212 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

fixed meanings. Thus he said " weep-oo " for night or

black ; " burly '" for wood or for a carpenter ; " tatteras "

for soldiers, and so on. An analogous case has come

within our own experience, and Dr. Bastian has described

another,* which seems to show that the faculty of rational

speech is so potentially present in us that it sometimes

manifests itself spontaneously and very unexpectedly. It

appears that in 1877 he was consulted concerning the health

of a boy of twelve, occasionally subject to fits. When five

years old he had not spoken, but before another year had

passed, on the occasion of an accident happening to one

of his favourite toys, he suddenly exclaimed, " What a pity,"

which were his very first words. He was then silent for

a fortnight, but thereafter became very talkative. A medical

friend of ours was much alarmed about his son (now an

eminent medical man himself), because he was long unable

to speak, though he showed clearly by an elaborate language

of gesture that he had very distinct intellectual conceptions

which, after a time, he began to express vocally. The cases

of Laura Bridgman and Martha Obrecht have been already

described.!

Speech has, in many cases, been shown to be reducible

to a certain number of probably primitive terms called

" roots," and a large number of these denote some kind

of action or movement. On this account the suggestion has

been made that speech arose through a custom which grew up

of emitting peculiar sounds when performing certain actions,

as seamen and others often utter sounds in common when

working together.

But it is conceded by all that speech could not have arisen

except by the utterance of sounds, the meaning of which was

* The Brain as nn Organ of Mind, p. 606. Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.,

1880.

t See ante, p. 201.

fixed meanings. Thus he said " weep-oo " for night or

black ; " burly '" for wood or for a carpenter ; " tatteras "

for soldiers, and so on. An analogous case has come

within our own experience, and Dr. Bastian has described

another,* which seems to show that the faculty of rational

speech is so potentially present in us that it sometimes

manifests itself spontaneously and very unexpectedly. It

appears that in 1877 he was consulted concerning the health

of a boy of twelve, occasionally subject to fits. When five

years old he had not spoken, but before another year had

passed, on the occasion of an accident happening to one

of his favourite toys, he suddenly exclaimed, " What a pity,"

which were his very first words. He was then silent for

a fortnight, but thereafter became very talkative. A medical

friend of ours was much alarmed about his son (now an

eminent medical man himself), because he was long unable

to speak, though he showed clearly by an elaborate language

of gesture that he had very distinct intellectual conceptions

which, after a time, he began to express vocally. The cases

of Laura Bridgman and Martha Obrecht have been already

described.!

Speech has, in many cases, been shown to be reducible

to a certain number of probably primitive terms called

" roots," and a large number of these denote some kind

of action or movement. On this account the suggestion has

been made that speech arose through a custom which grew up

of emitting peculiar sounds when performing certain actions,

as seamen and others often utter sounds in common when

working together.

But it is conceded by all that speech could not have arisen

except by the utterance of sounds, the meaning of which was

* The Brain as nn Organ of Mind, p. 606. Kegan Paul, Trench, and Co.,

1880.

t See ante, p. 201.