42 2 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



elements afterwards became affixed to nouns and verbs, when 

 these began to be differentiated from one another ; and thus 

 various apphcations of a primitive and highly generalized 

 noun or verb were rendered by means of these elements, 

 which, as even Professor ]\Iax IMuller allows, "must be con- 

 sidered as remnants of the earliest and almost pantomimic 

 phase of language, in which language was hardly as yet what 

 we mean by language, namely logos, a gathering, but only a 

 pointing." Similarly, Professor Sayce remarks of this stage in 

 the evolution of predicative utterance — which, be it observed, 

 is precisely analogous to that occupied by a young child 

 whose highly generalized words require to be assisted by 

 gestures — " It is certain that there was a time in the history 

 of speech when articulate or semi-articulate sounds uttered 

 by primitive man were made the significant representations 

 of thought by the gestures with W'hich they were accompanied : 

 and this complex of sound and gesture — a complex in which, 

 be it remembered, the sound had no meaning apart from the 

 gesture — was the earliest sentence." Thus it was that " gram- 

 mar has grown out of gesture" — different parts of speech, 

 with the subsequent commencements of declension, conjuga- 

 tion, &c., being all so many children of gesticulation: but when 

 in subsequent ages the parent was devoured by this youthful 

 progeny, they continued to pursue an independent growth 

 in more or less divergent lines of linguistic development. 



For instance, we have abundant evidence to prove that, 

 even after articulate language had gained a firm footing, 

 there was no distinction between the nominative and genitive 

 cases of substantives, nor between these and adjectives, nor 

 even between any words as subject-words and predicate- 

 words. All these three grammatical relations required to be 

 expressed in the same way, namel}', by a mere apposition 

 of the generalized terms themselves. In course of time, how- 

 ever, these three grammatical differentiations were effected 

 by conventional changes of position between the words 

 apposed, in some cases the form of predication being 

 A B, and that of attribution or possession B A, while in 



