I36 HUXLEY 



already referred to, shows by what slow processes of 

 natural growth it must have been acquired. The 

 more intelligent of the lower animals communicate 

 with one another and express their feelings by various 

 sounds, and the progenitors of man acted likewise. 

 The actual germs of language existed in a few form- 

 less roots, most of these being natural sounds, whether 

 in the tumbling of waters or the song of birds, and it 

 is in the imitation of these sounds that the large 

 number of words known as onomatopoetic, and the 

 enormous number of words derived from them, have 

 their rise. All sounds were supplemented by gestures 

 and postures, which, among some races, still play a 

 great part in communication. And it is to a physical 

 and sensible source that our most abstract and meta- 

 physical terms are traceable. For example, when we 

 " apprehend " a thing, we " lay hold " of it ; when 

 we tc apply " ourselves we bend u towards " ; when 

 we " transfer " we " carry " ; to " concrete " is to 

 combine particles together, while to " abstract " is to 

 remove them ; and few of us remember that in call- 

 ing any one " supercilious " we mean, literally, that 

 he raises his eyebrows. The choice and currency of 

 this and that sound obviously lay in the aptness with 

 which it conveyed the meaning in the mind of the 

 speaker to that of the listener. Here we may use the 

 terms of " natural selection " and say that the fittest 



