374 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



books it is usually written "tut, tut," which serves to show 

 how hopeless is any attempt at translating a click into any 

 articulate equivalent. The other two clicks are formed by 

 the tongue operating upon the roof of the mouth. Some 

 remote idea of the difficulty of rendering a language of this 

 kind into any alphabetical form, may be gained by trying to 

 pronounce one of the words which are printed in our European 

 treatises upon them. For example, the Hottentot word for 

 " moon " is printed || khdp, where |1 stands for the lateral click, 

 kha for a guttural consonant, and • for a nasal twang. 



With reference to this inarticulate kind of sign-making, 

 which thus so largely prevails among the languages of low 

 races in close organic connection with articulate, it seems 

 worth while to record the following observation which was 

 communicated by Professor Haeckel to Dr. Bleek, and 

 published by the latter in his work already quoted :— 



"The language of apes has not hitherto received from 

 zoologists the attention which it deserves, and there are no 

 accurate descriptions of the sounds uttered by them. They 

 are sometimes called 'howls,' sometimes 'cries,' 'clicks,' 

 'roars,' &c. Now, I have myself frequently heard in 

 zoological gardens, from apes of very different species, 

 remarkable clicking sounds, which are produced with the lips, 

 and also, though not so often, with the tongue ; but I have 

 nowhere been able to find any account of them." 



Upon the whole, then, it appears to me extremely probable ' 

 that in these clicks we have survivals, in lowly developed 

 languages, of a formerly inarticulate condition of mankind ; 

 or, as Professor Sayce remarks from a philological point of 

 view, " the clicks of the Bushmen still survive to show us how 

 the utterances of speechless man could be made to embody 

 and convey thought." * 



In its main outlines the hypothetical sketch which I have 

 given follows that which Mr. Darwin has drawn in his Descent 



• Introduction, ^c, ii., 302 : by " thought " of course he means what I mean 

 by recepts. 



