HUMAN NATURE AND BRUTE NATURE. 87 



animals are known to be capable. Their armies re- 

 semble human armies in following leaders, in posting- 

 sentinels, in carrying off captives, in making slaves. 

 Creatures that are very weak combine not unfrequently 

 to repel or to destroy an antagonist immensely too 

 strong for their individual efforts. That rooks and other 

 animals try, and execute justice upon, offenders against 

 the laws and customs of their society is probable, if it 

 cannot be absolutely proved. 



The objection is sure to be urged that if the dumb 

 animals have the progressive plastic intelligence which 

 is thus claimed for them, it ought, in the innumerable 

 generations which have existed, to have attained to 

 something far higher than there is any pretence for 

 thinking it to have done. But this objection leaves 

 important considerations out of sight. It is true here, 

 as in so many cases, that to him that hath shall more 

 be given. The intelligence of man reached a point not 

 all at once but by degrees, at which it was able to 

 invent helps and appliances for its own benefit and 

 improvement, and thenceforward its strides were more 

 rapid and its distinction from lower intelligences more 

 marked. Cancel the art of printing, cancel the signs of 

 the alphabet, cancel the forms of articulate language, 

 and with each one of these steps you will thrust back 

 and degrade, not perhaps every single human intellect, 

 but certainly the whole mass and average of human 

 intelligence. There is no need to ask or answer the 

 question whether thought without language is possible : 

 without language thought cannot move, it has no 



