THE DA WN OF MIND 193 



Apart from the saving of time and the facility 

 for increased knowledge, the acquisition of speech 

 meant a saving of brain. A word is a counter 

 for a thought. To use language is to make think- 

 ing easy. Hence the release of brain energy for 

 further developments in new directions. In these 

 and other ways speech became the main factor in 

 the intellectual development of mankind. Lan- 

 guage formed the trellis on which Mind climbed 

 upward, which continuously sustained the ripening 

 fruits of knowledge for later minds to pluck. Before 

 the savage's son was ten years old he knew all 

 that his father knew. The ways of the game, the 

 habits of birds and fish, the construction of traps 

 and snares — all these would be taught him. The 

 physical world, the changes of season, the location 

 of hostile tribes, the strategies of war, all the details 

 and interests of savage life would be explained. 

 And before the boy was in his teens he was 

 equipped for the Struggle for Life as his forefathers 

 had never been even in old age. The son, in 

 short, started to evolve where his father left off. 

 Try to realize what it would be for each of us to 

 begin life afresh, to be able to learn nothing by 

 the experiences of others, to live in a dumb and 

 illiterate world, and see what chance the animal 

 had of making pronounced progress until the ac- 



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