586 Causes and Course of Organic Evolution 



In relation to Emerson's statement, then, it seems not un- 

 reasonable to consider that at least for some kinds of "beast 

 of the forest" language had become a developed possibility. 

 According to the somewhat recent statements also of Garman 

 and others who have closely watched and educated, as children 

 are educated, some of the higher monkeys, these express, or can 

 be taught to exjjress, some definite concepts. But it must 

 freely be conceded that, so far as direct evidence at present 

 goes, a considerable, but by no means an enormous, gap exists 

 between the Imguistic performances of the highest monkeys, 

 and that of uncivilized man as now living. Darwin expresses 

 it fairly correctly when he says, "The lower animals differ 

 from man solely in his almost infinitely larger power of associ- 

 ating together the most diverse sounds and ideas; and this 

 obviously depends on the high development of his mental 

 powers." Furthermore we would distinctly assert, from all 

 kno\^ii palseontologic, anatomic, intellectual, and utilitarian 

 characters of man, that he represents an added period in evo- 

 lutionary advance of at least 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 years over 

 the chimpanzee, a still longer period over the orang, and a 

 still more extended one over the gorilla. In other words that 

 while man is a more or less compounded, and also advanced 

 type out of the other three, the gorilla has passed into a progres- 

 sive line that, measured by time relation, causes him greatly 

 to lag behind the orang, while it and the chimpanzee have 

 also relatively "lingered by the way." 



If such be the case some cause or causes must have existed 

 for the advance of man, and for the origin with him, in richest 

 measure, of language. Most, we believe, will grant that many 

 animals, invertebrate as well as vertebrate, show by their in- 

 telligent action that numerous "percepts" (Romanes 185: 184) 

 originate in their brain, also that many of these animals are 

 mute, or can feebly express their percepts by sound. Ex- 

 amj^les are seen in the spiders, ants, beavers, and elephants. 

 Actions or gestures therefore may, as Romanes has pointed 

 out for Indians, become a recognized though mute form of 

 language. Now, as several writers describe, this gesture- 



