T^-J^ ME XT A L EVOLUTION IX MAX. 



properly articulate — the result being that a creature rather 

 more human than " ape-like " was evolved, who, nevertheless, 

 was still able to communicate with his fellows only by means 

 of gesture-signs and vocal tones. 



Aly reasons for regarding this hypothesis as more probable 

 than the other are these. 



First of all, on grounds of psychology, I .see no reason to 

 doubt that the reccptual intelligence of an already intelligent 

 and highly social species of anthropoid ape would admit 

 of considerable advance upon that of any existing species 

 without the aid of articulation — social habits making all the 

 difference as to the development of sign-making with its 

 consequent reaction upon mental development. Next, for 

 these early stages of advance, I do not see that articulate 

 sign-making would have conferred any considerable advantage 

 over a further development of the more natural systems. 

 For, so long as the only co-operation required had reference 

 to comparatively simple actions, the language of tone and 

 gesture would have admitted of sufficient development to 

 have met all requirements. Lastly, if we take the growing 

 child as an index of psychogenesis in the race, there can 

 be no doubt that it points to a comparatively late origin 

 of the faculty of articulation. Remembering the general 

 tendency of ontogenesis to foreshorten the history of phylo- 

 genesis, it is, I think, most suggestive that — notwithstanding 

 its readiness to imitate, and notwithstanding its being 

 surrounded by spoken language — the infant does not begin 

 to use articulate signs until long after it has been able to 

 express many of its receptual ideas in the language of tone 

 and gesture. It will be remembered that I have already laid 

 stress upon the astonishing degree of elaboration which this 

 form of language undergoes in the case of children who are 

 late in beginning to speak (see pp. 220). And although it 

 might be scarcely justifiable to take these cases as possibly 

 representative of the semiotic language of Homo alalus 

 (seeing that the child of to-day inherits the cerebrum of 

 Homo sapiens) ; still I think it is no less certain that we 



