112 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



play and festivity signs and gestures exercise an im- 

 portant role. There is the constant desire to share with 

 one's fellows the excitement of certain novel sensations, 

 the desire to communicate emotions of joy or surprise. 

 If we can explain how the signs of ideas became objects 

 of contemplation, movable types, names, we can under- 

 stand how gesture language was converted into speech. 

 One of the most interesting explanations of the origin 

 of articulate speech was advanced some years ago by 

 Dr. Donovan. He says, "The origin of speech was only 

 possible through the aid of the psychological machinery 

 which belonged to musical pleasure." 12 The argument 

 runs that the communal spirit finds its first and rudest 

 expression in bodily play excitement. In its earliest dis- 

 covered forms this rude expression has become the custom 

 of festal celebration, the constant elements of which are 

 bodily play movements in imitation of actions, rhythmic 

 beating, some approach to song, and the social interest. 

 Professor Giddings says, "The argument, therefore, is 

 well founded, that under the mental exaltation of such 

 occasions, rather than under less stimulating circum- 

 stances, attention would be fixed upon vocal sounds used 

 as signs, and the conclusion is warranted that it was un- 

 der the stimulation of social excitement that signs were 

 first distinguished in thought from the things signified, 

 and so conventionalized as names, the movable types of 

 speech." 13 



The attainment of articulate speech made human na- 

 ture, with all its richness of content and refinement of 

 feeling. As the consequence of group life and experi- 



12 Donovan, "The Festal Origin of Human Speech," Mind, vol. xvi, no, 

 3, Oct., 1891, p. 499. 



3 Giddings, op. cit., p. 225. 



