100 THE DESCENT OF MAN. 



names are forgotten.* There is no more improbability in 

 continued use of the mental and vocal organs leading to 

 inherited changes in their structure and functions, than in 

 the case of handwriting, which depends partly on the form 

 of the hand and partly on the disposition of the mind; and 

 handwriting is certainly inherited, f 



Several writers, more especially Prof. MaxMuller,J; have 

 lately insisted that the use of language implies the power of 

 forming general concepts; and that as no animals are sup- 

 posed to possess this power, an impassable barrier is formed 

 between them and man. With respect-to animals, I have 

 already endeavored to show that they have this power, at 

 least in a rude and incipient degree. As far as concerns 

 infants of from ten to eleven months old, and deaf-mutes, 

 it seems to me incredible that they should be able to con- 

 nect certain sounds with certain general ideas as quiciily as 

 they do, unless such ideas were already formed in their 

 minds. The same remark may be extended to the more 

 intelligent animals; as Mr. Leslie Stephen observes,] ^^A 



* Many curious cases liave been recorded. See, for instance. Dr. 

 Bateman, " On Aphasia," 1870, pp. 27, 31, 53, 100, etc. Also, " In 

 quiries Concerning the Intellectual Powers," by Dr. Abercrombie, 

 1838, p. 150. 



f " The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," 

 vol. ii, p. 6, 



X Lectures on "Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language," 1873. 



The judgment of a distinguished philologist, such as Prof, Whit- 

 ney, will have far more weight on this point than anything that I 

 can say. He remarks (" Oriental and Linguistic Studies," 1873, p. 

 297), in speaking of Bleek's views: "Because on the grand scale 

 language is the necessary auxiliary of thought, indispensable to tlie 

 development of the power of thinking, to the distinctness and variety 

 and complexity of cognitions to the full mastery of consciousness; 

 therefore he would fain make thought absolutely impossible without 

 speech, identifying the faculty with its instrument. He might just 

 as reasonably assert that the human hand cannot act without a tool. 

 With such a doctrine to start from, he cannot stop short of Mtiller's 

 worst paradoxes, that an infant {in fans, not speaking) is not a 

 human being, and that deaf-mutes do not become possessed of reason 

 until they learn to twist their fingers into imitation of spoken 

 words." Max Mliller gives in italics (" Lectures on Mp. Darwin's 

 Philosophy of Language," 1873, third lecture) the following aphor- 

 ism: "There is no thought without words, as little as there are 

 words without thought." What a strange definition must here be 

 given to the word thought. 



I " Essays on Fyee-thinking," etc., 1873; p. 8. 



