1 82 Prehistoric and Savage Man 



reason; (3) The higher animals have a moral nature. Let 

 us consider these seriatim, and for their consideration I 

 bespeak your indulgent attention on account of the import- 

 ance of the questions we are occupied with. (1) Mere 

 animals have language. This assertion is ambiguous. Mere 

 animals have or they have not ' language,' according to the 

 sense we give to that word, which serves to denote two very 

 different things ; one being the expression of mere feelings or 

 emotions, the other the external manifestation of thoughts. 

 As to the former, no one would affirm that brutes have not 

 the power of emotional expression. My assertion is that 

 the gift of ' rational speech ' is peculiar to man. 



Now rational speech is evidently made up by the union 

 of two factors — the one mental, the other corporeal — the one 

 the idea conceived by the mind, the other the bodily action 

 which serves to give expression to that idea. The essence of 

 rational language is mental, the mental word; the bodily 

 action by which that mental word is expressed externally, is 

 but secondary. This is shown by two facts. First by the 

 fact that the same idea may be expressed in various ways, 

 and secondly by the fact that as the intellect in any new 

 science evolves new ideas, new terms are invented as a 

 sequence, not as an antecedent, to such intellectual action. 

 But the external expression may be given in various ways, 

 by a variety of gestures as well as by words : still, organised 

 as we are, motions of our vocal organs are by so much the 

 most convenient for the purpose that, practically, ideas are 

 mainly thus expressed; and each mental word becomes 

 embodied in its approximate oral expression — the oral ivord 

 corresponding to the mental word, but yet being more or 

 less inadequate, since we speak less perfectly than we think. 

 Six different kinds of language may be enumerated : — 



(1.) Sounds which are neither articulate nor rational, 

 such as cries of pain. 



