Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/163

 H. STEINTHAL'S ABRISS DER snm.-uii'issEXSCHAFT, i. 1.31 control, which is only possible with the upright posture, but quite incompatible with going on all fours. Hence only birds have a certain mastery over their vocal organs and a certain rise and fall of tones. Thus if only man possesses the possibility of the free emission of the breath, he too will be the only one to have mastery over the vocal chords, to develop the fine muscles in the larynx which stretch, bring together, and separate the vocal chords. That the skull and brain receive their more complete develop- ment with the upright posture can hardly be doubted. But this is important for language only in so far as the connexion of the sensor with the motor centre of speech, the reception of the word-sound by the ear, and the production of sounds by the organs, are established. Herein lies the faculty of onomatopoeia, which is wanting in the mammals, but is to be found in some species of birds. But, since even in the same species it is lacking in certain varieties and is found in others, it is not difficult to understand that it would be established in man with the better evolution of the brain. And when we have in man an upright onomatopoetic mammal, we have in him the fundamental conditions for language, and thereby the conditions for the further gradual development of other conditions, the finer development of the larynx, finer auricular perception ; in short, a more complete evolution of consciousness. This being once given, the complete development, by constant exercise during many generations, of the brain and of the whole head becomes easily intelligible. Steinthal has always contended that the immeasurable differ- ence between man and animal, which has existed as far back as we can trace, rests on only a small original difference, which, however, was of such a nature that it could increase to an almost indefinite extent. Formerly he thought that this primeval difference was made by the Creator, but he has since affiliated it to the theory of Development. In considering the question of the rise of language we are at once met by the fact that primitive man accompanied all the impressions, the percepts, which his soul received, with bodily movements, gesticulation and articulate tones. The nature of the reflex action involved in the process is now fairly well under- stood. No psychical excitation would take place without a corresponding reflected bodily movement ; to every definite movement of the soul there corresponded a definite bodily one, which at the same time was physiognomic and sonant. These actions indicate, in fact, the psychical excitations of which they are the reflex. But there is yet lacking the most essential element of speech, namely, the consciousness of this significance, the application of expression. Thus, the beginnings of speech are to be found in the const-ton* <:i-,nn?xion of the reflected move- ment of the body with the excitation of the soul.