived 

 of that distinctive meaning upon which alone the whole 

 argument of my opponents is reared. For, when used by a 

 young child (or primitive man), sentence-words require to be 

 supplemented by gesture-signs in order to particularize their 

 meaning, or to complete the " predication." But, where such 

 is the case, there is no longer any psychological distinction 

 between speaking and pointing : if this is called predication, 

 then the predicative "category of language" has become 

 identified with the indicative : man and brute are conceded to 

 be " brothers." 



Take an example. At the present moment I happen to 

 have an infant who has not yet acquired the use of any one 

 articulate word. Being just able to toddle, he occasionally 

 comes to grief in one way or another ; and when he does so 

 lie seeks to communicate the nature of his mishap by means 

 of gesture-signs. To-day, for instance, he knocked his head 

 against a table, and forthwith ran up to me for sympathy. On 

 my asking him where he was hurt, he immediately touched 

 the part of his head in question — i.e. indicated the painful 

 spot. Now, will it be said that in doing this the child was 

 predicating the seat of injury ? If so, all the distinctive 

 meaning which belongs to the term predicating, or the only 

 meaning on which my opponents have hitherto relied, is 

 discharged. The gesture-signs which are so abundantly 

 employed by the lower animals would then also require to be 

 regarded as predicatory, seeing that, as before shown at con- 

 siderable length, they differ in no respect from those of the 

 still speechless infant. 



Therefore, whether my opponents allow or disallow the 

 quality of predication to sentence-words, alike and equally 

 this argument collapses. Their only logical alternative is to 

 vacate their argument altogether ; no longer to maintain that 

 "Speech is the Rubicon of Mind," but to concede that, as 



