Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/89

Rh such a point must be very great. The strongest fact bearing upon the matter of which I am aware, is that savage tribes whose numeral words do not go beyond some low number, as five or ten, are well known to be able to reckon much farther on their fingers and toes, here distinctly using gesture-language where word-language fails.

There is a point of some practical importance involved in the question, whether gestures or words are, so to speak, most natural. If signs form an easier means for the reception and expression of ideas than words, then idiots ought to learn to understand and use gestures more readily than speech. I have only been able to get a distinct answer to the question, whether they do so or not, from one competent judge in such a matter, Dr. Scott, of Exeter, who assures me that semi-idiotic children, to whom there is no hope of teaching more than the merest rudiments of speech, are yet capable of receiving a considerable amount of knowledge by means of signs, and of expressing themselves by them. It is well known that a certain class of children are dumb from deficiency of intellect, rather than from want of the sense of hearing, and it is to these that the observation applies.

The idea of solving the problem of the origin of language by actual experiment, must have very often been started. There are several stories of such an experiment having been tried. One is Herodotus's well-known tale of Psammitichus, King of Egypt, who had the two children brought up by a silent keeper, and suckled by goats. The first word they said, bekos, meaning bread in the Phrygian language, of course proved that the Phrygians were the oldest race of mankind. It is a very trite remark that there is nothing absolutely incredible in the story, and that bek, bek, is a good imitative word for bleating, as in, blöken, meckern, etc. But the very name of Psammitichus, who has served as a lay-figure for so many tales to be draped upon, is fatal to any claim to the historical