1892.] Mental Evolution in Man and Lower Animals. 599 
and mode signs before it can be understood or used by a Cher- 
okee. 
It is not contended, of course, that a savage has no 
general or abstract ideas because he may be incapable of 
expressing them. Animals have general ideas which they 
cannot express in language. And the savage who has no 
name for trees would be extremely surprised if he saw one 
standing on its tips with its roots in the air; one may be sure 
he has a general idea of a tree, with its roots in the ground 
and its tip towards the sky. In the same way the horses and 
camels at Batoura which were inordinately terrified at the first 
sight of a carriage and pair knew they saw something quite 
fresh and unaccustomed, though they had no word for it. 
And the horses and cattle which have grown accustomed to 
trains have a general idea that the rushing, screaming, roar- 
ing object is perfectly harmless, though they cannot say so. 
Moreover they acquire this conviction from experience. 
If, then, we can accept ontogeny as a guide in understand- 
ing the primitive beginnings of human speech we may con- 
clude that the steps consisted of screaming, varied in tone as 
fear or anger was to be expressed; vague labials formed by 
the passing of the air through the lips and gums; then labials 
uttered with a distinct purpose, followed in many cases by 
new words invented by the child for objects.. My efforts to induce 
a child of my own to say “ milk” resulted in the invention of 
the word “ningey ” for that article of diet, and the attempt to 
teach two other children to say “nurse” resulted in the 
christening of that functionary as “wo” and “nan,” respect- 
ively ; in fact, the invention of a completely new word is as 
easy for achild as it is notoriously difficult foran adult human 
ing. 
One of the most extraordinary boundaries that could have 
been selected as the “ Rubicon of mind” has been fixed in 
the possession of a verb which once expressing such simple 
concrete ideas as “to stand,” “to breathe,” has acquired the 
abstract signification “to be.” “If a brute could think ‘is’ 
brute and man would be brothers.” Here is the point where 
instinct ends and reason begins. It is not possible to produce 
