370 



MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



But Mr. Darwin adds another feature to the hypothesis 

 now under consideration, as follows : — 



"When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that 

 primaeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, 

 probably first used his voice in producing true musical 

 cadences, that is in singing, as do some of the gibbon-apes 

 at the present day; and we may conclude, from a widely 

 spread analogy, that this power would have been especially 

 exerted during the courtship of the sexes, — would have 

 expressed various emotions, such as love, jealousy, triumph, — 

 and would have served as a challenge to rivals. It is, there- 

 fore, probable that the imitation of musical cries by articulate 

 sounds may have given rise to words expressive of various 

 complex emotional states." * 



Such, then, is one way in which it appears to me quite 

 conceivable that the faculty of articulate sign-making might 

 have taken the first step towards the formation of speech. 

 But, not to go further than this first step, I can see another 

 possibility as to the precise method of attainment, and one 

 which I think is still more probable. It is the opinion of 

 some authorities in anthropology that speech was probably, 

 and comparatively speaking, late in making its appearance ; 

 so that our ancestors in whom it did first appear were 

 already more human than simian, and as such deserving of 

 the name Homo alalus.\ Now, if this were the case, the 



• Descent of Man, p. 87. 



t This term is used by Haeckel as synonymous with Pithecanthyopoi, or the 

 ape-like men, who are supposed to have immediately preceded HotJio sapiens 

 {History of Evolution, English trans., vol. ii., p. 293). In the next instalment of 

 work I will consider what has to be said in favour of this view from the side of my 

 anthropology. Meanwhile, it is sufficient to bear in mind that, as previously 

 stated, great as is the psychological difference introduced by the faculty of speech, 

 for the attainment of this faculty anatomical changes so minute as to be 

 imperceptible were all that seem to have been required. *' The argument, that 

 because there is an immense difference between a man's intelligence and an ape's, 

 therefore there must be an equally immense difference between their brains, 

 appears to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by which one should 

 endeavour to prove that, because there is a * great gulf between a watch that 

 keeps accurate time and another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great 



