REASON AND THE INFANT. 219 



sign-making " is precisely identical with the correspond- 

 ing phases of indicative sign-making in the lower ani- 

 mals " ! As if similar external movements may not be 

 due to very different internal causes, as in this case 

 the diverse results of the outcome of gesture-develop- 

 ment proves them to have been. A man, a monkey, 

 and a toy automaton may take off the hat ; but that 

 material sign of salutation is fundamentally different 

 in each case. Dogs beg for water, and pull dresses 

 to open doors, and so far the movements of some young 

 children, of course, do to a certain extent resemble them ; 

 but no one who will look into the eyes of such a child 

 can well fail to note therein an expression of meaning 

 and intelligence which not the keenest desires or emo- 

 tions of a brute will impart to its organs of sight.* But 

 even if this difference did not exist, the diverse outcome 

 is enough to make known an original difference of 

 nature. 



Strongly, then, do we deny Mr. Romanes's assertion f 

 that "so far as the earliest phase of language is con- 

 cerned, no difference even of degree can be alleged 

 between the infant and the animal." It is wonderful 

 how he misunderstands the system of his opponents. 

 He asks,t "Will it be suggested that my daughter 

 had attained to self-consciousness . . . before she had 

 attained to the faculty of speech, and therefore to the 

 very condition to the naming of her ideas? If so, it 

 would follow that there may be concepts without names, 



* This has been repeatedly observed by me. My attention was 

 first called to the fact by the late Dr. Noble, of Manchester, 

 author of " Mind and Brain," Churchill. 



t p. 222. % p. 223, note. 



