154 THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE. 



to displace the older view of the origin of speech. 

 That Language should be outside a law whose univer- 

 sality is being established with every step of progress, 

 is itself improbable; and now that the field is being 

 exhaustively explored the proofs that it is no excep- 

 tion multiply on every side. The living interest the 

 mere suggestion gives to the study of Language is 

 obvious. Evolution enters no region — dull, neglected, 

 or remote — of the temple of knowledge without trans- 

 forming it. Philology, since this wizard touched it, 

 has become one of the most entrancing of the sciences. 

 And Language, from a study which interested only a 

 few specialists, is disclosed as one vast palimpsest, 

 every word and phrase luminous with the inner mind 

 and soul of the past. To penetrate far into this 

 tempting region is beyond our province now. The 

 immediate object is to give a simple sketch of the 

 possible conditions which first led Man to speak; of 

 the principles which apparently guided the formation 

 of his early vocabulary ; and of the gradual refining of 

 the means of intercommunication between him and his 

 fellow-men as time passed on. Instead of beginning 

 with words, therefore, we shall begin with Man. For 

 the first condition for understanding the Evolution of 

 Speech is that we take it up as a study from the life, 

 that we place ourselves in the primeval forest with 

 early Man, in touch with the actual scenes in which 

 he lived, and note the real experiences and necessities 

 of such a lot. We may indeed discover in this re- 

 search small trace of a miraculous inbreathing of 

 formal words. But to make Speech and fit it into 

 a man, after all is said, is less miraculous than to fit a 

 man to make Speech. 





