i86 ( 42 ) 



y. The Development of Language, 



In this department the fact of development from the 

 simple to the complex has been so satisfactorily demon- 

 strated by philologists as scarcely to require notice here. 

 The course of that development has been from mono- 

 syllabic to polysyllabic forms, and also in a process of 

 differentiation, as derivative races were broken off from 

 the original stock and scattered widely apart. The 

 evidence is clear that simple words for distinct objects 

 formed the bases of the primal languages, just as the 

 ground, tree, sun and moon represent the character of 

 the first words the infant lisps. In this department also 

 the facts point to an infancy of the human race. 



d. Development of the Fine Arts. 



If we look at representation by drawing or sculpture, 

 we find that the efforts of the earliest races of which we 

 have any knowledge were quite similar to those which 

 the untaught hand of infancy traces on its slate or the 

 savage depicts on the rocky faces of hills. The circle 

 or triangle for the head and body, and straight lines for 

 the limbs, have been preserved as the first attempts of 

 the men of the stone period, as they are to this day the 

 sole representations of the human form which the North 

 American Indian places on his buffalo robe or mountain 

 precipice. The stiff, barely-outlined form of the deer, 

 the turtle, etc., are literally those of the infancy of civ- 

 ilized man. 



The first attempts at sculpture were marred by the 

 influence of modism. Thus the idols of Coban and 

 Palenque, with human faces of some merit ? are over- 



