398 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



pointed out that, in its widest signification, "language" means 

 the faculty of making signs. Next, I adopted Mr. Mivart's 

 "Categories of Language," which, when slightly added to, 

 serve to give at once an accurate and exhaustive classification 

 of every bodily or mental act with reference to which the term 

 can possibly be applied. In all there were found to be seven 

 of these categories, of which the first six are admittedly 

 common to animals and mankind. The seventh, however, is 

 alleged by my opponents to be wholly peculiar to the human 

 species. In other words, it is conceded that animals do pre- 

 sent what may be termed the germ of the sign-making faculty ; 

 but it is denied that they be able, even in the lowest degree, 

 to make signs of an intellectual kind — i.e. of a kind which 

 consists in the bestowing of names as marks of ideas. Brutes 

 are admittedly able to make signs to one another — and also 

 to man — with the intentional purpose of conveying such ideas 

 as they possess ; but, it is alleged, no brute is able to name 

 these ideas, either by gestures, tones, or words. Now, in 

 order to test this allegation, I began by giving a number of 

 illustrations which were intended to show the level that is 

 reached by the sign-making faculty in brutes ; next I con- 

 sidered the language of tone and gesture as this is exhibited 

 by man ; then I proceeded to investigate the phenomena 

 of articulation, the relation of tone and gesture to words ; 

 and, lastly, the psychology of speech. Not to overburden 

 the present summary, I will neglect all the subordinate 

 results of this analysis. The main results, however, were that 

 the natural language of tone and gesture is identical wherever 

 it occurs ; but that even when it becomes conventional (as it 

 may up to a certain point in brutes), it is much less efficient than 

 articulate language as an agency in the construction of ideas ; 

 and, therefore, that the psychological line between brute and 

 man must be drawn, not at language, or sign-making in 

 general, but at that particular kind of sign-making which we 

 understand by "speech." Nevertheless, the real distinction 

 resides in the intellectual powers ; not in the symbols thereof. 

 So that a man means, it matters not by what system of 



