We have to suppose that language was at the commencement a help in the struggle for life, because otherwise men, as yet barely emerged from the animal stage, would never have made the painful mental efforts necessary to devise and remember the words.

Words which would be distinctly advantageous in the struggle would be names for the animals and plants which they ate, and for the animals which ate them.

By saying the name and pointing in any direction, the presence of such animals or plants in the vicinity would be intimated more quickly and more accurately than by signs or actions.

Such names were then, it may be supposed, the first words.

Animals or plants of which they made no use nor from which they apprehended any danger, would for long be simply disregarded, as nothing was to be gained by inventing names for them.