480' MUSCULAR MOTION. 



affect most animals perhaps independently of all experience. The cry 

 of terror or pain appears to occasion sympathetically disagreeable effects 

 on all that are within its sphere. 



4. ARTIFICIAL OR ARTICULATE LANGUAGE. 



Speech, likewise, is a vocal sound ; but it is articulated, in its passage 

 through the vocal tube ; and is always employed to convey ideas, that 

 have been attached to it by the mind. It is a succession of articulate 

 sounds, duly regulated by volition, and having determinate significations 

 connected with them. 



The faculty of speech has been assigned by some philosophers chiefly 

 to the organ of hearing. It is manifest, however, that this, like the 

 musical ear, is referable to a higher organ. The brain must attach an 

 idea to the impression made upon it by the sounds that impinge upon 

 the organ of hearing; the sound thus becomes the sign of such idea, 

 and is reproduced in the larynx at the will of the individual. Of the 

 intellectual character of the process, we have decisive evidence. The 

 infant of tender age has the ear and voice well developed, yet it is long 

 before it is capable of speech; this does not happen until it discovers 

 the meaning of the sounds addressed to it, and finds its own larynx 

 capable of producing similar sounds, which can be made subservient to 

 its wishes. It is thus, by imitation, that it acquires the faculty of speech. 

 Again, the idiot, notwithstanding his hearing may be acute, and voice 

 strong . is incapable of speech ; and, in the maniacal and delirious, the 

 language participates in the derangement and irregularity of ideas. 

 The brain must, therefore, be regarded as the organ of the faculty of 

 language; and the ear, larynx, and vocal tube as its instruments. Man, 

 who is endowed with the most commanding intellect, has the vocal appa- 

 ratus happily organized for expressing its various combinations; and, 

 according to Gall, if the ourang-outang and other animals are incapable 

 of speech, it is because they have not the intellectual faculty of lan- 

 guage. In proof, that it is not to the vocal organ that this deficiency 

 must be ascribed, he remarks, that animals may be made to enunciate 

 several of the words of human speech, and to repeat them with music. 

 The case of the far-famed parrot of Colonel O'Kelly has already been 

 referred to. Mr. Herbert 1 saw this parrot, about the year 1799 : it then 

 sang perfectly about fifty different tunes, solemn psalms, and humorous 

 or low ballads; articulating every word as distinctly as man, without a 

 single mistake ; beating time with its foot ; turning round upon its perch, 

 and marking the time as it turned. If a person sang part of a song it 

 would take it up where he left off; and when moulting and unwilling to 

 sing, turned its back and said, "Poll's sick." Gall, amongst other 

 cases, cites that of a dog mentioned by Leibnitz, which could articulate 

 some German and French words. This dog, of which Leibnitz was an 

 "eye-witness," was at Zeitz, in Misnia. A young child had heard it 

 utter some sounds, which it thought resembled German, and this led him 

 to teach it to speak. At the end of about eight years, it had learned 

 thirty words, some of which were, tea, coffee, chocolate, and assembly. 



1 In a note to the Rev. Gilbert White's Natural History of Selborne, p. 227. 



