intelligence and Speech. 115 



human speech, does not ascend above the level of im- 

 mediate, natural, spontaneous and sensile signs, it is 

 not determined by individual deliberation. 



It cannot be denied that all these different forms of 

 ''animal language" exhibit an analogon of human 

 speech. Still they are essentially different. Pseudo- 

 psychology may ignore this difference: scientific 

 psychology must acknowledge it. Animal language is 

 never the result of an intelligent reflection on the part of 

 the brute to use arbitrary, fixed, sensitive signs which 

 have been conventionally agreed upon as the fit ex- 

 pression of psychic experiences with the view of being 

 understood by other animals. It is simply the outcome 

 of the laws of sensitive instinct which imply with 

 physical necessity the use of a certain sound, or a cer- 

 tain tap of the feelers to express and communicate a cer- 

 tain sensitive affection. The language of ants pub- 

 lished in our "Vergleichende Studien," offers further 

 proofs of this conclusion. These remarks will, I trust, 

 suffice to clear up the true relation between speech and 

 intelligence. 



The question of the origin of human speech and the 

 attempt to explain it by development from the natural 

 vocal utterances of the higher animals, is a thorny, and 

 even a hopeless chapter in the modern theory of evolu- 

 tion. All the explanations of Ch. Darwin and of his 

 school were so weak and frail that they immediately 

 collapsed before the adverse criticism of modern lin- 

 guists. 1 "I may exert my intellect as much as I like, 

 and I may strain my memory as much as I like, I can- 



l ) See Giesswein, op. cit., 2d part, ch. 2, and Gutberlet, "Der 

 Mensch," ch. 5. 



