MALLERY.] NATURAL PANTOMIME. 281 
That the early concepts were of a direct and material character is 
shown by what has been ascertained of the roots of lan guage, and there 
does not appear to be much difficulty in expressing by other than vocal 
instrumentality all that could have been expressed by those roots. 
Even now, with our vastly increased belongings of external life, avoca- 
tions, and habits, nearly all that is absolutely necessary for our physical 
needs can be expressed in pantomime. Tar beyond the mere signs for 
eating, drinking, sleeping, and the like, any one will understand a skill- 
ful representation in signs of a tailor, shoemaker, blacksmith, weaver, 
sailor, farmer, or doctor. So of washing, dressing, shaving, walking, 
driving, writing, reading, churning, milking, boiling, roasting or frying, 
making bread or preparing coffee, shooting, fishing, rowing, sailing, 
sawing, planing, boring, and, in short, an endless list. 
Max Miiller properly calls touch, scent, and taste the palaioteric, and 
sight and hearing the neoteric senses, the latter of which often require 
to be verified by the former. Touch is the lowest in specialization and 
development, and is considered to be the oldest of the senses, the others 
indeed being held by some writers to be only its modifications: Scent, of 
essential importance to many animals, has with man almost ceased to be 
of any, except in connection with taste, which he has developed to a high 
degree. Whether or not sight preceded hearing in order of development, 
it is difficult, in conjecturing the first attempts of man or his hypothet- 
ical ancestor at the expression either of percepts or concepts, to connect 
voeal sounds with any large number of objects, but it is readily conceiv- 
able that the characteristics of their forms and movements should have 
been suggested to the eye—fully exercised before the tongue—so soon 
as the arms and fingers became free for the requisite simulation or por- 
trayal. There is little distinction between pantomime and a developed 
sign language, in which thought is transmitted rapidly and certainly 
from hand to eye as it is in oral speech from lips to ear; the former is, 
however, the parent of the latter, which is more abbreviated and less 
obvious. Pantomime acts movements, reproduces forms and positions, 
presents pictures, and manifests emotions with greater realization than 
any other mode of utterance. It may readily be supposed that a trog- 
lodyte man would desire to communicate the finding of a cave in the 
vicinity of a pure pool, circled with soft grass, and shaded by trees bear- 
ing edible fruit. No sound of nature is connected with any of those 
objects, but the position and size of the cave, its distance and direction, 
the water, its quality, and amount, the verdant circling carpet, and the 
kind and height of the trees could have been made known by pantomime 
in the days of the mammoth, if articulate speech had not then been estab- 
lished, as Indians or deaf-mutes now communicate similar information 
by the same agency. 
The proof of this fact, as regards deaf-mutes, will hardly be demanded, 
as their expressive pantomime has been so often witnessed. That of 
