373 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Language 



1822. LANGUAGE, MYSTERY OF 

 There could be no invention of language 

 unless its type already existed in the human 

 understanding. Man is man only by means 

 of speech, but, in order to invent speech, 

 he must be already man. WILHELM VON 

 HUMBOLDT Einleitung, Ueber die Kawi- 

 sprache auf der Insel Java. (Translated for 

 Scientific Side-Lights.) 



1823. LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS 

 MERELY RUDIMENTARY Animals pos- 

 sess certain elements of language, just as 

 they possess certain elements of conscious- 

 ness which might serve as the basis of in- 

 tellectual function, but they do not possess 

 language itself. So that the mere absence 

 of this external mark would justify us in 

 inferring the absence of those mental func- 

 tions of which it is the mark. As a rule, it 

 is not any physical obstacle, as is so often 

 thought, which prevents animals from talk- 

 ing. In very many animals the development 

 of the organs of speech has gone far enough 

 to enable them to clothe thought in words, if 

 the thought were there to clothe. The ques- 

 tion why the animals do not talk is most 

 correctly answered in the old way because 

 they have nothing to say. Only we must 

 add that certain movements and sounds 

 characteristic of feelings and ideas seem to 

 be the forerunners of language, and that 

 animals give signs that in this connection, 

 as in others, their mental life is the imme- 

 diate precursor of our own. WUNDT Psy- 

 chology, lect. 24, p. 363. (Son. & Co., 1896.) 



1824. LANGUAGE OF EXPRESSION, 



NATURAL Emotion Manifested through the 

 Body. It has been noted in all ages and 

 countries that the feelings possess a natural 

 language or expression. So constant are 

 the appearances characterizing the different 

 classes of emotions that we regard them as a 

 part of the emotions themselves. The smile 

 of joy, the puckered features in pain, the 

 stare of astonishment, the quivering of fear, 

 the tones and glance of tenderness, the 

 frown of anger, are united in seemingly in- 

 separable association with the states of feel- 

 ing that they indicate. If a feeling arises 

 without its appropriate sign or accompani- 

 ment, we account for the failure either by 

 voluntary suppression or by the faintness of 

 the excitement, there being a certain degree 

 or intensity requisite to affect the bodily 

 organs. On this uniformity of connection 

 between feelings and their bodily expression 

 depends our knowledge of each other's mind 

 and character. When any one is pleased, or 

 pained, or loving, or angry, unless there is 

 purposed concealment we are aware of the 

 fact, and can even estimate in any given 

 case the degree of the feeling. BAIN Mind 

 and Body, ch. 2, p. 2. (Hum., 1880.) 



1825. LANGUAGE OF GESTURE 



Natural Signs Understood ~by All Races of 

 Men. Communication by gesture signs be- 

 tween persons unable to converse in vocal 

 language is an effective system of expression 



common to all mankind. Thus the signs 

 used to ask a deaf-and-dumb child about his 

 meals and lessons, or to communicate with 

 a savage met in the desert about game or 

 enemies, belong to codes of gesture signals 

 identical in principle and to a great ex- 

 tent independent both of nationality and 

 education; there is even a natural syntax, 

 or order of succession, in such gesture signs. 

 To these gestures let there be added the 

 use of the inter jectional Tvries, such as oh! 

 ugh! hey! and imitative sounds to repre- 

 sent the cat's mew, the click of a trigger, 

 the clap or thud of a blow, etc. The total 

 result of this combination of gesture and 

 significant sound will be a general system 

 of expression, imperfect but serviceable, and 

 naturally intelligible to all mankind with- 

 out distinction of race. . . . The lower 

 animals make no approach to the human 

 system of natural utterance by gesture signs 

 and emotional-imitative sounds, while the 

 practical identity of this human system 

 among races physically so unlike ,as the 

 Englishman and the native of the Australian 

 bush indicates extreme closeness of mental 

 similarity throughout the human species. 

 DANIEL WILSON Anthropology, ch. 6, p. 

 22. (Hum., 1885.) 



1826. LANGUAGE OF TOUCH 



Communicate by Antennae. Language is the 

 key to the union we remark in this numer- 

 ous family. It is not by means of sounds 

 or visible signs, but by touch, that it mani- 

 fests itself; it is especially the antennae, 

 those organs that distinguish insects from 

 all other animals, that serve, whenever the 

 species meets in society, the noble use of 

 communicating impressions from one indi- 

 vidual to another, their wishes, necessities, 

 and the situation. No doubt the antennal 

 language is imperfect, if compared with our 

 requirements, but it suffices very well for 

 ants. HUBER Recherches sur les Meurs des 

 Fourmis indigenes, p. 310. (Translated for 

 Scientific Side-Lights.) 



1827. LANGUAGE, PLACE OF, IN 

 EARLY EDUCATION The several facul- 

 ties of the human mind are not simultane- 

 ously developed, and in educating an indi- 

 vidual we ought to follow the order of Na- 

 ture, and to adapt the instruction to the 

 age and mental stature of the pupil. If we 

 reverse this order and attempt to cultivate 

 faculties which are not sufficiently matured, 

 while we neglect to cultivate those which 

 are, we do the child an irreparable injury. 

 Memory, imitation, imagination, and the 

 faculty of forming mental habits exist in 

 early life, while the judgment and the reason- 

 ing powers are of slower growth. It is a 

 fact abundantly proved by observation that 

 the mere child, by the principle which has 

 been denominated sympathetic imitation, 

 may acquire the power of expressing his 

 desires and emotions in correct and even 

 beautiful language without knowing or being 

 able to comprehend the simplest principles 



