ARTICULATION. 123 



but words, being coined expressly for the subservience of 

 concepts, are always less graphic, and usually arbitrary. 

 Therefore, although it would of course be wrong to say that 

 a higher faculty is required to learn the arbitrary association 

 between a particular verbal sound and a particular act or 

 phenomenon, than is required to depict an abstract idea in 

 gesture ; this only shows that where higher faculties are 

 present, they are able to display themselves in gesture as well as 

 in speech. The consideration which I now wish to present is 

 that understanding a word implies (other things equal, or 

 supposing the gesture not to be so purely conventional as a 

 word) a higher development of the sign-making faculty than 

 does the understanding of a tone or gesture— so that, for 

 instance, if an animal were to understand the word " Whip," 

 it would show itself more intelligent in appreciating signs than 

 it would by understanding the gesture of threatening as with 

 a whip. 



Now, the higher animals unquestionably do understand the 

 meanings of words ; idiots too low in the scale themselves to 

 speak are in the same position ; and infants learn the signifi- 

 cation of many articulate sounds long before they begin them- 

 selves to utter them.* In all these cases it is of course im- 

 portant to distinguish between the understanding of words 

 and the understanding of tones ; for, as already observed, both 

 in the animal kingdom and in the growing child it is evident 

 that the former represents a much higher grade of mental 

 evolution than does the latter— a fact so obvious to common 

 observation that I need not wait to give illustrations. But 

 although the fact is obvious, it is no easy matter to distinguish 

 in particular cases whether the understanding is due to an 

 appreciation of words, to that of tones, or to both combined. 



* Writers on infant psychology differ as to the time when words are first 

 understood by infants. Doubtless it varies in individual cases, and is always more 

 or less difficult to determine with accuracy. But all observers agree— and every 

 mother or nurse could corroborate— that the understanding of many words and 

 sentences is unmistakable long before the child itself begins to speak. Mr. Dar- 

 win's observations showed that in the case of his children the understanding of 

 words and sentences was unmistakable between the tenth and twelfth months. 



