206 STUDIES IN LIFE AND SENSE. 



tion that language is a necessary concomitant of perfect thought, even 

 when it can only be indirectly expressed in signs and symbols. The 

 interest which centres around such a case as the preceding is not 

 limited to the lesson it conveys regarding the possibility of educating 

 and evolving perceptions and language from a state of mind 

 compared with which the concepts of an intelligent dog are vastly 

 superior. Such a case also brings forcibly before us the con- 

 sideration, that if, in face of the possession of a truly human brain, 

 the faculty of language may be perfectly lapsed as in the deaf 

 mute it may not, conversely, be accounted a more wonderful fact 

 that changes of an opposite nature, resulting in increased growth of 

 brain-power acting upon the organ of voice, should have evolved 

 language from the germs of sound, sign, and gesture, in which it was 

 potentially contained. 



" Imagine," says a philosopher of a school given to denying 

 the evolutionary view of things, in a recent work on "Mind 

 and Brain," "this experiment (alluding to the imitative action 

 of the lips in a deaf mute) tried with a monkey, the most imitative 

 in action, or with a dog, the most intelligent of animals ! " If 

 this author's declaration is meant to indicate the impossibility 

 of teaching either animal to form words, we quite agree with his 

 expression of ridicule with this difference, however, that we should 

 transfer the expression to the philosopher who supposed that any 

 one conversant with the matter could have argued as to the possi- 

 bility of educating ape or dog. This is " barking up the wrong 

 tree " with a vengeance. Evolution postulates no such absurdity ; 

 and Mr. Darwin is careful to note that "the mental powers in 

 some progenitor of man must have been more highly developed 

 than in any existing ape, before even the most imperfect form of 

 speech could have come into use." It is well to note the latter 

 opinion, because the chief point at issue, namely, the origin of 

 language from the simple sounds and signs of long ago, is so fre- 

 quently discussed upon grounds which are very far from represent- 

 ing the true state of scientific opinion on this subject. Over and 

 over again one may meet with the argument, that the mental 

 belongings of man are immeasurably above those of the highest apes, 

 and that therefore the whole edifice, founded upon the presumed 

 origin of man and human instincts from lower forms and states, must 

 fall to the ground before the mention of the fact. Almost as 

 relevant to the point at issue would it be to maintain that man had 

 in his early days attended a meeting of the deities, and being, to 

 quote the words of Moth, " at a great feast of languages," had " stolen 

 the scraps." 



To the assertion repeated ad nauseam by unscientific critics, 

 that the brain-power of the highest apes is vastly inferior to that 



