THE TRANSITION IN THE RACE.
At this point I shall doubtless be expected to offer some remarks
on the probable mode of transition between the brute and the human
being. Having so fully considered both the psychology and philology of
ideation, it may be thought that I am now in a position to indicate
what I suppose to have been the actual stepping-stones whereby an
intelligent species of ape can be conceived to have crossed “the
Rubicon of Mind.” But, if I am expected to do this, I might reasonably
decline, for two reasons.
In the first place, the attempt, even if it could be successful, would
be superfluous. The only objection I have had to meet is one which has
been raised on grounds of psychology. This objection I have met, and
met upon its own grounds. If I have been successful, for the purposes
of argument nothing more remains to be said. If I have not been
successful, it is obviously impossible to strengthen my case by going
beyond the known facts of mind, as they actually exist before us, to
any hypothetical possibilities of mind in the dim ages of an unrecorded
past.
In the second place, any remarks which I have to offer upon this
subject must needs be of a wholly speculative or unverifiable
character. As well might the historian spend his time in suggesting
hypothetical histories of events known to have occurred in a
pre-historic age: his evidence that such and such events must have
occurred may be conclusive, and yet he may be quite in the dark as
to the precise conditions which led up to them, the time which was
occupied by them, and the particular method of their occurrence. In
such cases it often happens that the more certain an historian may be
that such and such an event did take place, the greater is the number
of ways in which he sees that it might have taken place. Merely for the
sake of showing that this is likewise the case in the matter now before
us, I will devote the present chapter to a consideration of three
alternative—and equally hypothetical—histories of the transition.
But, from what has just been said, I hope it will be understood that I
attach no argumentative importance to any of these hypotheses.
* * * * *
Sundry German philologists have endeavoured to show that speech
originated in wholly meaningless sounds, which in the first instance
were due to merely physiological conditions. In their opinion the
purely reflex mechanisms connected with vocalization would have
been sufficient to yield not only many differences of tone under
different states as to suffering, pleasure, effort, &c., but even the
germ of articulation in the meaningless utterance of vowel sounds
and consonants. Thus, for example, Lazarus says:—“Der Process der
eigenthümlich menschlichen Laut-Erzeugung, die Articulation der Tone,
die Hervorbringung von Vocalen und Consonanten, ist demnach auf
rein physiologischem Boden gegeben—in der urprünglichen Natur des
menschlichen physischen bewegten Organismus begründet, und wird vor
aller Willkür und Absicht also ohne Einwirkung des Geistes obwohl auf
Veranlassung von Gefühlen und Empfindungen vollzogen.”[301]
This, it will be observed, is the largest possible extension of
the interjectional theory of the origin of speech. It assumes that
not only inarticulate, but also articulate sounds were given forth
by the “sprachlosen Urmenschen,” in the way of instinctive cries,
wholly destitute of any semiotic intention. By repeated association,
however, they are supposed to have acquired, as it were automatically,
a semiotic value. For, to quote Professor Friedrich Müller, “Sie
sind zwar Anfangs bedeutungslos: sie können aber bedeutungsvoll
werden. Alles, was in unserem Inneren vorgeht, wird von der Seele
wahrgenommen. Sobald durch gewisse aüssere Einflüsse in Folge einer
Combination mehrerer Empfindungen eine Anschauung entsteht, nimmt die
Seele dieselbe an, Diese Anschauung hat—in Folge der durch eine der
Empfindungen hervorgebrachten Reflexbewegung in den Stimmorganen—einen
Laut zum Begleiter, welcher in gleicher Weise wie die Anschauung von
der Seele wahrgenommen wird, diese beiden Wahrnehmungen, nämlich jene
der Anschauung und jene des Lautes, _verbinden_ sich miteinander
vermöge ihrer _Gleichzeitigkeit_ im menschlichen Bewusstsein, es
findet also eine _Association_ der Laut-Anschauung mit jener der
_Sach_-Anschauung statt, die Elemente der Sach-Anschauung bekommen
an der Laute-Anschauung einen _festen_ Mittelpunkt, durch den die
_Anschauung_ zur _Vorstellung_ sich entwickelt. Wir sind damit bei
der menschlichen Sprache angelangt, welche also ihrem Wesen nach auf
der _Substituirung_ eines _Klang_-oder _Ton_bildes für das Bild einer
Anschauung beruht.”[302]
Now, without at all doubting the important part which originally
meaningless sounds may have played in furnishing material for vocal
sign-making, and still less disputing the agency of association in
the matter, I must nevertheless refuse to accept the above hypothesis
as anything like a full explanation of the origin of speech. For it
manifestly ignores the whole problem which stands to be solved—namely,
the genesis of those powers of ideation which first put a soul of
meaning into the previously insignificant sounds. Nearly all the
warm-blooded animals so far share with mankind the same physiological
nature as to give forth a variety of vocal sounds under as great a
variety of mental states. Therefore, if in accordance with the above
hypothesis we regard all such sounds as meaningless (or arising from
the “purely physiological basis” of reflex movement), the question
obviously presents itself, Why have not the lower animals developed
speech? According to the above doctrine, aboriginal and hitherto
speechless man started without any superiority in respect of the
sign-making faculty, and thus far precisely resembled what is taken
to be the present psychological condition of the lower animals.[303]
Why, then, out of the same original conditions has there arisen
so enormous a difference of result? If, in the case of mankind,
associations of meaningless sounds with particular states, objects,
&c., led to a substitution of the former for the latter, and thus
gave to them the significance of names, how are we to account for the
total absence of any such development in brutes? To me it appears
that this is clearly an unanswerable difficulty; and therefore I do
not wonder that the so-called interjectional theory of the origin of
speech has brought discredit on the whole philosophy of the subject.
