Meaningless articulation of a spontaneous or instinctive kind occurs in young children, in uneducated deaf-mutes, and also in idiots.[77] Infants usually (though not invariably) begin with such syllables as “alla,” “tata,” “mama,” and “papa” (with or without the reduplication) before they understand the meaning of any word. One of my own children could say all these syllables very distinctly at the age of eight months and a half; and I could detect no evidence at that time of his understanding words, or of his having learnt these syllabic utterances by imitation. Another child of mine, which was very long in beginning to speak, at fourteen and a half months old said once, and only once, but very distinctly “Ego.” This was certainly not said in imitation of any one having uttered the word in her presence, and therefore I mention the incident to show that meaningless articulation in young children is spontaneous or instinctive, as well as intentionally imitative; for at that age the only other syllables which this child had uttered were those having the long _[=a]_, as above mentioned. Were it necessary, I could give many other instances of this fact; but, as it is generally recognized by writers on infant psychology, I need not wait to do so. * * * * * We now come to the third of our divisions, or the understanding of articulate sounds. And this is an important matter for us, because it is evident that the faculty of appreciating the meaning of words betokens a considerable advance in the general faculty of language. As we have before seen, tone and gesture, being the natural expression of the logic of recepts—and so even in their most elaborated forms being intentionally pictorial,—are as little as possible conventional; but words, being coined expressly for the subservience of concepts, are always less graphic, and usually arbitrary. Therefore, although it would of course be wrong to say that a higher faculty is required to learn the arbitrary association between a particular verbal sound and a particular act or phenomenon, than is required to depict an abstract idea in gesture; this only shows that where higher faculties are present, they are able to display themselves in gesture as well as in speech. The consideration which I now wish to present is that understanding a word implies (other things equal, or supposing the gesture not to be so purely conventional as a word) a higher development of the sign-making faculty than does the understanding of a tone or gesture—so that, for instance, if an animal were to understand the word “Whip,” it would show itself more intelligent in appreciating signs than it would by understanding the gesture of threatening as with a whip.