RELATION OF TONE AND GESTURE TO WORDS. 1 47 



under the more serious defect of not being so precise, and the 

 still more serious defect of not being so serviceable as spoken 

 language in the development of abstraction. We have 

 previously seen how words, being more or less purely con- 

 ventional as signs, are not tied down, as it were, to material 

 objects ; although they have doubtless all originated as 

 expressive of sensuous perceptions, not being necessarily 

 ideographic, they may easily pass into signs of general ideas, 

 and end by becoming expressive of the highest abstrac- 

 tions. "Words are thus the easily manipulated counters of 

 thought," and so, to change the metaphor, are the progeny of 

 generalization. But gestures, in being always more or less 

 ideographic, are much more closely chained to sensuous 

 perceptions ; and, therefore, it is only when exercised on 

 " familiar subjects " that they can fairly be said to rival words 

 as a means of expression, while they can never soar into the 

 thinner medium of high abstraction. No sign-talker, with 

 any amount of time at his disposal, could translate into the 

 language of gesture a page of Kant. 



Let it be observed that I am here speaking of gesture- 

 language as we actually find it. What the latent capabilities 

 of such language may be is another question, and one with 

 reference to which speculation is scarcely calculated to prove 

 profitable. Nevertheless, as the subject is not altogether 

 without importance in the present connection, I may quote 

 the following brief passage from a recent essay by Professor 

 Whitney. After remarking that " the voice has won to itself 

 the chief and almost exclusive part in communication," he 

 adds : — 



"This is not in the least because of any closer connection 

 of the thinking apparatus with the muscles that act to 

 produce audible sounds than with those that act to produce 

 visible motions ; not because there are natural uttered names 

 for conceptions, any more than natural gestured names. It 

 is simply a case of * survival of the fittest,' or analogous to 

 the process by which iron has become the exclusive material 

 of swords, and gold and silver for money : because, namely, 