But, as so often happens in philosophical writings, we have here a
case where an important truth is damaged by imperfect or erroneous
presentation. All the principles set forth in the above hypothesis
are sound in themselves, but the premiss from which they start is
untrue. This premiss is, that aboriginal man presented no rudiments
of the sign-making faculty—that this faculty itself required to be
originated _de novo_ by accidental associations of sounds with things.
But, as we now well know from all the facts previously given, even
the lower animals present the sign-making faculty in no mean degree
of development; and, therefore, it is perfectly certain that the
“Urmenschen,” at the time when they were “sprachlosen,” were not on
this account _zeichenlosen_. The psychological germ of communication,
which probably could not have been created by merely accidental
associations between sounds and things, must already have been given in
those psychological conditions of receptual ideation which are common
to all intelligent animals.
But to this all-essential germ, as thus given, I doubt not that the
soil of such associations as the interjectional theory has in view
must have been of no small importance; for this would naturally help
to nourish its semiotic nature. And the reason why the similar germ of
sign-making which occurs in the brute creation has not been similarly
nurtured, I have already considered in Chapter VIII. For, it is
needless to add, on every ground I disagree with the above quotations
where they represent articulate sounds as having been aboriginally
uttered by “Urmenschen” in the way of instinctive cries, without any
vestige of semiotic intention.[304]
* * * * *
I will now pass on to consider the two other hypotheses; and by way of
introduction to both we must remember that our materials of study on
the side of the apes is very limited. I do not mean only that no single
representative of any of the anthropoid apes has ever been made the
object of even so much observation with respect to its intelligence
as I bestowed upon a cebus. Yet this, no doubt, is an important
point, because we know that of all quadrumana—and, therefore, of all
existing animals—the anthropoid apes are the most intelligent, and,
therefore, if specially trained would probably display greater aptitude
in the matter of sign-making than is to be met with in any other kind
of brute. But I do not press this point. What I now refer to is the
fact that the existing species of anthropoid apes are very few in
number, and appear to be all on the high-road to extinction. Moreover,
it is certain that none of these existing species can have been the
progenitor of man; and, lastly, it is equally certain that the extinct
species (or genus) which did give origin to man must have differed in
several important respects from any of its existing allies. In the
first place, it must have been more social in habits; and, in the next
place, it was probably more vociferous than the orang, the gorilla,
or the chimpanzee. That there is no improbability in either of these
suppositions will be at once apparent if we remember that both are
amply sustained by analogies among existing and allied species of
the monkey tribe. Or, to state these preliminary considerations in a
converse form, when it is assumed[305] that because the few existing
and expiring species of anthropoid apes are unsocial and comparatively
silent, therefore the simian ancestors of man must have been so, it is
enough to point to the variability of both these habits among certain
allied genera of monkeys and baboons, in order at the same time to
dispose of the assumption, and to indicate the probable reasons why one
genus of ape gradually became evolved into _Homo_, while all the allied
genera became, or are still becoming, extinct.
Again, and still by way of preliminary consideration, we must remember
that the analogy of the growing child, although most valuable up to a
certain point, is not to be unreservedly followed where we have to deal
with the genesis of speech. For, as previously noted, to the infancy of
the individual language is supplied from without, and has only to be
learnt; while to the infancy of the race language was not supplied, but
had to be made. Therefore, even apart from any question of heredity,
we have here an immense difference in the psychological conditions
between the case of a growing child and that of aboriginal man. Only
in so far as the growing child displays the tendency on which I have
dwelt of spontaneously extending the significance of denotative words,
or of spontaneously using such words in apposition for the purpose of
pre-conceptual predication—only to this extent may we hope to find any
true analogy between the individual and the race in respect of that
“transition” from receptual to conceptual ideation with which we are
now concerned.[306]
There is another preliminary consideration which I think is well worth
mentioning. The philologist Geiger is led by his study of language
to entertain, and somewhat elaborately to sustain, the following
doctrine. First he points out that man, much more than any other
animal, uses the sense of sight for the purposes of perceptual life.
By this he does not mean that man possesses a keener vision than
any other animal, but merely that of all his special senses that of
sight is most habitually used for taking cognizance of the external
world. And this, I think, must certainly be admitted. Even a hitherto
speechless infant may be seen to observe objects at great distances,
carefully to investigate objects which it holds in its hands, and
generally to employ its eyes much more effectively than any of the
lower animals at a comparable stage of development. Now, from this
relative superiority of the sense of sight in man, Geiger argues that
before the origin of articulate speech he, more than any other animal,
must have been accustomed to communicate with his fellows by means of
signs which appealed to that sense—_i.e._ by gesture and grimace. But,
if this be admitted, it follows that from the time when a particular
species of the order Primates began to use its eyesight more than the
allied species, a condition was given favourable to the subsequent
and gradual development of a gesticulating form of ape-like creature.
Here grimace also would have played an important part, and where
attention was particularly directed towards movements of the mouth for
semiotic purposes, articulate sounds would begin to acquire more or
less conventional significations. In this way Geiger supposes that the
conditions required for the origin of articulate signs were laid down;
and, in view of all that he says, it certainly is suggestive that the
animal which relies most upon the sense of sight is also the animal
which has made so prodigious an advance in the faculty of sign-making.
