It is of course true that in a certain sense the individual is predestined to talk, but that is due entirely to the circumstance, that is, he is born not merely in nature, but in the lap of a societythat is certain, reasonably certain, to lead him to their traditions. 1Eliminate society and it is every reason to believe that he will 2learn to walk, and, indeed, he will survive at all. But it is justas certain as that he will never learn to talk, that is, to 3communicate ideas according to the tradition system of a 4particular society. Or, again, remove the newborn individual from the social environment into which he has come and transplant him to an utterly alien one. He will develop the art ofwalking in his new environment very much as he will have 5developed it in the old. But his speech will completely at variance 6with the speech of his native environment. Walking, then, is a general human activity that varies only within circumscribed limitsas we pass from individual to individual. Its variability is voluntary 7and purposeless. Speech is a human activity that varies without assignable limit as we pass from social group to social group,because it is a pure historical heritage of the group, the product of 8long-continued social usage. It varies as all creative effort varies— not as consciously, perhaps, but none the less as truly as do thereligions, the beliefs, the customs, and the arts of different people. 9Walking is an organic, an instinctive function(not, of course,itself an instinct); speech is a non-instinctive, acquiring, 10"cultural" function.