THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE 211 



sciousness of their use, illustrate how indelibly 

 these primitive forms of Language are embedded 

 in the human race. There are doubtless exceptions, 

 but it is probably the rule that gestures are mainly 

 called in to supplement expression when the 

 subject-matter of discourse does not belong to the 

 highest ranges of thought, or the speaker to the 

 loftiest type of oratory. The higher levels of 

 thought were reached when the purer forms of 

 spoken Language had become the vehicle of ex- 

 pression ; and, as has often been noticed, when 

 a speaker soars into a very lofty region, or allows 

 his mind to grapple intensely and absorbingly with 

 an exalted theme, he becomes more and more 

 motionless, and only resumes the gesture-language 

 when he descends to commoner levels. It is not 

 only that a fine speaker has a greater command 

 of words and is able to dispense with auxiliaries 

 — as a master of style can dispense with the 

 use of italics — but that, at all events, in the case 

 of abstract thought, it is untranslatable into ges- 

 ture-speech. Gestures are suggestions and re- 

 minders of things seen and heard. They are 

 nearly all attached to objects or to moods, 

 and rival words only when used of every-day 

 things. " No sign talker," Mr. Romanes reminds 

 us, '*with any amount of time at his disposal, 



