Some scholars have assumed that the coo ings, gurglings and musical notes made by in fants in such great variety before they learn to speak represent a condition in which primitive man found himself before speech was devel oped. On the contrary these infant cries are doubtless the outcome of a high state of devel opment of the laryngeal muscles and extensive nervous connections which the cnild inherited from his parents in whom the power of speech was, of course, highly developed. It would be valuable to know how an infant's vocal move ments compare in complexity with those of an ape. Phonograph records could be made of both.
Whether the pre-human was capable of using his speech organs for the expression of thought is a question which we can answer to no fuller degree than we can solve the same question in the case of animals. A fundamen tal question is whether animals, and, therefore, pre-humans (creatures higher than existing animals and still lower than man) had the capacity to think. (Psychologists who have especially investigated the mental processes of animals believe that the more intelligent ani mals (rats, for example) perform with their brains all the different kinds of processes that men perform, the chief difference between the animals and men being one of relative com plexity rather than one of kind. The question has often been raised as to whether thought antedated language in the evolutionary process or vice-versa. All that seems positively affirm able on this point is that language (i.e., ex pressive movements) and intellectual life de veloped side by side. Neither preceeded the other. Indeed the two together form one com plex psychophysical process. Ideas and feel ings are as inconceivable without expressive movement as is expressive movement without ideas and feelings to be expressed. We may assume that an animal's movements are a fairly adequate expression of his mental life, just as the more elaborate vocal movements of man are a fairly adequate expression of his more complex mental activities. The problem as to how speech movements (and their resulting sounds) gained meaning has been the subject of very extensive discussion. The problem arises from the fact that, while most expressive movements other than speech and not based upon it contain within themselves some element or elements more or less directly related to the meaning and naturally suggestive of it, iii the case of speech movements no such relationship exists except in a small group of onomatopo etic words, in which, however, the relationship is merely secondary, i.e., not between the move
ment and the meaning but between the sound (which is a secondary product of the move ment) and the meaning. For example, neither the movements of the vocal organs which form the word "dog" nor the sounds of the word nor yet the written or printed symbol bear the faintest resemblance to the object signified. Latin canis, German Hund, French chiefs and Russian sobaka, words entirely different in movement, sound and appearance, and likewise bearing no resemblance to a dog, serve equally well. The connection between the movement and the meaning is purely arbitrary. On the other hand a gesture, such as pointing, is uni versal among men and is intelligible every where. Further, when an Indianputs two fin gers of one hand astride one finger of the other to indicate a man on horseback, or when he puts his hand over his head to signify white man (i.e., one who wears a hat) the connection is still clear.
Various attempts have been made to ac count for this arbitrary (associational) connec tion between movement and meaning. (1) Some scholars bridged the gap by assuming that the Creator implanted the gift of speech in man. This in its literal sense is, of course, absurd. Equally absurd, though not so con spicuously absurd, is (2) another "fiat" view of the case, which assumes that groups of men came together and by deliberate choice selected certain sounds to express certain meanings. Such an act is conceivable only among men who already possess the power of speech. With more justification (as might superficially ap pear) it has been urged that (3) men imitated characteristic sounds produced by objects in the outside world — the so-called "bow-wow," or onomatopoetic theory. More far fetched is the suggestion that men (4) naturally "rang out" the sound characteristic of an object when struck — the "cling-dong" theory. Others as sumed that (5) instinctive cries came to be associated with and hence to symbolize the situ ation or object which produced them — "pooh! pooh!" theory.