Note 36 — Chapter III · - RATIO OF HUMAN PROGRESS.

The origin of language has been investigated far enough to find the grave difficulties in the way of any solution of the problem. It seems to have been abandoned, by common consent, as an unprofitable subject. It is more a question of the laws of human development and of the necessary operations of the mental principle, than of the materials of language. Lucretius remarks that with sounds and with gesture, mankind in the primitive period intimated their thoughts stammeringly to each other (Vocibus, et gestu, cum balbe significarent.—v, 1021). He assumes that thought preceded speech, and that gesture language preceded articulate language. Gesture or sign language seems to have been primitive, the elder sister of articulate speech. It is still the universal language of barbarians, if not of savages, in their mutual intercourse when their dialects are not the same. The American aborigines have developed such a language, thus showing that one may be formed adequate for general intercourse. As used by them it is both graceful and expressive, and affords pleasure in its use. It is a language of natural symbols, and therefore possesses the elements of a universal language. A sign language is easier to invent than one of sounds; and, since it is mastered with greater facility, a presumption arises that it preceded articulate speech. The sounds of the voice would first come in, on this hypothesis, in aid of gesture; and as they gradually assumed a conventional signification, they would supersede, to that extent, the language of signs, or become incorporated in it. It would also tend to develop the capacity of the vocal organs. No proposition can be plainer than that gesture has attended articulate language from its birth. It is still inseparable from it; and may embody the remains, by survival, of an ancient mental habit. If language were perfect, a gesture to lengthen out or emphasize its meaning would be a fault. As we descend through the gradations of language into its ruder forms, the gesture element increases in the quantity and variety of its forms until we find language so dependent upon gestures that without them they would be substantially unintelligible. Growing up and flourishing side by side through savagery, and far into the period of barbarism, they remain, in modified forms, indissolubly united. Those who are curious to solve the problem of the origin of language would do well to look to the possible suggestions from gesture language.