228 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



what lie saw here an hour ago, or what is to be found there 

 beyond the range of the eye. Because in early times speech thus 

 placed the experience of one man at the service of other men, 

 the possessors of this matchless power could, if they chose, exert 

 deadly rivalry against their mute next of kin, and either anni- 

 hilate them, or banish them to sterile wilds, or degrade them to 

 servitude. What is probable here is probable in other fields of 

 struggle, and we have a hint as to why connecting links in the 

 plexus of organic life are either very rare or wholly lacking. 

 The introduction of a radically new weapon, or tool, would so re- 

 double the strength of the creature able to grasp and wield it 

 that its war on competitors would end so soon as to leave scarcely 

 a relic on the field. 



Speech led to another great achievement when it called to its 

 aid the carved or painted symbol, the word-picture, and at last 

 the alphabet. Then the recorder, the priest, the teacher, was no 

 longer a mere speaker who had to be present when he told his 

 story. Ages after his death, his annals, prophecies, parables, re- 

 mained to be read, to echo his voice and this perhaps on shores 

 many leagues remote from the penman's home or grave. Knowl- 

 edge could now be accumulated as never before, for every man 

 could begin where the experience of his predecessors had left off. 

 The culmination of this mighty art issues to-day in two wonderful 

 instruments the phonograph, which bids the spoken word record 

 and repeat itself with all its characteristic tones ; the camera, 

 which instantly limns all the eye can see and more, which prints 

 much that the tongue and the pen must leave unsaid. In a mas- 

 terly discussion of the origin of languages and the antiquity of 

 speaking man, Mr. Horatio Hale concludes that the acquirement 

 of speech dates back but eight to ten thousand years. He credits 

 speech and writing with the sudden and wonderful flowering of 

 human genius which developed in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, 

 Northern India, and China a high and varied civilization, whose 

 memorials, in their works of art and literature, astonish us at this 

 day, and in some respects defy imitation.* 



To paint and to write implies a free and supple hand ; gesture, 

 upon which philologists are substantially agreed that primitive 

 speech largely depended, requires the like freedom of hand and 

 arm. Hence, before man could paint, or write, or even gesticu- 

 late, it was necessary that he should be erect. Man's assumption 

 of the upright attitude marks one of the supreme stages of his 

 progress. What have since become arms and hands, relieved 

 from tasks of locomotion, were able to come into contact with 



* Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Buffalo, 

 1886, p. 315. 



