288 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



excellent and most forcible epitome which is given of it 

 by Archdeacon Farrar in his works on the Origin of Lan- 

 guage and Chapters on Language* The foregoing remarks, 

 therefore, which I have made on the negative side of the 

 question, are merely intended to show that the element of 

 onomatopoeia must have entered into the composition of 

 aboriginal speech much more largely than philologists are 

 now able to prove, notwithstanding that they have been able 

 to prove how immensely important an element it has been in 

 this respect. The only wonder is, that when so many causes 

 have been at work in obscuring and corroding the originally 

 imitative significance of words, this significance should still 

 admit of being traced in all languages — even the most highly 

 conventionalized — to the very large extent in which it does. 



The hostility which Professor Max Mliller has displayed to 

 the onomatopoetic theory of the origin of language is the more 

 remarkable, because in his latest work he has enthusiastically 

 embraced a special branch of this theory, which has been put 

 forward by M. Noir6. This special branch of the onomatopoetic 

 theory is that articulate sign-making had its origin in sounds 

 which are made by bodies of men when engaged in some 

 common occupation. When sailors row, soldiers march, 

 builders co-operate in pulling or in lifting, &c., there is always 

 a tendency to give vent to appropriate sounds, which the 

 nature of the occupation usually breaks up into rhythmic 

 periods. "These utterances, noises, shouts, hummings, or 

 songs are a kind of natural reaction against the inward dis- 

 turbance caused by muscular effort. They are the almost 

 involuntary vibrations of the voice, corresponding to the 

 more or less regular movements of our whole bodily frame." 

 The hypothesis, therefore, is that sounds thus naturally 

 evolved, and differing with different occupations, would 

 sooner or later come to be conventionally used as the names 

 of these different occupations. And, if thus used habitually, 

 they would be virtually the same as words, inasmuch as they 



• See also Nodier, Didicnnaire des Onomatopks ; and Wedgwood, Dictionary 

 of English Etymology, 



