ORIGIN AND EXTENT OF GESTURE-SPEECH. 7 



its illustration of the ancient intercommunication of mankind by gesture. 

 Many arguments have been adduced and more may be presented to prove 

 that the latter preceded articulate speech. The corporeal movements of 

 the lower animals to express, at least, emotion have been correlated with 

 those of man, and classified by Dahwin as explicable on the principles of 

 serviceable associated habits, of antithesis, and of the constitution of the 

 nervous system. A child employs intelligent gestures long in advance of 

 speech, although very early and persistent attempts are made to give it 

 instruction in the latter but none in the former; it learns language only 

 through the medium of signs ; and long after familiarity with speech, consults 

 the gestures and facial expressions of its parents and nurses as if to trans- 

 late or explain their words ; which facts are important in reference to the 

 biologic law that the order of development of the individual is the same as 

 that of the species. Persons of limited vocabulary, whether foreigners to 

 the tongue employed, or native, but not accomplished in its use, even in 

 the midst of a civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for 

 words resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor mean- 

 ingless, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made by the ges- 

 turer for the first time ; and the same is true of the most fluent talkers on 

 occasions when the exact vocal formula desired does not at once suggest itself, 

 or is not satisfactory without assistance from the physical machinery not 

 embraced in the oral apparatus. Further evidence of the unconscious sui-- 

 vival of gesture-language is afforded by the ready and involuntary response 

 made in signs to signs when a man with the speech and habits of civiliza- 

 tion is brought into close contact with Indians or deaf-mutes. Without 

 having ever before seen or made one of their signs he will soon not only 

 catch the meaning of theirs, but produce his own, which they will likewise 

 comprehend, the power seemingly remaining latent in him until called forth 

 by necessity. The signs used by uninstructed congenital deaf-mutes and 

 the facial expressions and gestures of the congenitally blind also present 

 considerations under the heads of "heredity" and "atavism," of some weight 

 when the subjects are descended from and dwell among people who had 

 disused gestures for generations, but of less consequence in cases such as 

 that mentioned by Cardinal Wiseman of an Italian blind man who, curiously 



