learning to talk. We have at least
now got so far as to admit that language facilitates thinking; but that
language first made thought possible, that it was the first step in the
development of the human mind, but few anthropologists have seen.(47) They
do not know what language in the true sense of the word means, and still
think that it is only communication, and that it does not differ from the
signals made by chamois, or the information imparted by the antennae of
ants. Henry Drummond goes so far as to say that "Any means by which
information is conveyed from one mind to another, is language."(48) That
is entirely erroneous. The entire chapter on sign language, interesting as
it is, must be treated quite differently by the philologist, compared with
the ethnologist. When the sign is such as was used in the old method of
telegraphing, and meant a real word, or, as in modern electric telegraphy,
even a letter, this is really speaking by signs; and so is the finger
language of the deaf and dumb. But when I threaten my opponent with my
fist, or strike him in the face, when I laugh, cry, sob, sigh, I certainly
do not speak, although I do make a communication, the meaning of which
cannot be doubted. Not every communication, therefore, is language, nor
does every act of speaking aim at a communication. There are philologists
who maintain that the first words were merely a clearing of the ideas, a
sort of talking to oneself. This may have been so or not, at any rate it
appears to me that in such primitive times, practical ends deserve the
first consideration. No one can distinguish the difference in the stages
of mental development, between wiping the perspiration from the brow after
work, which signifies and communicates to every observer, "It is warm" or
"I am tired," and the man who can actually say, "It is warm," "I am
tired." Thousands, millions of years may lie between these two steps. We
do not know, and to attempt to fix periods of time where the means are
lacking, is like pouring water into the Danaids' sieves.

Just consider what effort was required to enable an Aryan man to say, "It
is warm." We shall say nothing of "it"; it may be a simple demonstrative
stem, which needed little for its formation. But before this "i-t" or "id"
could become an impersonal "it," long-continued abstraction, or, if you
prefer, long-continued polishing, was required. Take the word _is_. Whence
comes such a verbal form, Sanskrit _as-ti_