AXIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 229 



For instance, the Rev. Mr. S. Smith tells me that one of his pupils, 

 previous to education, supposed the Bible to have been printed by a 

 printing-press in the sky, which was worked by printers of enormous 

 strengtli — this being the only interpretation the deaf-mute could assign 

 to the gestures whereby his parents sought to make him understand 

 that they believed the Bible to contain a revelation from a God of 

 power who lives in heaven. Similarly, Mr. Graham Bell informs me of 

 another, though similar case, in which the deaf-mute supposed the ob- 

 ject of going to church to be that of doing obeisance to the clergy. 



On the whole, then, from the mental condition of uneducated deaf- 

 mutes we learn the important lesson that, in the absence of language, 

 the mind of a man is almoslf on a level wath the mind of a brute in re- 

 spect of its power of forming abstract ideas. So that all our lines of 

 evidence converge to one conclusion : the only difference which analy- 

 sis can show to obtain between the mind of man and the mind of the 

 lower animals consists in this — that the mind of man has been able 

 to develop the germ of rational thought whicli is undevelojDed in the 

 mind of animals, and that the development of this germ has been due 

 to the power of abstx'action which is rendered possible by the faculty of 

 speech. I have, therefore, no hesitation in giving it as my opinion 

 that the faculty of speech is alone the ultimate source of that enormous 

 difference which now obtains between the mind of man and the mind 

 of the lower animals. Is this source of difference adequate to distin- 

 guish the mitid of man from the mind of the lower animals in kind ? I 

 leave you all to answer this question for yourselves. I am satisfied 

 with my work if I have made it clear to you that the question, whether 

 human intelligence differs from animal intelligence in kind or in degree, 

 hinges entirely on the question whether the faculty of speech has been 

 of an origin natural or supernatural. Still, to be candid, Avhen the 

 questions occur to me — Seeing that language is of such prodigious 

 importance as a psychological instrument, does not the presence of 

 language serve to distinguish us in kind from all other forms of life ? 

 How is it that no mere brute has ever learned to communicate with its 

 fellows by words ? Why has man alone of animals been gifted with 

 the Logos ? — I say, when these questions occur to me, I feel that, al- 

 though from the absence of prehistorical knowledge I am not able to an- 

 swer them, still, when I reflect on the delicacy of the conditions which, 

 on the naturalistic hypotheses, must first have led to the beginning of 

 articulate language — conditions not only anatomical and physiological, 

 but also psychological and sociological — when I thus reflect, I cease to 

 wonder that the complicated faculty of speech should only have become 

 developed in Homo sapiens. 



Ladies and gentlemen, I have now given you an organized epitome 

 of the leading results which have been obtained by a study of the facts 

 and the principles of comparative psychology ; and, as in doing so I 

 have chiefly sought to address those among you who are interested in 