In this greater reliance on the sense of sight, therefore, we probably
have another among the many and complex conditions which determined the
difference in respect of sign-making between the remote progenitors
of man and their nearest zoological allies—a difference which would
naturally become more and more pronounced the more that vision and
gesticulation acted and reacted on one another.
It appears to me that this suggestion of Geiger admits of being
strikingly supported by certain facts which are known to obtain in the
case of deaf-mutes. Even when wholly uneducated, the born mute, as
we have previously seen, habitually invents articulate sounds as his
own names of things. These sounds are, of course, unheard by the mute
himself, and their use must be ascribed—as I have already ascribed
it—to the hereditary transmission of an acquired propensity. But the
point now is that, although the majority of these articulate sounds
appear to be wholly arbitrary (_e.g._ _ga_ for “one,” _schuppatter_
for “two,” _riecke_ for “I will not”), a certain proportion are often
clearly traceable to vocalizations incidental to movements of the
mouth in performing the actions signified (_e.g._ _mumm_ for “eating,”
_schipp_ for “drinking”).[307] Similarly, observation of a dog’s
mouth, while in the act of barking, leads to an imitative action on
the part of a mute as his sign for a dog, and this in turn may lead
to the utterance of such an articulate sound as _be-yer_, which the
mute afterwards uses as his name for a dog.[308] Now, if words may
thus be coined even by deaf-mutes as a result of observing movements
of the mouth, much more is this likely to have been the case among the
“Urmenschen,” who were able not only to see the movements, but also to
hear the sounds.
* * * * *
I will now adduce the two hypotheses above alluded to as conceivable
suggestions touching the mode of transition. First, let us try to
imagine an anthropoid ape, social in habits, using its voice somewhat
extensively as an organ of sign-making after the manner of all other
species of social quadrumana, and possibly somewhat more sagacious
than the orang-outang mentioned in my previous work,[309] or the
remarkable chimpanzee now in the Zoological Gardens, which, in respect
of intelligence as well as comparative hairlessness and carnivorous
propensities, appears to be the most human-like of animals hitherto
discovered in the living state.[310] It does not seem to me difficult
further to imagine that such an animal should extend the vocal signs
which it habitually employs in the expression of its emotions and the
logic of its recepts, to an association with gesture-signs, so as to
constitute sentence-words indicative of such simple and often-repeated
ideas as the presence of danger, discovery of food, &c. Nay, I do not
think it is too much to suppose that such an animal may even have gone
so far as to make sounds which were denotative of a few of the most
familiar objects, such as food, child, enemy, &c., and also, possibly,
of frequently repeated forms of activity; for this, as I have shown at
considerable length, is no more than we actually observe to be done by
animals which are lower in the scale of intelligence; and although it
is not done by articulate signs (except in the psychologically poor
instance of talking birds), this, as I have also shown, is a matter
of no psychological import. Whether the denotative stage of language
in the ape was first reached by articulation, or (as I think is very
much more probable) by vocal sounds of other kinds assisted by gestures
and grimace, is similarly immaterial. In either case the advance of
intelligence which would thus have been secured would in time have
reacted upon the sign-making faculty, and so have led to the extension
of the vocabulary, both as to sounds and gestures. Sooner or later the
vocal signs—assisted out by gestures and ever leading to a gradual
advance of intelligence—would have become more or less conventional,
and so, in the presence of suitable anatomical and social conditions,
articulate. Thus far I cannot see anything to stumble over, when we
remember all that has been said upon the conventional signs which are
used by the more intelligent of our domesticated animals, and even by
talking birds.[311]
This is the hypothesis which is countenanced by Mr. Darwin in his
_Descent of Man_. He says:—“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 instinctive cries, aided by
signs and gestures.... Since monkeys certainly understand 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 in the sky from hawks (both, as well as a third
cry, intelligible to dogs),[312] may not some unusually wise ape-like
animal have imitated the growl of a beast of prey, and thus told his
fellow-monkeys the nature of the expected danger? This would have been
a first step in the formation of a language.”[313]
But Mr. Darwin adds another feature to the hypothesis now under
consideration, as follows:—
“When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that primæval 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-apes 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, such as love, jealousy, triumph,—and would have served as
a challenge to rivals. It is, therefore, probable that the imitation
of musical cries by articulate sounds may have given rise to words
expressive of various complex emotional states.”[314]
* * * * *
Such, then, is one way in which it appears to me quite conceivable
that the faculty of articulate sign-making might have taken the first
step towards the formation of speech. But, not to go further than this
first step, I can see another possibility as to the precise method of
attainment, and one which I think is still more probable. It is the
opinion of some authorities in anthropology that speech was probably,
and comparatively speaking, late in making its appearance; so that
our ancestors in whom it did first appear were already more human
than simian, and as such deserving of the name _Homo alalus_.[315]
Now, if this were the case, the course of our hypothetical history
would be even more easy to imagine than it was under the supposition
previously considered. For, under the present supposition, we start
with an already man-like creature, erect in attitude, much more
intelligent than any other animal, shaping flints to serve as tools and
weapons, living in tribes or societies, and able in no small degree
to communicate the logic of his recepts by means of gesture-signs,
facial expressions, and vocal tones. Clearly, from such an origin, the
subsequent evolution of sign-making in the direction of articulate
sounds would be an even more easy matter to imagine than under the
previous hypothesis. For, let us try to imagine a community of _Homo
alalus_, considerably more intelligent than the existing anthropoid
apes, although still considerably below the intellectual level of
existing savages. It is certain that in such a community natural signs
of voice, gesture, and grimace would be in vogue to a greater or
less extent.[316] As their numbers increased (and, consequently, as
natural selection laid a greater and greater premium on intelligent
co-operation, as in the case of social insects),[317] such signs
would require to become more and more conventional, or acquire more
and more the character of sentence-words and denotative signs.[318]
Now, where the signs were vocal, the only ways in which they could
be developed so as to meet this need would be, (1) conventional
modulations of intensity, (2) of pitch, and (3) of time-intervals. But
clearly, neither modulations of intensity nor of pitch could carry
improvement very far, seeing that the human voice does not admit of
any great range of either. Consequently, if any improvement at all
were to be effected—and it was bound to be effected, if possible, by
natural selection,—it could only be so in the direction of modulating
time-intervals between vocal sounds. Now, such a modulation of
time-intervals is the beginning of _articulation_.
