Essays on Life 



tween two minds. It is the power and will to 

 apply the symbols that alone gives life to 

 money, and as long as these are in abeyance 

 the money is in abeyance also ; the coins may 

 be safe in one's pocket, but they are as dead as 

 a log till they begin to burn in it, and so are 

 our words till they begin to burn within us. 



The real question, however, as to the sub- 

 stantial underlying identity between the lan- 

 guage of the lower animals and our own, turns 

 upon that other question whether or no, in 

 spite of an immeasurable difference of degree, 

 the thought and reason of man and of the 

 lower animals is essentially the same. No one 

 will expect a dog to master and express the 

 varied ideas that are incessantly arising in con- 

 nection with human affairs. He is a pauper 

 as against a millionaire. To ask him to do so 

 would be like giving a street-boy sixpence 

 and telling him to go and buy himself a 

 founder's share in the New River Company. 

 He would not even know what was meant, and 

 even if he did it would take several millions of 

 sixpences to buy one. It is astonishing what 



a clever workman will do with very modest 



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