NATURE OF ROOTS AND WORDS. 515 



interesting sketch of the manners and customs of modern savages, 

 contain^ed in chapters xiv.-xvi. of his " Prehistoric Times." 



What then are the characteristics which separate modern savages 

 from the lower animals 1 They are three in number, viz. : the faculty 

 of making and using tools, the use of fire,* and last, but not least, 

 articulate speech. We have already seen that the earliest human 

 beings of whose existence we have positive evidence, the contem- 

 poraries of the mammoth, were, like the lowest of modern savages, 

 tool-makers and tool-users. Traces of their use of fire have been 

 discovered at the lowest depths and in conjunction with some of the 

 most ancient remains in many caves of Great Britain, according to 

 Mr. W. Boyd Dawkins.f How stands the case then with regard to 

 the third point, the capacity for articulate speech ? Leaving the iise 

 of fire out of the question, and confining ourselves to the first and 

 third points, the argument may be stated in syllogistic form as 

 follows : — 



( i ) All tool-makers and tool-users are capable of articulate speech ; 

 { ii ) The first men of whom we have remains were tool-makers and 



tool-users; therefore 

 (iii) The first men were capable of articulate speech. 



As, however, we know of no case of the direct invention of language, 

 it remains to be seen whether thero is anything in the nature of 

 language to make its direct invention by creatures of such limited 

 mental capacity, as the first men may be assumed to have been, an 

 impossibility or even improbability. 



Before, however, we enter upon the discussion of this question, 

 there is another to be answered. We have already seen what manner 

 of men the primitive language-makers, in all probability, were. Let 

 us next inquire why they spoke at all — what interests gave them the 

 first impulse to the invention of speech. 



This motive is contained in the definition of language given above, 

 as " the intelligible expression of thought in articulate sound as a 



* A] varo de Saavedra, as quoted by Lubbock, op. cit, p. 547, mentions a race of savages who 

 were ignorant of Are ; and Captain Wilkes, U. S. N., made the same statement of the inhabit- 

 ants of the island of Fakaafo. The latter statement, however, is questioned by Mr; Taylor 

 (Early History of Mankind, p. 230), on the ground that their language contains a word for 

 " fire." It should be added that some Australian tribe* are unabl* to produce fire, though not 

 ignorant of its use. 



t Cave-Hunting, chap. viii. 



