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WILHELM WUNDT, Volkerpsychologie. 241 emotional pantomime, and connects it with the primitive forms of plastic art, with picture-writing in especial. But although recog- nising to the full the peculiar interest of gesture-language (" Sie reprasentirt in ihrer Bildung alle Entwicklungsstufen, die das geistige Leben des Menschen iiberhaupt zuriicklegt ") he contributes nothing to the solution of any but the most general problem of its syntax, and seldom makes use of it to throw light upon cognate problems of the syntax of speech. It would surely have been interesting to compare the structure of Amerind speech with Amerind gesture, or the structure of deaf-mute gesture language with that of primitive savage tongues. The additional insight into the mental processes involved would assuredly have been worth even a good deal of extra trouble. Chapter iii. deals with vocal sounds, from the animal's cry of paio or rage, which is an automatic expression of emotion, devoid, in the first instance, at least, of any objective significance through the songs of birds to the articulate and purposive speech of man. He distinguishes three stages in the development of the child's speech. First come inarticulate cries, next articulate but meaningless sounds, finally articulate sounds which are intended to convey a meaning to other people. Prof. Wundt will not allow that children ever invent their own speech. This view, assuredly wide- spread among nurses and mothers, and even psychologists, is a result, he believes, of the common illusion "dass der Mensch von Hause aus ein Wesen sei, das in Seinen Handlungen von logis- chen Keflexionen bestimmt werde ". And we fully agree with him that such an intellectualism is barren in principle and wrong in fact. But so to agree is to reject some special theory as to the process of word-invention, not to declare the impossibility of that invention itself. Wundt quotes several instances of such alleged word-invention from Taine, Sully, Darwin, Miss Moore, and he thinks they can all be explained by direct imitation of already existent words. This point obviously admits of discussion, and can only be settled by the examination, not of half a dozen in- stances, but of a large mass of facts. A priori, there seems no reason why the only sounds imitable by the child should be the sounds of the human voice. Whether or not onomatopoeia does occur in the early months of life is a question which still awaits solution, and it is assuredly worth careful study. As for the alleged invention not of single words but of a whole language, Wundt is even more sceptical. These tales " sind wohl ein fur allemal in das Gebiet der Fabel zu verweisen ". He sums up hi& general view in a pithy sentence : " The child's speech is a creation of his environment, in which he is but a passive co- labourer " (p. 296). Passing now to the natural sounds of developed language, Wundt divides them into primary and secondary interjections, both of them direct emotional expressions- devoid of grammatical form ; he shows the connexion between secondary interjections (such as me hercle ! Good heavens ! etc.) 16