88 LESSONS FROM NATURE. [CHAP. IV. 



with respect to the faculty of articulate language, that of 

 the distinctively human characteristics, this has &quot;justly been 

 considered as one of the chief&quot; (vol. i. p. 53). I cannot 

 agree in this. Some brutes can articulate, and it is quite 

 conceivable that brutes might (though as a fact they do not) 

 so associate certain sensations and gratifications with certain 

 articulate sounds as, in a certain sense, to speak. That is 

 to say, it is conceivable that a parrot might learn to speak 

 certain words, which he has come to associate with some 

 gratification, just as a dog who &quot; begs &quot; has associated that 

 gesture with &quot; sugar to follow,&quot; or other agreeable associa 

 tion. This, however, would in no way even tend to bridge 

 over the chasm which exists between the representative reflec 

 tive faculties and the merely presentative ones. Articulate 

 signs associated only with sensible impressions would be 

 fundamentally as distinct as mere gestures are from truly 

 rational speech. 



Mr. Darwin evades the. question about language by in one 

 place (vol. i. p. 54) attributing that faculty in man to his 

 having acquired a higher intellectual nature ; and in another, 

 (vol. ii. p. 391), by ascribing his higher intellectual nature 

 to his having acquired that faculty. 



Our author s attempts to bridge over the chasm which, as 

 before said, separates instinctive cries from rational speech 

 are remarkable examples of groundless speculation. Thus 

 he ventures to say 



&quot; That primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, pro- 

 lably (the italics are mine) used his voice largely, as does one of the 

 gibbon-apes at the present day, in producing true musical cadences, 

 that is in singing; we may conclude from a widely-spread analogy 

 that this power would have been especially exerted during the court 

 ship of the sexes, serving to express various emotions, as love, jealousy, 

 triumph, and serving as a challenge to their rivals. The imitation by 

 articulate sounds of musical cries might have given rise to words ex 

 pressive of various complex emotions.&quot; 



And again : 



&quot; It does not appear altogether incredible, that some unusually wise 

 ape-like animal should have thought of imitating the growl of a beas- 



