122 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



with such syllables as *' alia," " tata," " mama," and " papa ' 

 (with or without the reduplication) before they understand 

 the meaning of any word. One of my own children could 

 say all these syllables very distinctly at the age of eight months 

 and a half ; and I could detect no evidence at that time 

 of his understanding words, or of his having learnt these 

 syllabic utterances by imitation. Another child of mine, 

 which was very long in beginning to speak, at fourteen and a 

 half months old said once, and only once, but very distinctly 

 " Ego." This was certainly not said in imitation of any one 

 having uttered the word in her presence, and therefore I 

 mention the incident to show that meaningless articulation in 

 young children is spontaneous or instinctive, as well as 

 intentionally imitative ; for at that age the only other syllables 

 which this child had uttered were those having the long a, 

 as above mentioned. Were it necessary, I could give many 

 other instances of this fact ; but, as it is generally recognized 

 by writers on infant psychology, I need not wait to do so. 



We now come to the third of our divisions, or the under- 

 standing of articulate sounds. And this is an important matter 

 for us, because it is evident that the faculty of appreciating 

 the meaning of words betokens a considerable advance in the 

 general faculty of language. As we have before seen, tone 

 and gesture, being the natural expression of the logic of 

 recepts — and so even in their most elaborated forms being 

 intentionally pictorial, — are as little as possible conventional ; 



to the purpose. I will, therefore, furnish one quotation in evidence of the above 

 statement. " It is a very notable fact bearing upon the problem of the Origin of 

 Language, that even born-mutes, who never heard a word spoken, do of their own 

 accord and without any teaching make vocal sounds more or less articulate, to 

 which they attach a definite meaning, and which, when once made, they go on 

 using afterwards in the same unvarying sense. Though these sounds are often 

 capable of being written down more or less accurately with our ordinary alphabets, 

 this effect on those who make them can, of course, have nothing to do with the 

 sense of hearing, but must consist only in particular ways of breathing, combined 

 with particular positions of the vocal organs " (Tylor, Eai'ly History of Manki7idy 

 p. 72, where see for evidence). The instinctive articulations of Laura Bridg- 

 man (who was blind as well as deaf) are in this connection even still more 

 conclusive (see ibid.^ pp. 74, 75)1 