That is to say, the first articulation probably consisted in nothing
further than a semiotic breaking of vocal tones, in a manner resembling
that which still occurs in the so-called “chattering” of monkeys—the
natural language for the expression of their mental states. The
great difference would be that the semiotic value of such incipient
articulation must have been more largely intellectual, or less purely
emotional: it must have partaken less of the nature of cries, and more
of the nature of names. It seems probable that, as all natural cries
are given forth by the throat and larynx, with little or no assistance
from the tongue and lips, these first efforts at articulation would
have been mainly restricted to vowel sounds, sparsely supplemented by
guttural and labial consonants. This state of matters might have lasted
for an enormous length of time, during which the liquid, and lastly
the lingual consonants would perhaps have begun to be used. This is
the order in which we might expect the consonants to arise, in view of
the consideration that the gutturals and labials would probably have
admitted of more easy pronunciation than the liquids and linguals by an
almost speechless _Homo_.[319] From this point onwards, the further
development of articulation would only be a matter of time and mental
growth; but I think it is highly probable that the initial stages thus
sketched probably occupied a lapse of time out of all proportion to
that which was afterwards required for the higher developments.
Moreover, in this connection we must not neglect to notice the “clicks”
of the African Bushmen and Hottentots, which appear to furnish us with
direct evidence of the survival among these low races of a primordially
inarticulate system of sign-making.[320] No one has studied the
languages of these peoples with so much labour or so much result as the
philosophically minded Dr. Bleek, and he says that the clicks which
occur in the great majority of their words, “must be made an object of
special attention if we would arrive at even an approximate idea of the
original vocal elements from which human language sprang.”[321]
The clicks in question are four in number, or, according to Bleek,
“at least six.” They are called the dental, palatal, cerebral, and
lateral. The lateral click is the same as that which is employed by our
own grooms when urging a horse. The dental is also used by European
races as a sound expressive of disappointment, unspeakable contempt,
&c. In books it is usually written “tut, tut,” which serves to show
how hopeless is any attempt at translating a click into any articulate
equivalent. The other two clicks are formed by the tongue operating
upon the roof of the mouth. Some remote idea of the difficulty of
rendering a language of this kind into any alphabetical form, may be
gained by trying to pronounce one of the words which are printed in
our European treatises upon them. For example, the Hottentot word for
“moon” is printed ║ _khãp_, where ║ stands for the lateral click, _kha_
for a guttural consonant, and ˜ for a nasal twang.
With reference to this inarticulate kind of sign-making, which thus
so largely prevails among the languages of low races in close organic
connection with articulate, it seems worth while to record the
following observation which was communicated by Professor Haeckel to
Dr. Bleek, and published by the latter in his work already quoted:—
“The language of apes has not hitherto received from zoologists the
attention which it deserves, and there are no accurate descriptions
of the sounds uttered by them. They are sometimes called ‘howls,’
sometimes ‘cries,’ ‘clicks,’ ‘roars,’ &c. Now, I have myself frequently
heard in zoological gardens, from apes of very different species,
remarkable clicking sounds, which are produced with the lips, and also,
though not so often, with the tongue; but I have nowhere been able to
find any account of them.”
Upon the whole, then, it appears to me extremely probable that in these
clicks we have survivals, in lowly developed languages, of a formerly
inarticulate condition of mankind; or, as Professor Sayce remarks from
a philological point of view, “the clicks of the Bushmen still survive
to show us how the utterances of speechless man could be made to embody
and convey thought.”[322]
* * * * *
In its main outlines the hypothetical sketch which I have given follows
that which Mr. Darwin has drawn in his _Descent of Man_. As we have
already seen, however, there is this important difference. Mr. Darwin
entertains only the second of the three alternative hypotheses here
presented, or the hypothesis which assumes that the rudiments of
articulate speech began in the “ape-like,” or “early progenitors” of
man. He does not seem to have entertained the idea of _Homo alalus_ as
a connecting link between these early progenitors and _Homo sapiens_. I
may, therefore, here briefly give my reasons for thinking it probable
that this connecting link had an actual existence.
