288 SIGN LANGUAGE AMONG NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. 
1680, entitled, Didascalocophus, or the Deaf and Dumb Man’s Tutor. He 
spent his life in obscurity, and his works, though he was incidentally 
mentioned by Leibnitz under the name of “ M. Dalgarus,” passed into 
oblivion. Yet he undoubtedly was the precursor of Bishop Wilkins in 
his Essay toward a Real Character and a Philosophical Language, pub- 
lished in London, 1668, though indeed the first idea was far older, it 
having been, as reported by Piso, the wish of Galen that some way 
might be found out to represent things by such peculiar signs and names 
as should express their natures. Dalgarno’s ideas respecting the educa- 
tion of the dumb were also of the highest value, and though they were too 
refined and enlightened to be appreciated at the period when he wrote, 
they probably were used by Dr. Wallis if not by Sicard. Some of his 
thoughts should be quoted: ‘‘As I think the eye to be as docile as the ear; 
so neither see I any reason but the hand might be made as tractable an 
organ as the tongue; and as soon brought to form, if not fair, at least 
legible characters, as the tongue to imitate and echo back articulate 
sounds.” A paragraph prophetic of the late success in educating blind 
deaf-mutes is as follows: ‘¢‘The soul can exert her powers by the min- 
istry of any of the senses: and, therefore, when she is deprived of her 
principal secretaries, the eye and the ear, then she must be contented 
with the service of her lackeys and scullions, the other senses; which are 
no less true and faithful to their mistress than the eye and the ear; but 
not so quick for dispatch.” 
In his division of the modes of “expressing the inward emotions by 
outward and sensible signs” he relegates to physiology cases “ when 
the internal passions are expressed by such external signs as have a 
natural connection, by way of cause and effect, with the passion they 
discover, as laughing, weeping, frowning, &c., and this way of interpre- 
tation being common to the brute with man belongs to natural philoso- 
phy. And because this goes not far enough to serve the rational soul, 
therefore, man has invented Sematology.” This he divides into Pneu- 
matology, interpretation by sounds conveyed through the ear; Sche- 
matology, by figures to the eye, and Haptology, by mutual contact, skin 
toskin. Schematology is itself divided into Typology or Grammatology, 
and Cheirology or Dactylology. The latter embraces “the transient 
motions of the fingers, which of all other ways of interpretation comes 
nearest to that of the tongue.” 
As a phase in the practice of gestures in lieu of speech must be men- 
tioned the code of the Cistercian monks, who were vowed to silence ex- 
cept in religious exercises. That they might literally observe their vows 
they were obliged to invent a system of communication by signs, a list 
of which is given by Leibnitz, but does not show much ingenuity. 
A curious description of the speech of the early inhabitants of the 
world, given by Swedenborg in his Arcana Celestia, published 1749- 
1756, may be compared with the present exhibitions of deaf-mutes in in- 
stitutions for their instruction. He says it was not articulate like the 
