122 THE DESCENT OF WAN 



may be compared with the languages of distinct races of man. 

 I have given the foregoing details to show that an instinctive 

 tendency to acquire an art is not peculiar to man.'^ 



With respect to the origin of articulate language, after 

 having read on the one side the highly interesting works of 

 Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, the Eev. F. Farrar, and Prof. 

 Schleicher," and the celebrated lectures of Prof. Max Mill- 

 ler, on the other side, I cannot doubt that language owes its 

 origin to the imitation and modification of various natural 

 sounds, the voices of other animals, and man's own instinc- 

 tive cries, aided by signs and gestures. When we treat of 

 sexual selection we shall see that primeval man, or rather 

 some early progenitor of man, probably first used his voice 

 in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing, as 

 do some of the gibbon -a'pes at the present day; and we may 

 conclude from a widely spread analogy, that this power 

 would have been especially exerted during the courtship 

 of the sexes — would have expressed various emotions, su<jh 

 as love, jealousy, triumph — and would have served as a 

 challenge to rivals. It is, therefore, probable that the imi- 

 tation of musical cries by articulate sounds may have given 

 rise to words expressive of various complex emotions. The 

 strong tendency in our nearest allies, the monkeys, in micro- 

 cephalous idiots," and in the barbarous races of mankind, 

 to imitate whatever they hear, deserves notice as bearing on 

 the subject of imitation. Since monkeys certainly under- 

 stand much that is said to them by man, and when wild 

 utter signal cries of danger to their fellows," and since 

 fowls give distinct warnings for danger on the ground, or 



'5 "On the Origin of Language," by H. 'Wedgwood, 1866. "Chapters on 

 Language," by the Eev. F. W. Farrar, 1865. These works are most interest- 

 ing. See also "De la Phys. et de Parole," par Albert Lemoine, 1865, p. 190. 

 The work on this subject, by the late Prof. Aug. Schleicher, has been trans- 

 lated by Dr. Bikkers into English, under the title of "Darwinism tested by the 

 Science of Language," 1869. 



»« Togt, "M^moire sur les Microc^phales," 186t, p. 169. With respect to 

 savages, I have given some feets, in my "Journal of Researches," etc., 1845, 

 p. 206. 



" See clear evidence on this head in the two works so often quoted by 

 Brehm and Rengger. 



