MALLERY ] SIGNS DISTORTED IN DESCRIPTION. Soll. 
as distinct from any individual flourish or mannerism on the one hand, 
and from a conventional or accidental abbreviation on the other; but 
a mere average will not accomplish that object. If the hand, being 
in any position whatever, is, according to five observations, moved 
horizontally one foot to the right, and, according to five other obser- 
vations, moved one foot horizontally to the left, the “‘mean” or result- 
ant will be that it is stationary, which sign does not correspond 
with any of the ten observations. So if. six observations give it a 
rapid motion of one foot to the right and five a rapid motion of the 
same distance to the left, the mean or resultant would be somewhat 
difficult to express, but perhaps would be a slow movement to the right 
for an inch or two, having certainly no resemblance either in essen- 
tials or accidents to any of the signs actually observed. In like man- 
ner the tail of the written letter ‘‘ 7” (which, regarding its mere forma- 
tion, might be a graphic sign) may have in the chirography of several 
persons various degrees of slope, may be a straight line, or looped, and 
may be curved on either side; but a ‘“‘mean” taken from the several 
manuscripts would leave the unfortunate letter without any tail what- 
ever, or travestied as a “‘«” with an amorphous flourish. <A definition 
of the radical form of the letter or sign by which it can be distinguished 
from any other letter or sign is a very different proceeding. Therefore, 
if a “mean” or resultant of any number of radically ditferent signs to 
express the same object or idea, observed either among several indi- 
viduals of the same tribe or among different tribes, is made to repre- 
sent those signs, they are all mutilated and ignored as distinctive 
signs, though the result may possibly be made intelligible in practice, 
according to principles mentioned in the present paper. The expedient 
of a “*mean” may be practically useful in the formation of a mere in- 
terpreter’s jargon, but it elucidates no principle. It is also convenient 
for any one determined to argue for the uniformity of sign language 
as against the variety in unity apparent in all the realms of nature. 
On the “mean” principle, he only needs to take his two-foot rule and 
arithmetical tables and make all signs his signs and his signs all signs. 
Of course they are uniform, because he has made them so after the 
brutal example of Procrusites. 
In this connection it is proper to urge a warning that a mere sign 
talker is often a bad authority upon principles and theories. He may 
not be liable to the satirical compliment of Dickens’s “ brave courier,” 
who ‘understood all languages indifferently ill”; but many men speak 
some one language fluently, and yet are wholly unable to explain or 
analyze its words and forms so as to teach it to another person, or even 
to give an intelligent summary or classification of their own knowledge. 
What such a sign talker has learned is by memorizing, as a child may 
learn English, and though both the sign talker and the child may be able 
to give some separate items useful to a philologist or foreigner, such 
items are spoiled when colored by the attempt of ignorance to theorize. 
