ARTICULA TIOX. I 3 5 



We must next briefly consider the remaining feature in 

 the psychology of talking birds to which Dr. Wilks has drawn 

 attention, namely, that of inventing sounds of their own 

 contrivance to be used as designative of objects and qualities, 



Victoria Institute in March, 1872, by Dr. Frederick Bateman, under the title 

 " Darwinism tested by Recent Researches in Language ; " and its oliject was to 

 argue that the faculty of articulate speech constitutes a difference of kind between 

 the psychology of man and that of the lower animals. This argument Dr. Bateman 

 sought to establish, first on the usual grounds that no animals are capable of using 

 words with any degree of understanding, and, second, on grounds of a purely 

 anatomical kind. In the text I fully deal with the first allegation : as a matter of 

 fact, many of the lower animals understand the meanings of many words, while 

 those of them which are alone capable of imitating our articulate sounds not un- 

 frequently display a correct appreciation of their use as signs. But what I have 

 here especially to consider is the anatomical branch of Dr. Batenian's argument. 

 He says : — "As the remarkable similarity between the brain of man and that of the 

 ape cannot be disputed, if the seat of human speech could be positively traced to any 

 particular part of the brain, the Darwinian could say that, although the ape could 

 not speak, he possessed the germ of that faculty, and that in subsequent generations, 

 by the process of evolution, the ' speech centre ' would become more developed, 

 and the ape would then speak. ... If the scalpel of the anatomist has failed to 

 discover a material locus habitandi for man's proud prerogative — the faculty of 

 Articulate Language ; if science has failed to trace speech to a ' material centre,' has 

 failed thus to connect matter with mind, I submit that speech is the barrier 

 between men and animals, establishing between them a difference not only of 

 degree but of kind ; the Darwinian analogy between the brain of man and that of 

 his reputed ancestor, the ape, loses all its force, whilst the common belief in the 

 Mosaic account of the origin of man is strengthened." Now, I will not wait to 

 present the evidence which has fully satisfied all living physiologists that " the 

 faculty of Articulate Language" has " a material locus habitandi ;'''' for the point 

 on which I desire to insist is that it cannot make one iota of difference to "the 

 Darwinian analogy" whether this faculty is restricted to a particular "speech- 

 centre," or has its anatomical "seat" distributed over any wider area of the 

 cerebral cortex. Such a " seat" there must be in either case, if it be allowed (as 

 Dr. Bateman allows) that the cerebral cortex " is undoubtedly the instrument by 

 which this attribute becomes externally manifested." The question whether " the 

 material organ of speech " is large or small cannot possibly affect the question on 

 which we are engaged. Since Dr. Bateman wrote, a new era has arisen in the 

 localization of cerebral functions ; so that, if there were any soundness in his 

 argument, one would now be in a position immensely to strengthen "the Dar- 

 winian analogy ; " seeing that physiologists now habitually utilize the brains of 

 monkeys for the purpose of analogically localizing the "motor centres" in the 

 brain of man. In other words, "the Darwinian analogy" has been found to 

 extend in physiological, as well as in anatomical detail, throughout the entire area 

 of the cortex. But, as I have shown, there is no soundness in his argument ; and 

 therefore I do not avail myself of these recent and most wonderfully suggestive 

 results of jihysiological research. 