Let it be observed, in the first place, that there is no antagonism
between the two hypotheses in question—the latter, indeed, being
merely an extension of the former. For the latter adopts all
Mr. Darwin’s views as to the importance of instinctive cries,
danger-signals, &c., for the higher development of sign-making in
that “ape-like animal” which was the brutal progenitor of _Homo
alalus_.[323] Moreover, our hypothesis is entitled to assume, with
Mr. Darwin’s, that this anthropoid ape was presumably not only more
intelligent than any of the few surviving species, but also much
more social. And this is an important point to insist upon, because
it is obvious that the conditions of social life are also the prime
conditions to any considerable advance upon the sign-making faculty as
this occurs in existing apes. The only respect, therefore, in which
the two hypotheses differ is in the one supposing that the faculty of
articulate sign-making was a much later product of evolution than it
is taken to have been by the other. That is to say, while Mr. Darwin’s
hypothesis regards the commencement of articulation as a necessary
condition to any considerable advance upon the receptual intelligence
of our brutal ancestry, the present hypothesis regards it as more
probable that this receptual intelligence was largely developed by
gesture and vocal signs, before the latter can be said to have become
properly articulate—the result being that a creature rather more human
than “ape-like” was evolved, who, nevertheless, was still able to
communicate with his fellows only by means of gesture-signs and vocal
tones.
My reasons for regarding this hypothesis as more probable than the
other are these.
First of all, on grounds of psychology, I see no reason to doubt that
the receptual intelligence of an already intelligent and highly social
species of anthropoid ape would admit of considerable advance upon that
of any existing species without the aid of articulation—social habits
making all the difference as to the development of sign-making with
its consequent reaction upon mental development. Next, for these early
stages of advance, I do not see that articulate sign-making would have
conferred any considerable advantage over a further development of the
more natural systems. For, so long as the only co-operation required
had reference to comparatively simple actions, the language of tone
and gesture would have admitted of sufficient development to have met
all requirements. Lastly, if we take the growing child as an index of
psychogenesis in the race, there can be no doubt that it points to a
comparatively late origin of the faculty of articulation. Remembering
the general tendency of ontogenesis to foreshorten the history of
phylogenesis, it is, I think, most suggestive that—notwithstanding
its readiness to imitate, and notwithstanding its being surrounded by
spoken language—the infant does not begin to use articulate signs
until long after it has been able to express many of its receptual
ideas in the language of tone and gesture. It will be remembered that
I have already laid stress upon the astonishing degree of elaboration
which this form of language undergoes in the case of children who are
late in beginning to speak (see pp. 220). And although it might be
scarcely justifiable to take these cases as possibly representative
of the semiotic language of _Homo alalus_ (seeing that the child of
to-day inherits the cerebrum of _Homo sapiens_); still I think it is
no less certain that we should err on the opposite side, if we were
to take the case of a child who is precocious in the matter of speech
as a fair index of the grade of mental evolution at the time when
articulation first began in the race (seeing that the history of the
latter is probably foreshortened in that of the former). Yet, even if
we were to do this, for the sake of argument, the result would still
be most strongly to indicate that long before our remote ancestors
were able to use articulate speech, they were immeasurably in advance
of all existing brutes in their semiotic use of tone and gesture. For
even a precocious child does not begin to make any considerable use of
words as signs until it is well on into its second year, while usually
this stage is not reached until the third. And, at whatever age it
is reached, the general intelligence of the child is not only much
in advance of that of any existing brute, but the direction in which
this advance is most conspicuous is just the direction where, in the
present connection, it is most suggestive—namely, in that of natural
sign-making by tone and gesture.
* * * * *
In view, then, of these several considerations, I am disposed to think
that the progress of mental evolution from the brute to the man most
probably took place by some such stages as the following.
Starting from the highly intelligent and social species of anthropoid
ape as pictured by Darwin, we can imagine that this animal was
accustomed to use its voice freely for the expression of its emotions,
uttering of danger-signals, and singing.[324] Possibly enough, also, it
may have been sufficiently intelligent to use a few imitative sounds
in the arbitrary way that Mr. Darwin suggests; and certainly sooner
or later the receptual life of this social animal must have advanced
far enough to have become comparable with that of an infant at about
two years of age. That is to say, this animal, although not yet having
begun to use articulate signs, must have advanced far enough in the
conventional use of natural signs (or signs with a natural origin in
tone and gesture, whether spontaneous only or intentionally imitative),
to have admitted of a tolerably free exchange of receptual ideas,
such as would be concerned in animal wants, and even, perhaps, in the
simplest forms of co-operative action.[325] Next, I think it probable
that the advance of receptual intelligence which would have been
occasioned by this advance in sign-making, would in turn have led to a
further development of the latter—the two thus acting and re-acting on
one another, until the language of tone and gesture became gradually
raised to the level of imperfect pantomime, as in children before they
begin to use words. At this stage, however, or even before it, I think
very probably vowel-sounds must have been employed in tone-language,
if not also a few of the consonants. And I think this not only on
account of the analogy furnished by an infant already alluded to, but
also because in the case of a “singing” animal, intelligent enough to
be constantly using its voice for semiotic purposes, and therefore
employing a variety of more or less conventional tones, including
clicks, it seems almost necessary that some of the vowel sounds—and
possibly also some of the consonants—should have been brought into
use. But, be this as it may, eventually the action and reaction of
receptual intelligence and conventional sign-making must have ended
in so far developing the former as to have admitted of the breaking
up (or articulation) of vocal sounds, as the only direction in which
any further improvement of vocal sign-making was possible. I think it
not improbable that this important stage in the development of speech
was greatly assisted by the already-existing habit of articulating
musical notes, supposing our progenitors to have resembled the gibbons
or the chimpanzees in this respect. But long after this first rude
beginning of articulate speech, the language of tone and gesture would
have continued as much the most important machinery of communication:
the half-human creature now before our imagination would probably
have struck us as a wonderful adept at making significant sounds and
movements both as to number and variety; but in all probability we
should scarcely have been able to notice the already-developing germ
of articulation. Nor do I believe that, if we were able to strike in
again upon the history thousands of years later, we should find that
pantomime had been superseded by speech. On the contrary, I believe we
should find that although considerable progress had been made in the
former, so that the object then before us might appear deserving of
being classed as _Homo_, we should also feel that he must needs still
be distinguished by the addition _alalus_. Lastly, I believe that this
most interesting creature probably lived for an inconceivably long time
before his faculty of articulate sign-making had developed sufficiently
far to begin to starve out the more primitive and more natural systems;
and I believe that, even after this starving-out process did begin,
another inconceivable lapse of time must have been required for such
progress to have eventually transformed _Homo alalus_ into _Homo
sapiens_.
