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Show TIIE PRINCIPLE OF OPPOSITION. 63 all the fingers of both hands, pointing with the left hand to a wall, then to a corner in the wall shown by the index of the right. 12. Place, manner of using, or mode of arrangement The pantomime of putting on shoes or stockings by whites or moccasins by Indians indicates those articles. 13. Negation of the reverse of what it is desired to describe. Examples: " Fool- no," given above, would be " wise." " Good- no," would be " bad." This mode of expression is very frequent, and has led observers to report the absence of positive signs for the ideas negatived, with sometimes as little propriety as if when an ordinary speaker chose to use the negative form " not good," it should be inferred that he was ignorant of the word " bad." 14. Attenuation or diminution of an object stronger or greater than that which it is desired to represent, and the converse. Damp would be * l wet- little "; cool, " cold- little"; hot, " warm- much." In this connection it may be noted that the degree of motion sometimes indicates a different shade of meaning, of which the graduation of the signs for " bad" and " contempt" ( Matthews) is an instance, but is more frequently used for emphasis, as is the raising of the voice in speech or italicizing and capitalizing in print The meaning of the same motion is often modified, individualized, or accentuated by associated facial changes and postures of the body not essential to the sign, which emotional changes and postures are at once the most difficult to describe and the most interesting when intelligently reported, not only because they infuse life into the skeleton sign, but because they may belong to the class of innate expressions. Facial variations are not confined to use in distinguishing synonyms, but amazing successes have been recorded in which long narratives have been communicated between deaf- mutes wholly by play of the features, the hands and arms being tied for the experiment. There remains to be mentioned as worthy of attention the principle of opposition, as between the right and left hands, and between the thumb and forefinger and the little finger, which appears among Indians in some expressions for " above," " below," " forward," " back," but is not so common as among the methodical, distinguished from the natural, signs of deaf-mutes. This principle is illustrated by the following remarks of Col. DODGE, |