July 14, 1 881] 



NATURE 



243 



mankind may be studied in a logical, connected, and far 

 more interesting manner, by the method of comparison, 

 and by tracing the growth or development of those facul- 

 ties which more especially distinguish him from the lower 

 animals. Everywhere he will find proofs of the essential 

 unity of man ; whether in the close similarity of the forms 

 of the stone implements and weapons found in the most 

 remote parts of the earth, and among the most varied 

 races ; in the identity of signs and gestures, and the 

 striking resemblances even among the most diverse 

 languages ; or in the wonderful similarity and often 

 identity, of habits, customs, ideas, beliefs, and religions 

 among all savages, and the curious way in which traces 

 of these can often be found in the very midst of modern 

 civilised society. 



It is very difficult to give any adequate idea of a work 

 of this kind, which, in a moderate compass, contains the 

 essence and outcome of all modern research on the 

 various branches of the study of man and civilisation ; 

 but we shall perhaps best exhibit its wide scope and 

 systematic treatment by an enumeration of the subjects 

 discussed in the several chapters, adding a few remarks 

 or criticisms where called for. 



The first chapter contains a brief sketch of what we 

 learn from history, archaeology, and geology, as to man's 

 antiquity and early condition ; and in the next we are 

 shown man's relation to the lower animals both in bodily 

 structure and mental characteristics. These two chapters 

 might, with advantage, have been considerably enlarged, 

 as they constitute the foundation, and, to many persons, 

 the most interesting portions of the modern study of man. 

 The results hitherto arrived at by these branches of study, 

 are, besides, both suggestive and important, and might, 

 we think, have been more expressly referred to. The 

 numerous remains now discovered of prehistoric man, 

 and of his works, dating back to an undoubtedly vast 

 antiquity, show us in no case any important deviation 

 from the existing human type, nor any indication that 

 his mental status was lower than (if so low as) that of 

 many living races. At the same time the increasing 

 rudeness of his implements as we go back, undoubtedly 

 indicates that we have made some approach towards the 

 period when he first emerged from the purely brute state 

 and became "a tool-using animal." We find him in the 

 remote past surrounded by a number of huge mammalia, 

 including many carnivora of greater size and destructive 

 power than any that now exist, and we know that at a 

 still earlier period these animals were even more abundant 

 and more destructive ; yet man must have held his own 

 against them during the time when he had not yet begun 

 to make tools or use fire. How did he do this without 

 the possession of some additional natural weapons or 

 faculties, of which nevertheless we find no trace in the 

 earliest remains yet discovered? Again, the whole bearing 

 of the evidence as to the development of man, indicates 

 that the point of union or of common origin of man and 

 the anthropoid apes, is enormously remote. Each of the 

 existing types of these great apes possesses some specially 

 human characteristic wanting in the others I'for an enume- 

 ration of which see Mivart's " Man and .-\pes"), and this 

 indicates that the common origin of these apes is of less 

 remoteness than the common origin of them all and of 

 man. How immensely remote, then, must be this point 

 of common origin, and what a long and complex series of 

 diverging forms must have existed, always in sufficient 

 numbers to hold their own against their numerous com- 

 petitors and enemies ! The evolutionist must postulate 

 the existence of this long series of divergent forms, yet 

 notwithstanding the richness of the Tertiary deposits in 

 many parts of the world no trace whatever of their actual 

 existence has yet been discovered. The extreme remote- 

 ness of the origin of man is also shown by the facts, that 

 neither the size nor the form of the cranium of the pre- 

 historic races shows any inferiority to those of existing 



savages, while the approximate equality of their mental 

 powers is shown by the ingenious construction of weapons 

 and implements, and the artistic talent which we find 

 developed at a period when the reindeer and the mammoth 

 inhabited the south of France. It has been argued that 

 the inferiority of the early implements shows mental 

 inferiority, but this is palpably illogical. Did Stephenson's 

 first rude locomotive — the Rocket — show less mind in it? 

 constructor than the highly-finished products of our 

 modern workshops ? Or were the Greeks mentally in- 

 ferior to us because they had rude cars instead of loco- 

 motives, and had no clocks, water-mills, steam-engines 

 or spinning-jennies ? It is forgotten that arts are a 

 growth, and have little relation to the mental status of 

 the artificer. A number of European infants brought up 

 among savages would not, probably, in many generation s,_ 

 invent even the commonest implements and utensils ot 

 their ancestral homes ; and it is difficult to say how slow 

 may have been the development of the arts in ther 

 earliest and by far most difficult stages. It is therefore 

 by no means impossible that the makers even of the 

 paleolithic implements may have been fully equal, men- 

 tally, to existing savages of by no means the lowest type. 



In the next chapter we have an excellent sketch of the 

 chief races of man copiously illustrated by portraits, 

 mostly from photographs and very characteristic. Among 

 the best are those of the .Andaman Islanders and the 

 Dyaks, which we here reproduce. The Malays are less 

 characteristic, this race being in fact better represente 1 

 by the cut of the two Cochin Chinese at p. 98. 



The four chapters on Language, whether manifested by 

 gestures and signs, by articulate speech, by pictures, or 

 by written characters, are exceedingly interesting and in- 

 structive, especially the account of the gesture language 

 and the illustrations of how connected stories may be told to 

 the deaf-and-dumb quite independently of any knowledge 

 of alphabetical or even verbal signs. Picture-writing, as 

 exhibited in the works of savages, in Egyptian hiero- 

 glyphics and in the modern Chinese characters, is also 

 well explained, and is so interesting that one wishes the 

 subject were more fully gone into. In treating of the 

 origin of language Mr. Tylor doubts the sufficiency of the 

 theory that emotional, imitative, and suggestive sounds 

 were the basis on which all languages were founded, 

 though he gives tolerably full illustrations of how roots thu ; 

 obtamed became modified in an infinite variety of ways 

 to serve the growing needs of mankind in expressmg their 

 wants or their feelings. He impresses on his readers the 

 important fact that language is always growmg and that 

 new words are continually made "by choosmg fit and 

 proper sounds." He shows how words once imitative or 

 emotional have been often so changed and modified as to 

 have their original character totally concealed ; yet he 

 concludes, that—" it would be unscientific to accept all 

 this as a complete explanation of the origin of language " 

 —because " other causes may have helped." It seems, 

 however, to the present writer, that the imitative and 

 emotional origin of language is demonstrated by a body 

 of facts almost as extensive and complete as that which 

 demonstrates the origin of species by natural selection ; 

 and that the " other causes " are in both cases e.xceptional 

 and subordinate. As the examples of imitative words 

 o-iven by Mr. Tylor are comparatively trivial and alto- 

 gether inadequate, it may be well to call attention to the 

 wide and far-reaching character of such words, and to 

 show how much of the force, expressiveness, and beauty 

 of our language (as of most others) depends upon them. 



Putting aside all mere representations of animal sounds 

 —as the whinny of the colt, the mcia of the cat, or the 

 bleat of the sheep- let us consider what an immense 

 number of natural sounds are named by words which we 

 at once see to be appropriate representations or imitations 

 of them. Such zx^— crash, whizz, fizz, hiss, creak, 

 whistle, rattle, bang, clang, flop, thud, clap, roar, snore. 