* * * * *
It is now time to consider a branch of this hypothesis which has been
suggested by the philologist Professor Noiré, to which allusion has
already been made in an earlier chapter.[326]
Before Mr. Darwin had published his views, Professor Noiré had
elaborated a theory of the origin of speech which was substantially
the same as that which I have already quoted from the _Descent of
Man_.[327] The only difference between the two was that, while Darwin
referred the origin of articulate speech from instinctive cries, &c.,
to the anthropoid apes, Noiré referred it to a being already human.
In other words, Noiré adopted what I have here called the third
hypothesis, which assumes a speechless form of man as anterior to the
existing form.[328] But, as a result of further deliberation, Noiré
came to the conclusion that “the objects of fear and trembling and
dismay are even now the least appropriate to enter into the pure,
clear, and tranquil sphere of speech-thought, or to supply the first
germs of it.” Accordingly, he discarded the view that these germs
were to be sought in instinctive cries and danger calls, in favour
of the hypothesis that articulation had its origin in sounds which
are made by bodies of men when engaged in common occupations. Having
already explained the elements of this Yo-he-ho theory, it will here
be enough to repeat that I think there is probably some measure of
truth in it; although I likewise think it self-evident that this cannot
have been the only source of aboriginal speech. In what proportion
this branch of onomatopœia was concerned in the genesis of aboriginal
words—supposing it to have been concerned at all—we have now no means
of even conjecturing. But seeing that there are so many other sources
of onomatopœia supplied by Nature, and that these other sources are
so apparent in all existing languages, while the one suggested by
Noiré has not left a record of its occurrence in any language,—seeing
these things, I conclude, as before stated, that at best the Yo-he-ho
principle can be accredited with but a small proportional part in the
aboriginal genesis of language.[329] Therefore, with respect to this
hypothesis I have only three remarks to make: (1) that it is plainly
but a special branch of the general onomatopoetic theory; (2) that,
as such, it not improbably presents some measure of truth; and (3)
that, consequently, it ought to be regarded—not as it is regarded
by its author Noiré and its advocate Max Müller, namely, as the sole
explanation of the origin of speech, but—as representing only one
among many other ways in which, during many ages, many communities of
vociferous though hitherto speechless men may have slowly evolved the
art of making articulate signs.
* * * * *
Probably it will be objected to this third hypothesis, in all its
branches, that it amounts to a _petetio principii_: _Homo alalus_,
it may be said, is _Homo postulatus_. To this I answer, Not so. The
question raised has been raised expressly and exclusively on the
faculty of conceptual speech, and it is conceded that of this faculty
there can have been no earlier phase than that of articulation.
Consequently, if my opponents assume that prior to the appearance of
this earliest phase it is impossible that any hitherto speechless
animal should have been erect in attitude, intelligent enough to chip
flints, or greatly in advance of other animals in the matter of making
indicative gesture-signs, assisted by vocal tones,—if my opponents
assume all this, it is _they_ who are endeavouring to beg the question.
For they are merely assuming, in the most arbitrary way, that the
faculty of conceptual thought is necessary in order that an animal
already semi-erect, should become more erect; in order that an animal
already intelligent enough to use stones for cracking nuts and opening
oysters, should not only (as at present) choose the most appropriate
stones for the purpose, but begin to fashion them for these or other
purposes; in order that an animal already more apt than any other
in the use of gesture and vocal signs, should advance considerably
along the same line of psychical improvement.[330] The hypothesis
that such a considerable advance might have gradually taken place,
up to the psychological level supposed, may or may not be true; but,
at least, it does not beg the question. The question is whether the
distinctively human faculty of conceptual ideation differs in kind or
in degree from the lower faculty of receptual ideation; and my present
suggestion amounts to nothing more than a supposition that receptual
ideation may have been developed in the animal kingdom to some such
level as it reaches in a child who is late in beginning to speak.[331]
If any opponent should object to this suggestion on the score of its
appearing to beg the question, he must remember that this question
only arises—in accordance with his own argument—at the place where
the faculty of sign-making ministers to that of introspective thought.
The question as to how far the lower faculties of mind admit of being
developed apart from (or, as I believe, antecedent to) the occurrence
of introspective thought, is obviously quite a distinct question. And
it is a question that can only be answered by observation. Now, I
have already shown that in the case of intelligent animals—and still
more in that of a growing child—the faculties of receptual ideation
do admit of being wrought up to an astonishing degree of adaptive
efficiency, without the possibility of their having been in any way
indebted to the distinctively human faculty of conceptual thought.
