Note 74 — V. THE LITTLE LINGUIST.

Of course, as Max Müller says (The Science of Language, i., p. 481 f.), the facts ascertained do not prove that ‘infants left to themselves would invent a language’. The influence of example, the appeal to the imitative impulse, has been at work before the inventions appear. Yet they do, I think, show that they have the sign-making instinct, and might develop this to some extent even were the educative influence of others’ language removed.