MODES OF EXPRESSION
At the point where we begin to discuss this question there are two distinct modes of expression, either one of which can be used without the other. But I may mention here a cogent fact, that in the lower forms of life the normal mode of expression is by signs with supplemental sounds. In the higher forms, expression is by sounds, and signs are supplemental. And from the lower to the higher forms this transition is in harmony with the development of physical types. It occurs to me that signs were the first form of expression, and that sounds were first used to call attention to the sign made; and by an association of ideas the sounds became a factor of expression, and were used to emphasise signs. As we ascend the scale of life, sounds become more abundant, and signs less significant, and in the middle types they appear to be of nearly equal value, while in the higher tribes of man sounds are the normal mode of expression, and signs or gestures are used to emphasise them; and thus we see that signs and sounds in the development of the faculty of expression have quite changed places. This is consistent with the observed facts within the limits of human speech. There are tribes of mankind whose language is scarcely intelligible among themselves unless accompanied by signs; and it is said of some of the African tribes that their gestures are more eloquent than their speech. It appears to me consistent to believe that speech appears in the animal organism simultaneously with the vocal organs, and that the desire of expression must have preceded this. PRESENT CONDITION OF SPEECH The condition of the vocal organs depends upon the type of speech which they are used to utter, and the speech depends upon the quality of thought it is intended to express. That type of speech used by the Caucasian race within the space of a few centuries has developed from a vocabulary limited to a few thousand words into the polished languages of modern Europe, comprising new types and tens of thousands of new words, until to-day our own language contains more than two hundred and twenty thousand words, very few of which, however, if any, are entirely new. The phonetic elements on which is built up this huge vocabulary do not very greatly exceed in number those found in the lowest types of human speech in the world. The total number of these sounds does not much exceed two score in the highest forms of human speech; and about half this number can be shown as the vocal products of some species of the lower animals. Some philologists claim that the blending of consonant and vowel sounds is the mark which distinguishes human speech from the sounds uttered by the lower animals. To show how poorly this gigantic superstructure of fossilised science is supported by the facts, I have developed such effects in the phonograph from a basis of sounds purely mechanical, and without the aid of any part of the vocal apparatus of man or animal. The sounds from which I have developed such results were neither vowel nor consonant as those sounds are defined, but simply prolonged musical notes. In another chapter will be found some of the experiments which I have performed with the phonograph in the investigation of sounds of various kinds. If I am allowed to think for myself at all, I am not ready to accept as final some of the dogmas on the theory of sound which have long been held and taught, and many of which remain orthodox for no other reason than that no one has denied them. I am not ready at this point to spring upon the world any new theory of sound, but I am quite ready to refuse to believe some of the tenets set forth in the creeds of philology.
Heresy is the author of progress, and I confess myself a heretic on many of the current doctrines of the science of sounds.
CHAPTER XIX.
Language embraces Speech—Speech, Words, Grammar, and Rhetoric.
A definition of the word speech as used in this particular work is given elsewhere, and by this definition the word is used only in that sense which limits it to the sphere of oral sounds. It is that form of language which addresses itself only to the ear. The sounds which constitute it may be supplemented by signs or gestures, but such signs are only adjuncts, and are not to be regarded as an integral part of speech in its true sense. Speech cannot be acquired by those forms of life which occupy the lowest horizons of the animal kingdom, and have no organs with which to produce sound. In the light of modern use and acceptation language, broadly interpreted, includes all modes and means of communication between mind and mind. It therefore includes speech as one form, while signs or gestures constitute another form. Writing in all its various modes is another form of language. It may be substituted for either speech or gestures, but it does not thereby become speech in a literal sense, but within itself it constitutes another form of language. There seems to be some vague and subtle method of communication found in certain spheres of life which is called telepathy. While it is a mere ghost of language, so to speak, it has an identity which cannot be denied. This may perhaps be called another form of language.
LANGUAGE EMBRACES SPEECH
By some eminent men of letters it is claimed that speech was invented, and therefore cannot be universally the same; and this is proven by the fact that different tribes of men have different tongues. They do not appear to realise, that to the first cardinal sounds of speech so much has been added age by age, by slow accretions, that the radex of speech is but a mere drop in the great ocean of sounds. The mobility of speech is such as to make it more susceptible to change than matter is; and yet we find that, by the laws of change, man has been evolved from a less complex state of matter, and that in these latter years he can only be identified as the descendant of his prototype by the most scrutinising care, and by picking up the dropped stitches in the great fabric of Nature. To illustrate the slow and imperceptible, yet never ceasing, never failing process of evolution, we may imagine a man picking up a single grain of sand at a certain point and carrying it a distance of a thousand feet, where he deposits it at another certain point; returning, takes a second grain of sand from the same place as he secured the first, and carries it to the point at which he deposited the first, and thus continues through his life. At his death his son succeeds him in the task, and continues through his life, and at the death of this man his son succeeds; and thus in turn each one succeeds the other through a million generations. Supposing the wind and rain left these grains of sand unmolested during this long lapse of time, it is evident that at the place from which the sand was taken there would be a hole, and where it was deposited there would be a hill. It is by such slight changes that Nature does her work; and thus it is that speech, as well as matter, has been transformed from what it was to what it is. The physical basis of life retains its identity through all those varied forms, from protozoa to the highest type; and so the phonetic basis of speech adheres through all the changing modes of thought and expression. Speech is the highest type of language and the most accurate mode of expression, and belongs only to the higher forms of the animal kingdom. It has passed through all inferior horizons coinciding with the mental, moral, and social planes through which man has passed in the course of his evolution.
SPEECH AND WORDS