Primitive man—keen hunter—skilled in recognizing shapes—must have often come across natural tints (which were of special interest as the raw material of his tools and weapons) of peculiar shape, which reminded him of certain birds—or even human beings. with curious holes through them—so that they could be made into "knobkerries" by pushing a stick into the hole—or smaller stones which could be threaded on a leather thong or a fibre string, and worn as ornaments, would also be very interesting, and magical' to him. It would not be long before man. would try his hand at improving such finds, for example, by knocking off excrescences which "spoilt" the form of a particular piece of natural sculpture.
It vould also be natural that man shaula observe the plastic qualities of clay, and the way it preserved the imprints of animals and birds and of man himself, which appeared on it. As we know, he did make imprints of his hands on the walls of some of his caves.
Beginning thus with sculpture and modelling, it would not be long before man began outlining other objects, just as the imprint of his foot or hand on a soft surface of clay incidentally outlined the shape of the palm, or the sole of the foot.
The new factor in all this was that the artificial animal, bird or human, or the imprint or drawn outline sy: bolize the creature in question apart from its environment. The object symbolized could be considered by itself, apart from any environment; it could be viewed in any position, at any time, in any place where its owner chose to take it, or wherever ideographic writing. In this way, an analytic form of sign language would naturally grow up; combined, of course, with general (non-analytic) pantomime. The gabble would thus tend to be gradually combined with particular mouth movements (due to corresponding hand movements) which always meant the same thing—that is, with actual words Indeed, the main difficulty in the education of the deaf mute arises from the fact that he cannot—by Nature—understand what a word is, and has no gestures corresponding to words. He can perfectly appreciate events and invent for himself a pan-tom ime which will bring the same event to the consciousness of his fellow deaf mutes, and this pantomime is so natural and expressive that (as is well known) the deaf mutes of all nations have no difficulty in communicating with one another.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.