72 GESTUEE-LANGUAGE AND WOED-LANGUAGE, 



red ; while the music of the organ is green^ and of the bass- 

 viol blue, and so on. Such comparisons are, indeed, not con- 

 fined to those whose senses are incomplete. Language shows 

 clearly that men in general have a strong feeling of such ana- 

 logies among the impressions of the different senses. Expres- 

 sions such as " schreiend roth," and the use of " loud," as ap- 

 plied to colours and patterns, are superficial examples of ana- 

 logies which have their roots very deep in the human miud. 



It is a very notable fact bearing upon the problem of the 

 Origin of Language, that even born-mutes, who never heard a 

 word spoken, do of their own accord and without any teaching 

 make vocal sounds more or less articulate, to which they attach 

 a definite meaning, and which, when once made, they go on 

 using afterwards in the same unvarying sense. Though these 

 sounds are often capable of being written down more or less 

 accurately with our ordinary alphabets, their effect on those 

 who make them can, of course, have nothing to do with the 

 sense of heai'ing, but must consist only in particular ways of 

 breathing, combined with particular positions of the vocal 

 organs. 



Teuscher, a deaf-mute, whose mind was developed by educa- 

 tion to a remarkable degree, has recorded that, in his unedu- 

 cated state, he had already discovered the sounds which were 

 inwardly blended with his sensations (innig verschmolzen mit 

 meiner Empfindungsweise.) So, as a child, he had affixed a 

 special sound to persons he loved, his parents, brothers and 

 sisters, to animals, and things for which he had no sign (as 

 water) ; and called any person he wished with one unaltered 

 voice.^ Heinicke gives some remarkable evidence, which we 

 may, I think, take as given in entire good faith, though the 

 reservation should be made, that through his strong par- 

 tiality for articulation as a means of educating the deaf-and- 

 dumb, he may have given a definiteness to these sounds in 

 writing them down which they did not really possess. The 

 following are some of his remarks: — "^^ All mutes disco- 

 ver words for themselves for different things. Among over 

 fifty whom I have partly instructed or been acquainted with, 

 ' Steinthal, Spr. der T., p. 917. 