* * * * *
On the whole, then, it seems to me probable, on grounds of psychology
alone, that the developmental history of intelligence in our race
so far resembled this history in the growing child that, prior to
the advent of speech, receptual ideation had attained a much higher
level of perfection than it now presents in any animal—so much
so, indeed, that the adult creature presenting it might well have
merited the name of _Homo alalus_. And, as we shall see in my next
volume, this inference on psychological grounds is corroborated by
certain inferences which may reasonably be drawn from some other
classes of facts. But in now for the present taking leave of this
question, I desire again to repeat, that it has nothing to do with
my main argument. For it makes no essential difference to my case
whether the faculty of speech was early or late in making its first
appearance. Under either alternative, so soon as the denotative
stage of articulation had been reached by our progenitors in the way
already sketched on its psychological side, the next stage would
have consisted in an extension of denotative signs into connotative
signs. As we have now seen, by a large accumulation of evidence, this
extension of denotative into connotative signs is rendered inevitable
through the principle of sensuous association. In other words, I have
adduced what can only be deemed a superabundance of facts to prove
that, in the first-talking child and even in the parrot, originally
denotative names of particular objects are spontaneously extended
to other objects sensuously perceived to be like in kind. And no
less superabundantly have I proved that this process of connotative
extension is antecedent to the rise of conceptual thought, and,
therefore, to that of true denomination. The limits to which such
purely receptual connotation may extend, I have shown to be determined
by the degree of development which has been reached by the faculties of
purely receptual apprehension. In the parrot this degree of development
is but low; in the dog and monkey considerably higher (though,
unfortunately, these animals are not able to give any articulate
expression to their receptual apprehensions); in the child of two years
it is higher still. But, as before shown, no antagonist can afford
to allege that in any of these cases there is a difference of kind
between the mental faculties that are respectively involved; because
his argument on psychological grounds can only stand upon the basis of
conceptual cognition, which, in turn, can only stand upon the basis of
self-consciousness; and this is demonstrably absent in the child until
long after the time when denotative names are connotatively extended by
the receptual intelligence of the child itself.
Thus, there can be no reasonable question that it is psychologically
possible for _Homo sapiens_ to have had an ancestry, which—whether
already partly human or still simian—was able to carry denotation
to a high level of connotation, without the need of cognition
belonging to the order conceptual. Whether the signs were then made
by tone and gesture alone, or likewise by articulate sounds, is also,
psychologically considered, immaterial. In either case connotation
would have followed denotation up to whatever point the higher
receptual (“pre-conceptual”) intelligence of such an ancestry was
able to take cognizance of simple analogies. And this psychological
possibility becomes on other grounds a probability of the highest
order, so soon as we know of any independent evidence touching the
corporeal evolution of man from a simian ancestry.
Now, we have already seen that pre-conceptual connotation amounts to
what I have termed pre-conceptual judgment. The qualities or relations
thus connotated are not indeed contemplated _as_ qualities or _as_
relations; but in the mere act of such a connotative classification
the higher receptual intelligence is virtually judging a resemblance,
and virtually predicating its judgment. Therefore I think it probable
that the earliest forms of such virtual predication were those which
would have been conveyed in single words. And, as we have seen in the
foregoing chapters, there is abundant and wholly independent evidence
to show, that this form of nascent predication continued to hold an
important place until so late in the intellectual history of our race
as to leave a permanent record of its occurrence in the structure of
all languages now extant.
The epoch during which these sentence-words prevailed was probably
immense; and, as we have before seen, far from having been inimical
to gesticulation, must have greatly encouraged it—raising, in
fact, the indicative phase of language to the level of elaborate
pantomime. Out of the complex of sentence-words and gesture-signs thus
inaugurated, grammatical forms became slowly evolved, as we know from
the independent witness of philology. But long before grammatical forms
of any sort began to be evolved, a kind of uncertain differentiation
must have taken place in this protoplasmic material of speech, in such
wise that some sentence-words would have tended to become specially
denotative of particular objects, others of particular actions, states,
qualities, and relations. This “primitive streak,” as it were, of
what was afterwards to constitute the vertebral column of articulated
language in the independent yet mutually related “parts of speech,”
must in large measure have owed its development to gesture. Now, by
this time, gesture itself must already have acquired an elementary kind
of syntax, such as belongs even to semiotic movements of an infant who
happens to be late in beginning to speak.[332] This elementary kind
of syntax would necessarily be taken over by, or impressed upon, the
growing structure of speech, at all events so far as the principles
and the order of apposition were concerned. Moreover, this sign-making
value of apposition would at the same time have been promoted
within the sphere of articulate signs themselves. For, as we have
previously seen, as soon as words become in any measure denotative,
they immediately begin to undergo a connotative extension;[333] and
with this progressive widening of signification, words require to be
more and more frequently used in apposition. Quite independently of
any as yet non-existing powers of introspective thought, the external
“logic of events” must have constantly determined such apposition
of receptually connotative terms, as we have already so fully seen
in the case of the growing child. Thus the conditions were laid for
the tripartite division—the genitive case, the adjective, and the
verb. Not till long subsequent ages, however, would this division
have taken place in its fulness. During the time which we are now
contemplating, there could have been no distinction at all between the
genitive case and the adjective; neither could there have been any
verbs as independent parts of speech. Nevertheless, already some of the
denotative signs would have been used as names of particular objects,
others of particular qualities, and yet others of particular actions,
states, and relations. Not yet deserving to be regarded as fully
differentiated parts of speech, these object-words, quality-words,
&c., would have resembled those with which we are all well acquainted
in nursery language, and which still survive, in a remarkably large
measure, among many dialects of a low order of development. Now, as
soon as these denotative names became at all fixed in meaning within
the limits of the same community, those which respectively signified
objects, qualities, actions, states, and relations, must necessarily
have been often used in apposition; and, as often as they were thus
used, would have constituted nascent or pre-conceptual propositions.
