things by such peculiar signs
and names as should express their natures. Dalgarno's ideas respecting
the education of the dumb were also of the highest value, and though
they were too refined and enlightened to be appreciated at the period
when he wrote, they probably were used by Dr. Wallis if not by Sicard.
Some of his thoughts should be quoted: "As I think the eye to be as
docile as the ear; so neither see I any reason but the hand might be
made as tractable an organ as the tongue; and as soon brought to form,
if not fair, at least legible characters, as the tongue to imitate
and echo back articulate sounds." A paragraph prophetic of the late
success in educating blind deaf-mutes is as follows: "The soul can
exert her powers by the ministry of any of the senses: and, therefore,
when she is deprived of her principal secretaries, the eye and the
ear, then she must be contented with the service of her lackeys and
scullions, the other senses; which are no less true and faithful
to their mistress than the eye and the ear; but not so quick for
dispatch."

In his division of the modes of "expressing the inward emotions by
outward and sensible signs" he relegates to physiology cases "when
the internal passions are expressed by such external signs as have a
natural connection, by way of cause and effect, with the passion
they discover, as laughing, weeping, frowning, &c., and this way of
interpretation being common to the brute with man belongs to natural
philosophy. And because this goes not far enough to serve the rational
soul, therefore, man has invented Sematology." This he divides into
Pneumatology, interpretation by sounds conveyed through the ear;
Schematology, by figures to the eye, and Haptology, by mutual
contact, skin to skin. Schematology is itself divided into Typology or
Grammatology, and Cheirology or Dactylology. The latter embraces
"the transient motions of the fingers, which of all other ways of
interpretation comes nearest to that of the tongue."

As a phase in the practice of gestures in lieu of speech must be
mentioned the code of the Cistercian monks, who were vowed to silence
except in religious exercises. That they might literally observe their
vows they were obliged to invent a system of communication by signs, a
list of which is given by Leibnitz, but does not show much ingenuity.

A curious description of the speech of the early inhabitants of
the world, given by Swedenborg in his _Arcana Coele