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Show OBIGIN AND EXTENT OF GESTUKE- SPEECH. 7 its illustration of the ancient intercommunication of mankind by gesture. Many arguments have been adduced and more may be presented to prove that the latter preceded articulate speech. The corporeal movements of the lower animals to express, at least, emotion have been correlated with those of man, and classified by DABWIN as explicable on the principles of serviceable associated habits, of antithesis, and of the constitution of the nervous system. A child employs intelligent gestures long in advance of speech, although very early and persistent attempts are made to give it instruction in the latter but none in the former; it learns language only through the medium of signs; and long after familiarity with speech, consults the gestures and facial expressions of its parents and nurses as if to translate or explain their words; which facts are important in reference to the biologic law that the order of development of the individual is the same as^ that of the species. Persons of limited vocabulary, whether foreigners to the tongue employed, or native, but not accomplished in its use, even in the midst of a civilization where gestures are deprecated, when at fault for words resort instinctively to physical motions that are not wild nor meaningless, but picturesque and significant, though perhaps made by the ges-turer for the first time ; and the same is true of the most fluent talkers on occasions when the exact vocal formula desired does not at once suggest itself, or is not satisfactory without assistance from the physical machinery not embraced in the oral apparatus. Further evidence of the unconscious survival of gesture- language is afforded by the ready and involuntary response made in signs to signs when a man with the speech and habits of civilization is brought into close contact with Indians or deaf- mutes. Without having ever before seen or made one of their signs he will soon not only catch the meaning of theirs, but produce his own, which they will likewise comprehend, the power seemingly remaining latent in him until called forth by necessity. The signs used by uninstructed congenital deaf- mutes and the facial expressions and gestures of the congenitally blind also present considerations under the heads of " heredity" and " atavism," of some weight when the subjects are descended from and dwell among people who had disused gestures for generations, but of less consequence in cases such as that mentioned by Cardinal WISEMAN of an Italian blind man who, curiously |