Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/81

Rh Spoken words appear to be, in the minds of the deaf-mutes who have been artificially taught to speak, merely combined movements of the throat and other vocal organs, and the initial movement made by them in calling words to mind has been compared to a tickling in the throat. People wanting a sense often imagine to themselves a resemblance between it and one of the senses which they possess. The old saying of the blind man, that he thought scarlet was like the sound of the trumpet, is somewhat like a remark made by Kruse, that though he is "stock-deaf" he has a bodily feeling of music, and different instruments have different effects upon him. Musical tones seem to his perception to have much analogy with colours. The sound of the trumpet is yellow to him, that of the drum red; while the music of the organ is green, and of the bass-viol blue, and so on. Such comparisons are, indeed, not confined to those whose senses are incomplete. Language shows clearly that men in general have a strong feeling of such analogies among the impressions of the different senses. Expressions such as "schreiend roth," and the use of "loud," as applied to colours and patterns, are superficial examples of analogies which have their roots very deep in the human mind.

It is a very notable fact bearing upon the problem of the Origin of Language, that even born-mutes, who never heard a word spoken, do of their own accord and without any teaching make vocal sounds more or less articulate, to which they attach a definite meaning, and which, when once made, they go on using afterwards in the same unvarying sense. Though these sounds are often capable of being written down more or less accurately with our ordinary alphabets, their effect on those who make them can, of course, have nothing to do with the sense of hearing, but must consist only in particular ways of breathing, combined with particular positions of the vocal organs.

Teuscher, a deaf-mute, whose mind was developed by education to a remarkable degree, has recorded that, in his uneducated state, he had already discovered the sounds which were inwardly blended with his sensations (innig verschmolzen mit meiner Empfindungsweise). So, as a child, he had affixed a special sound to persons he loved, his parents, brothers and sisters, to