[314] Descent of Man, p. 87.
[315] This term is used by Haeckel as synonymous with Pithecanthropoi, or the ape-like men, who are supposed to have immediately preceded Homo sapiens (History of Evolution, English trans., vol. ii., p. 293). In the next instalment of work I will consider what has to be said in favour of this view from the side of my anthropology. Meanwhile, it is sufficient to bear in mind that, as previously stated, great as is the psychological difference introduced by the faculty of speech, for the attainment of this faculty anatomical changes so minute as to be imperceptible were all that seem to have been required. “The argument, that because there is an immense difference between a man’s intelligence and an ape’s, therefore there must be an equally immense difference between their brains, appears to me to be about as well based as the reasoning by which one should endeavour to prove that, because there is a ‘great gulf’ between a watch that keeps accurate time and another that will not go at all, there is therefore a great structural hiatus between the two watches. A hair in the balance-wheel, a little rust on a pinion, a bend in a tooth of the escapement, a something so slight that only the practised eye of the watchmaker can discover it, may be the source of all the difference. And believing, as I do, with Cuvier, that the possession of articulate speech is the grand distinctive character of man (whether it be absolutely peculiar to him or not), I find it very easy to comprehend, that some equally inconspicuous structural difference may have been the primary cause of the immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the human from the simian stirps” (Huxley, Man’s Place in Nature, p. 103).
[316] Here I will ask the reader to bear in mind the considerations above adduced from Geiger, as to the encouragement which must have been given to a semiotic use of vocal sounds by habitual attention being given to the movements of the mouth in significant grimace—such attention being naturally bestowed in larger measure by an intelligent ape-like creature which was accustomed to depend chiefly on its sense of sight, than it would be by any of the existing quadrumana.
[317] For sign-making among the social insects, see above, pp. 88-95.
[318] Here, be it observed, the element of truth which belongs to the first of the three hypotheses that we are considering comes in. Compare foot-note on page 364: Homo alalus, though not yet a conceptual thinker, is nevertheless in possession of a higher receptual life than has ever been attained by a brute, and is correspondingly more capable of utilizing as signs interjectional or other sounds which emanate from the “purely physiological grounds” of his own organization.
[319] See Preyer, loc. cit., for a detailed account of the order in which the consonants are developed in the growing child. Also Professor Holden, on the Vocabularies of Children, in Proc. Amer. Philolo. Ass., 1877. There can be no doubt that vowel sounds must have been of early origin in the race; but in what order the consonants may have followed is much more doubtful. For different races now exhibit great differences with regard to the use—and even to the capability of using—consonantal sounds; the Chinese, for instance, changing r into l, while the Japanese change l into r. And, of course, the whole science of comparative philology may be said to be based upon a study of the laws of “phonetic change.” But it is obviously a matter of no importance in what particular order the different articulate sounds were first evolved. According to Prince Lucien Bonaparte, who has investigated the matter with much care, the total number of these sounds that can be possibly made by the human organs of vocalization is 385. See, also, Ellis, on Early English Pronunciation; and, for the limitation of consonants in various languages of existing races, Hovelaque, Science of Language, English trans., pp. 49, 61, 81.
[320] “When we remember the inarticulate clicks which still form part of the Bushman’s language, it would seem as if no line of division could be drawn between man and beast, even when language is made the test” (Sayce, Introduction, &c., ii., p. 302).
[321] Ursprung der Sprache, s. 52.
[322] Introduction, &c., ii., 302: by “thought” of course he means what I mean by recepts.
[323] Here also compare the first of the three hypotheses, the important elements of truth in which are, as I have already more than once observed, to be considered as adopted by Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis, and therefore also by the present one.