The probability certainly is that immense intervals of time would
have been consumed in the passage through these various grades of
mental evolution; but when we remember the great importance of this
kind of evolution to the species which had once begun to travel in
that direction, we cannot wonder that survival of the fittest should
have placed a high premium upon the instrument of its attainment—or,
in other words, that the faculty of sign-making, when once happily
started, should have been successively pushed onwards through ascending
grades of efficiency, so that it should soon become as unique in the
mammalian series as, for analogous reasons, are the flying powers of
the Chiroptera. But however long or however short the time may have
been that was required for our early progenitors to pass from one of
these stages of sign-making to another, so soon as the denotative name
of an object was brought into apposition with the denotative name of a
quality or an action, so soon was there uttered the virtual statement
of a virtual judgment, even though the mind which formed it was very
far indeed from being able either to think about its judgment as a
judgment, or to state a truth as true.
Thus we perceive that two different principles were presumably
concerned in the genesis of what I have called pre-conceptual
predication. The first consists in the natural and inevitable
extension of denotative into connotative terms, through the force
of merely receptual association. The second consists in the no less
natural and inevitable apposition of denotative terms themselves,
whereby a receptually perceived relation is virtually—though not
conceptually—predicated as subsisting between the objects, qualities,
states, actions, or relations which are denoted. Of course it is
evident that these two modes of development must have mutually assisted
one another: the more that denotative signs underwent connotative
extension, the greater must have been their predicative value when
used in apposition; and the more frequently denotative signs were used
in apposition, the greater must have become the extension of their
connotative value.
Lastly, it is desirable throughout all this hypothetical discussion
to remember that we have the positive evidence of philology touching
two points of considerable importance. The first point is that, as
in the aboriginal sentence-words there was no differentiation of, or
distinction between, subject and predicate; so, until very late in
the evolution of predicative utterance, there was—and in very many
languages still continues to be—an absence of the copula. Nay, even
the substantive verb, which has been unwittingly confounded with the
copula by some of my opponents, was also very late in making its
appearance.
The second point is that, although “pronominal elements”—or verbal
equivalents of gesture-signs indicative of space-relations—were among
the earliest of verbal differentiations, it was not until after æons
of ages had elapsed that any pronouns arose as specially indicative
of the first person.[334] Now, this point I consider one of prime
importance. For it furnishes us with direct evidence of the fact that,
long after mankind had begun to speak, and even long after they had
gained considerable proficiency in the art of articulate language,
the speakers still continued to refer to themselves in that same
kind of objective phraseology as is employed by a child before the
dawn of self-consciousness. This, of course, is what on antecedent
or theoretical grounds we should infer _must have been_ the case;
but it is surely a matter of great moment that our inference on this
point should admit of such full and independent verification at the
hands of philological research. As we have now so repeatedly seen, the
distinction between ideas as receptual and conceptual turns upon the
presence or absence of self-consciousness, in the full or introspective
signification of that term. And, as we have likewise seen, the outward
and visible sign of this inward and spiritual grace is given in the
subjective use of pronominal words. But if these things admit of no
question in the case of an individual human mind—if in the case of
the growing child the rise of self-consciousness is demonstrably
the condition to that of conceptual thought,—by what feat of logic
can it be possible to insinuate that in the growing psychology of
the race there may have been conceptual thought before there was
any true self-consciousness? Obviously this cannot be insinuated
without denying those identical principles of psychology on which my
opponents themselves rely. Will it, then, be said that the criterion
of self-consciousness which is valid for a child is not valid for
the race—that although in the former the rise of self-consciousness
is marked by the change from objective to subjective phraseology, in
the latter a precisely similar change is not to be accredited with a
similar meaning? If this were to be suggested, it would not merely be
quite gratuitous as a suggestion, but directly opposed to the whole of
an otherwise perfectly parallel analogy. In point of fact, then, there
is obviously no escape from the conclusion that in the race, as in the
individual, the development of true, or “inward,” from receptual, or
“outward,” self-consciousness was a gradual process; that its birth in
the former is not merely a matter of inference—overpowering though
this inference be,—but a matter of actual fact which is recorded in
the archives of Language itself; and, therefore, that the central
question upon which the whole of the present treatise has been engaged
cannot any longer be regarded as an open question. It has been closed,
part by part, as the witness of philology has verified, stage by stage,
the results of our psychological analysis; and now, eventually, the
verification has extended to the central core of the matter, revealing
in all its naked simplicity the one decisive fact, that in the
childhood of the world, no less than in that of the man, we may see the
fundamental change from sense to thought: in the one as in the other do
we behold that—
“As he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of ‘I,’ and ‘me,’
And finds ‘I am not what I see,
And other than the things I touch.’
“So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
As thro’ the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined.”