Art and Science 



whereas the lower animals seem to be without 

 one. Man, therefore, has far outstripped them 

 in reasoning faculty as well as in power of 

 expression. This, however, does not bar the 

 communications which the lower animals 

 make to one another from possessing all the 

 essential characteristics of language, and as a 

 matter of fact, wherever we can follow them 

 we find such communications effectuated by 

 the aid of arbitrary symbols covenanted upon 

 by the living beings that wish to communicate, 

 and persistently associated with certain cor- 

 responding feelings, states of mind, or material 

 objects. Human language is nothing more 

 than this in principle, however much further 

 the principle has been carried in our own case 

 than in that of the lower animals. 



This being admitted, we should infer that 

 the thought or reason on which the language 

 of men and animals is alike founded differs as 

 between men and brutes in degree but not in 

 kind. More than this cannot be claimed on 

 behalf of the lower animals, even by their most 

 enthusiastic admirer. 



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