68 Boundary between Man [January, 
view, not in degree but in kind. Swainson excludes him 
altogether from the zoological circle, and views him as the 
‘aberrant ”’ form of the spiritual world, having with animals 
relations not of affinity, but merely of analogy. Every 
attempt to point out his true place in the scale of being is 
rejected as insulting, cynical, even blasphemous. Curiously 
enough those who intellectually and morally approach 
nearest the apes, and in some respects fall below them, are 
most exasperated at being approximated to “‘ mere brutes.” 
Even some of the advocates of what is conventionally— 
though illogically—known as ‘‘ Darwinism” stop short in 
their train of reasoning when they have reached the anthro- 
poid apes, and discover grounds for not pushing the enquiry 
further. Whether their grounds for thus advising us to 
‘‘rest and be thankful” are scientific or sentimental we 
shall not now examine. ‘Those, however, who value con- 
sistency will find that man is at any rate much nearer to the 
brutes than his self-love is willing to own, and that the 
points upon which he relies to establish a ‘‘ great gulf” be- 
tween himself and the rest of the animal world—if not 
baseless assumptions—are, at the best, sadly inadequate. 
Does language constitute the boundary line? So says a 
large amount of vague popular opinion, represented by such 
phrases as “‘dumb animals.” So say also enquirers not a 
few, among whom a prominent place belongs to Professor 
Max Muller. Of a different opinion is Quatrefages.* We 
will therefore examine what element of truth is in this 
view. In how far can man claim the exclusive privilege of 
the ‘‘spoken word,” commonly deemed co-extensive with 
reason? Have animals no means—whether by sounds or 
gestures—of communicating their notions and their senti- 
ments to other individuals of their own species, or of nearly 
allied groups? Have the varied sounds they utter no 
meaning beyond the expenditure of a certain amount of 
superfluous vital energy ? Domestic animals may possibly 
have learned from man the bad habit of not keeping silence 
when they have nothing to say. But a little observation 
will convince us that the sounds made by birds and beasts 
are regularly repeated under certain recurring circumstances, 
and are evidently understood and acted upon by others of 
the same species. This may readily be noted in the case of 
domestic fowls, whose vocabulary is rather extensive, and 
may to some extent be understood. It may be objected that 
* Unity of the Human Species. The unity, by the way, of the ‘t human,” 
or of any “ species,” will doubtless be conceded, subject always to the ques- 
tion—What is included in such species ? 
