REASON AND DIVERS TONGUES. 263 



articulate sign-making," he tells us that in it this phase 

 " does not appear to be either so marked, or important, 

 or, comparatively speaking, of such prolonged duration 

 as it was [!] in the development of speech in the race." 

 Yet he is really sustained by nothing but an a priori 

 prejudice as to what he thus dogmatically says " wasT 

 His feeling is based on the notion that the ontogeny 

 of the individual in zoology is a guide to the phylogeny 

 of the race which it represents in a much shortened form. 

 This zoological fact, however, if certainly a fact, is not 

 at all a constant one. Often, e.g., in the metamorphoses 

 of some insects, special adaptations are interposed, and 

 often, e.g., in spiders, the process is an exceedingly direct 

 one. We cannot, therefore, be sure that the development 

 of the child is a contraction of that of the race. Mr. 

 Romanes contends with much reason that infants who 

 do not seem to use distinct parts of speech nevertheless 

 mean them, and in their own way do virtually use them. 

 He takes as instances * the before-cited childish ex- 

 pressions, "Ot" = "This milk is hot;" " Dow " = "My 

 plaything is down ; " " Dit ki " = " Sister is crying ; " 

 "Dit dow ga" = " Sister is down on the grass." He 

 says, " In all these cases it is evident that the child is 

 displaying a true perception of the different functions 

 which severally belong to the different parts of speech " 

 Of course Mr. Romanes means a practical perception, 

 i.e. that the child consciously, but without reflex con- 

 sciousness, tries to express meanings, the perfect ex- 

 pression of which would require parts of speech, and so 

 instinctively and meaningly uses its imperfect terms as 



* p. 328. 



