raised in astonishment, and waved in triumph.  The fingers are snapped for contempt, the forefinger is vibrated to reprove or threaten, and the fist shaken in defiance.  The brow is contracted with displeasure, and the eyes winked to show connivance.  The shoulders are shrugged to express disbelief or repugnance, the eyebrows elevated with surprise, the lips bitten in vexation and thrust out in sullenness or displeasure, while a higher degree of anger is shown by a stamp of the foot.  Quintilian, regarding the subject, however, not as involuntary exhibition of feeling and intellect, but for illustration and enforcement, becomes eloquent on the variety of motions of which the hands alone are capable, as follows: 

“The action of the other parts of the body assists the speaker, but the hands (I could almost say) speak themselves.  By them do we not demand, promise, call, dismiss, threaten, supplicate, express abhorrence and terror, question and deny?  Do we not by them express joy and sorrow, doubt, confession, repentance, measure, quantity, number, and time?  Do they not also encourage, supplicate, restrain, convict, admire, respect? and in pointing out places and persons do they not discharge the office of adverbs and of pronouns?”

Voss adopts almost the words of Quintilian, “Manus non modo loquentem adjuvant, sed ipsae pene loqui videntur,” while Cresollius calls the hand “the minister of reason and wisdom ... without it there is no eloquence.”

INVOLUNTARY RESPONSE TO GESTURES.

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.

NATURAL PANTOMIME.

In the earliest part of man’s history the subjects of his discourse must have been almost wholly sensuous, and therefore readily expressed in pantomime.  Not only was pantomime sufficient for all the actual needs of his existence, but it is not easy to imagine how he could have used language such as is now known to us.  If the best English dictionary and grammar had been miraculously furnished to him, together with the art of reading with proper pronunciation, the gift would have been valueless, because the ideas expressed by the words had not yet been formed.