42 Dr. Bateman on Darwinism. [m. 



of ignoratio elenchi, or what is otherwise called 

 " barking up the wrong tree." 



As regards the process, psychological and physio- 

 logical, by which the faculty of articulate speech was 

 acquired by mankind, no thorough explanation has 

 yet been offered, either upon the Darwinian or upon 

 any other theory. The so-called " bow-wow " or 

 onomatopoetic theory is no doubt correct, so far as 

 it goes, as a description of facts which have attended 

 the acquisition of speech ; but it hardly goes to the 

 root of the matter. The power of enunciating sounds 

 so as to communicate ideas and feelings is certainly 

 an art, as much as the later acquired powers of writing 

 or drawing. For the original acquisition of such an 

 art two conditions were requisite — the physiological 

 capacity of the vocal organs for producing articulate 

 sounds, and the psychological capacity of abstraction 

 implied in the conception of a sign or symbol. There 

 must also have been required — as underlying the last- 

 named capacity — the possession of a certain amount 

 of mental flexibility, or inventiveness, or capability 

 of framing new combinations of ideas. This sort 

 of mental flexibility is found among animals in man 

 alone, and in his case it is the accompaniment, and 

 probably the result, of an exceptionally long period 

 of infancy. The significance of infancy, psychologi- 



