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course this is a good argument. But if we take it the other way, that man 
was not created in a savage state ; then, according to Professor Young’s own 
principles, he was created with wants and feelings, to express which a 
gesture language would be utterly inadequate— 
The Chairman..— The question is, whether, having been created without 
language, he would have invented one. 
Professor Young.— You are going into a case not contemplated. I have 
been proceeding distinctly upon the hypothesis, and have discussed the phe- 
nomenon, of a community of people sent into the world in a savage and bar- 
barous condition. You are drawing something from a civilized state, which 
does not affect my argument. Will not that be infringing upon our time ? 
Mr. Warington.— I think not, for this reason ; because, if we take only 
the hypothesis which Professor Young has put before us, we are taking so 
one-sided a view, that we may be running away with a conclusion which only 
refers to that one hypothesis, and yet may fancy it refers to the whole 
subject — 
Professor Young.— You must stick to the hypothesis.; do not change it, 
I pray. 
The Chairman.— I think you are travelling away from the question under 
discussion. 
Mr. Reddie.— I think it would be valuable to hear this other hypothesis 
also discussed. 
Mr. Warington.— Our subject, I believe, is the origin of language, con- 
nected with gesticulation. I want to prove that if man had been (upon 
another hypothesis) created in a state similar to what we are in now, he 
would have naturally invented an articulate language, and that therefore the 
facts which Professor Young advances will not prove anything on this 
hypothesis. According to Professor Young’s statement, which I agree with, 
gesture language only refers to things physical and material. Then if a 
man has feelings which he wants to express as to things which are not 
physical and material, would he not at once employ articulate language ? 
There is an objection which is raised to this. It is said that all these 
languages are arbitrary, and that the idea that man invented arbitrary 
word-language, is too difficult to be credited. But is it quite certain that 
articulate language, when first spoken, was arbitrary ? We know that written 
language at the present time is arbitrary, and that the signs we put on paper 
have not the slightest connection with the sounds or the things for which 
they stand ; but there is yet nothing more certain than that in the primitive 
alphabets the signs were used, not merely as signs, but as pictures of 
the things they were intended to denote ; and therefore that written language 
has had its origin in picture language, and afterwards became gradually 
arbitrary. Then why may not the same have occurred in respect to spoken 
language ? We can see that written language was originally a picture lan- 
guage, in which there was a natural connection between the sign and the 
thing signified, because we have certain very ancient and primitive alphabets 
