Mental Evolution in Man 57

Mental Evolution in Man 57

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 __EXPRESSION__s, 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.