EXPRESSION. 39 
Such a recognition, however, does afford the 
reflection that since such a complex system of 
symbols has certainly arisen within the limits 
of man’s existence, and has not been inherited 
from any ancestry among the lower animals, it 
is unnecessary to suppose that the far simpler 
language of feature and gesture has been so in- 
herited, even in those instances in which similar 
movements occur in man and other animals. 
It is also instructive that the action of individuals 
in initiating language is infinitesimal, that the art 
of speech is acquired by observation and imitation 
in which the learner is largely unconscious of the 
details of the process which he imitates, and that 
he learns the meaning of words simply by observing 
their constant association with ideas otherwise ex- 
pressed, but not from any appreciation of inherent 
connection between the words and the ideas; any 
such connection having been in most instances 
completely disguised long ages ago in the changes 
through which the words have passed. This being 
palpably the case, it is not surprising that into the 
simpler language of feature and gesture an imit- 
ative element largely enters, nor wonderful that 
it presents much whose origin is difficult to account 
for. : 
