Page:Ralcy H. Bell - The Mystery of Words (1924).pdf/37

 of this particular sphere; and through the faculty of speech he is conscious of infinity,—through that faculty he is able to perceive some scattered rays of truth so sublime that he may be excused for calling them divine.

Word-making is a generic ability of mankind. No family group of dumb humankind, however low in the scale of development, ever has been discovered. Careful studies of the Java skull show that, even in the brain of Pithecanthropis, the speech-areas, although small and undeveloped, already existed. The same is true of other relics, notably the meagre remains of the Piltdown man, whose lower-jaw, however, lacks the development necessary for articulate speech, as we know it. The most rudimentary languages familiar to us contain the essential parts of speech, nouns, verbs, etc., which require mind for their existence; and the fine relationships of these parts of speech reveal mind as the source of construction from which rules of grammar may be drawn.