company,
and after the manner of children were more given to express their
feelings; in which 'they moved all together,' like a herd of wild
animals, 'when they moved at all.' Among them, as in every society, a
particular person would be more sensitive and intelligent than the rest.
Suddenly, on some occasion of interest (at the approach of a wild beast,
shall we say?), he first, they following him, utter a cry which resounds
through the forest. The cry is almost or quite involuntary, and may be
an imitation of the roar of the animal. Thus far we have not speech,
but only the inarticulate expression of feeling or emotion in no respect
differing from the cries of animals; for they too call to one another
and are answered. But now suppose that some one at a distance not only
hears the sound, but apprehends the meaning: or we may imagine that
the cry is repeated to a member of the society who had been absent; the
others act the scene over again when he returns home in the evening. And
so the cry becomes a word. The hearer in turn gives back the word to
the speaker, who is now aware that he has acquired a new power. Many
thousand times he exercises this power; like a child learning to talk,
he repeats the same cry again, and again he is answered; he tries
experiments with a like result, and the speaker and the hearer rejoice
together in their newly-discovered faculty. At first there would be few
such cries, and little danger of mistaking or confusing them. For the
mind of primitive man had a narrow range of perceptions and feelings;
his senses were microscopic; twenty or thirty sounds or gestures would
be enough for him, nor would he have any difficulty in finding them.
Naturally he broke out into speech--like the young infant he laughed
and babbled; but not until there were hearers as well as speakers did
language begin. Not the interjection or the vocal imitation of the
object, but the interjection or the vocal imitation of the object
understood, is the first rudiment of human speech.

After a while the word gathers associations, and has an independent
existence. The imitation of the lion's roar calls up the fears and hopes
of the chase, which are excited by his appearance. In the moment of
hearing the sound, without any appreciable interval, these and other
latent experiences wake up in the mind of the hearer. Not only does he
receive an impression, but he brings previous knowledge to bear upon
that impression. Necessari