358 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



single respect it has corroborated the results of our psycho- 

 logical analysis. It has come forward like a living thing, 

 which, in the very voice of Language itself, directly and 

 circumstantially narrates to us the actual history of a process 

 the constituent phases of which we had previously inferred. 

 It has told us of a time when as yet mankind were altogether 

 speechless, and able to communicate with one another only by 

 means of gesticulation and grimace. It has described to us 

 the first articulate sounds in the form of sentence-words, with- 

 out significance apart from the pointings by which they were 

 accompanied. It has revealed the gradual differentiation of 

 such a protoplasmic form of language into " parts of speech ; " 

 and declared that these grammatical structures were originally 

 the offspring of gesture-signs. More particularly, it has 

 shown that in the earliest stages of articulate utterance 

 pronominal elements, and even predicative words, were used 

 in the impersonal manner which belongs to a hitherto un- 

 developed form of self-consciousness — primitive man, like 

 a young child, having therefore spoken of his own per- 

 sonality in objective terminology. It has taught us to find 

 in the body of every conceptual term a pre-conceptual core ; 

 so that, as the learned and thoughtful Garnett says, ^^ nihil iti 

 oratione quod noti pri?is in setisii may now be regarded as an 

 incontrovertible axiom." * It has minutely described the 

 whole of that wonderful aftergrowth of articulate utterance 

 through many lines of divergent evolution, in virtue of which 

 all nations of the earth are now in possession, in one degree 

 or another, of the god-like attributes of reason and of speech. 

 Truly, as Archdeacon Farrar says, " to the flippant and the 

 ignorant, how ridiculous is the apparent inadequacy of the 

 origin to produce such a result." f But here, as elsewhere, it 

 is the method of evolution to bring to nought the things 

 that are mighty by the things that are of no reputation ; and 

 when we feel disposed to boast ourselves in that we alone may 

 claim the Logos, should we not do well to pause and remember 

 in what it was that this our high prerogative arose t " So hat 



* Essays, p. 89. t Chapters on Lajtguage, p. 133. 



