LIFE ON THE EARTH. 143 



inferior races and classes of mankind, without becom- 

 ing conscious of this. Poetry has told us, and truly, 

 that gems of genius and greatness often lie hidden in 

 silent obscurity. But we are forced to admit, looking 

 broadly at the characters impressed by descent upon 

 races and communities of men, that the capacity for 

 achieving greatness is lessened the faculties them- 

 selves, intellectual and moral, degraded by adverse 

 conditions of existence, physical or social. The sad- 

 ness of this reflection is abated by the justifiable belief 

 that under different conditions, and aided by hereditary 

 transmission, these faculties may be extended and 

 exalted far beyond the limits marked by our present 

 experience. On the latter point I have commented in 

 another of these papers. A century more will give 

 those then living sufficient evidence on a subject of 

 deep interest to the future history of mankind. 



One question there is respecting our relation to 

 other animals which has a specialty of its own. How 

 much of the superiority of man depends on the won- 

 derful faculty of speech, on which he so supremely 

 transcends every other part of the living creation ? I 

 say transcends, because speech simply understood is 

 but the communication of thought, will, or emotion by 

 intelligible sounds ; and, so defined, it is certain that 

 very many animals, even far down in the scale, are 

 gifted with this power, exclusively of those other senses 

 or instincts which serve to the necessities or pleasures 

 of their social life. If the dog could speak with his 

 tongue, as he does with his tail, how much of keen 

 intelligence and warm affection would he express ! 



