Note 91 — Chapter VIII

It will be remembered that in a previous chapter I argued the impossibility of estimating the reflex influence of speech upon gesture, in the case of the high development attained by the latter in man. In the text I am now considering the converse influence of gesture upon speech, and find that it is no more easy precisely to estimate. There can be no doubt, however, that the reciprocal influence must have been great in both directions, and that it must have proceeded from gesture to speech in the first instance, and afterwards, when the latter had become well developed as a system of auditory signs, from speech to gesture. More will require to be said upon this point in a future chapter.