Intelligence and Speech. 97 



the objection more in detail. After having falsely as- 

 cribed a power of abstraction to animals, Emery con- 

 tinues : ' 



"The power of abstraction in man far surpasses that 

 of the animal, as the former is endowed with speech, 

 an essential instrument, which is wanting to the latter. 

 It is through the word that general impressions or con- 

 cepts, such as "red," which have been abstracted from 

 a number of sense perceptions, become in turn a con- 

 crete, phonetic or graphic sense image, and can without 

 regard to their origin be used in combination with other 

 general concepts which have been abstracted in a sim- 

 ilar manner, and be made perceptible to the senses. We 

 combine red, blue, green, yellow, etc., to the higher 

 concept of "color," and consider color, weight, odor, etc., 

 as the "properties of things." Thus we rise higher and 

 higher, from abstraction to abstraction, to the lofty 

 regions of metaphysics, to a sphere as inaccessible to the 

 animal as that of arithmetic. The history of math- 

 ematics can serve as an illustration of the constant 

 progress of the human mind through advancement 

 in symbolic means of expression. In a similar manner 

 the character of its language produces the peculiar 

 genius and poetry of each individual nation." 



"Consequently the main difference between the 

 mental faculties of man and of animals consists, in 

 my opinion, in the fact that man can speak. He uses 



treffen, den Gebrauch der Vernunft." Language is, according to Wolff, 

 a very important, yea, a necessary means for man to arrive at the 

 normal use of his understanding; still it is not the cause of reason, but, 

 vice versa, reason is the cause of speech. Now, what holds good for 

 the individual, holds good for the whole race; and this is why mankind 

 did not become reasonable only with the development of speech. 



