THE TRANSITION IN THE RACE. 377 



should err on the opposite side, if we were to take the case 

 of a child who is precocious in the matter of speech as a fair 

 index of the grade of mental evolution at the time when 

 articulation first began in the race (seeing that the history of 

 the latter is probably foreshortened in that of the former). 

 Yet, even if we were to do this, for the sake of argument, the 

 result would still be most strongly to indicate that long 

 before our remote ancestors were able to use articulate 

 speech, they were immeasurably in advance of all existing 

 brutes in their semiotic use of tone and gesture. For even 

 a precocious child does not begin to make any considerable 

 use of words as signs until it is well on into its second year, 

 while usually this stage is not reached until the third. And, 

 at whatever age it is reached, the general intelligence of 

 the child is not only much in advance of that of any existing 

 brute, but the direction in which this advance is most con- 

 spicuous is just the direction where, in the present connection, 

 it is most suggestive — namely, in that of natural sign-making 

 by tone and gesture. 



In view, then, of these several considerations, I am dis- 

 posed to think that the progress of mental evolution from 

 the brute to the man most probably took place by some such 

 stages as the following. 



Starting from the highly intelligent and social species of 

 anthropoid ape as pictured by Darwin, we can imagine that 

 this animal was accustomed to use its voice freely for the 

 expression of its emotions, uttering of danger-signals, and 

 singing.* Possibly enough, also, it may have been sufficiently 

 intelligent to use a few imitative sounds in the arbitrary way 



* The song of the gibbon h.is already been alluded to in a quotation from 

 Darwin. I may here add that the chimpanzee " Sally " not unfrcquently executes 

 an extraordinary performance of an analogous kind. The song, however, is by 

 no means so "musical." It is sung without any regard to notation, in a scries of 

 rapidly succeeding howls and wrrcams — very loud, andiiccomjianied by a drumming 

 of the leg!. ujK»n the ground. She will only thus "break forth into singing" alter 

 more or less sustained excitement by her keeper ; but nmrc odea llun not she 

 refuses to be provoked by any amuunt o( endeavour on his part. 



