Lose—Pretend to drop an object, and hunt for it in vain.
Forget—Pass the hand quickly across the forehead with a shrug of the shoulders.
Love—Hold the hand on the heart (universal gesture).
Hate—Same gesture with sign of negation.
Past—Throw the hand over the shoulder several times in succession.
Future—Indicate a distant object with the hand, repeated imitation of lying down in bed and getting up again.
It does not need much reflexion to see that all these signs are abstractions as well as imitations. Among the different characters of an object, the deaf-mute chooses one that he imitates by a gesture, and which represents the total object. Herein he proceeds exactly like the man who speaks. The difference is that he fixes the abstract by an attitude of the body instead of by a word. The primitive Aryan who denominated the horse, the sun, the moon, etc., the rapid one, the shining one, the measurer (of months), did not act otherwise; for him also, a chosen characteristic represents the total object. There is a fundamental identity in the two cases; thus justifying what was said above: abstraction is a necessary operation of the mind, at least in man; he must abstract, because he must simplify.
The inferiority of these imitative signs consists in their being often vague, with a tendency to the opposite sense; moreover, since they are never detached completely from the object or the act which they figure, and cannot attain to the independence of the word, they are but very imperfect instruments of substitution.
II. Syntax—The mere fact of the existence of a syntax in the language of the deaf-mutes proves that they possess a commencement of analysis, i. e., that thought does not remain in the rudimentary state. This point has been carefully studied by different authors: Scott, Tylor, Romanes,[31] who assign to it the following characteristics: