261 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[Maech 27, 1885. 



calliDg another sense to its aid, so th:it emotions may be 

 comprehended equally well by sight or hearing. 



The character of the voice alters in loudness, quality, and 

 pitch accoiding to varying emotions. This is so in the 

 lower aniuial-i, and in man from a very early age. 



Musical notes are uttii-ed by many animals. Darwin says 

 that one of the gibbons produces an exact octave of sounds, 

 ascen'ling and descending the scale by semitones. Romanes 

 remarks, that, although there is no evidence that any other 

 animal except the Jiylobates iigilis has a delicate sen^e of 

 pitch, " I have heard a terrier, which used to accompany 

 a song by howling, follow the prolongi^d notes with some 

 approximation lo unison, and Dr. Hu^gins, who has a good 

 ear, tells me that his large mastiff, ' Kepler,' used to do 

 the same to prolonged notes souuf!ed from an organ.'* 

 Some rodents also are able to produce correct musical 

 sounds, »nd an account is given of a singing hesperomys, 

 by the Rev. S. Lockwood.f 



Variations of voice are interpreted in the same way as 

 other ao'icms expressive of feelings; they are instinc'ive 

 and involunta'3'. For as the expressiims of the feelings 

 are instinctive, they are instinctively understood by the 

 individual in reference to his own feelings, as far as he 

 posse ses the emotions from which they spring. 



MonkeyH, according to Reugger, distinguish the tones of 

 voice and the facial expressions of their masters. Tliis is 

 certainly the case with the dog, who knows when his 

 master is pleased or angry, understands when he chides 

 him, and expresses sympathy when he is sorrowful. The 

 dog understands a compassionate tone and bearing so well 

 that he will sometimes try to impose on those who 

 manifest it. 



A friend of mine has a splendid Newfoundland, which 

 sutfrred ,«otne months ago with rheumatism in one of its 

 paws. During its illness it was much petted, and treated 

 to muny unusual delicacies, and it now frequently pretends 

 to be ill in the hope of obtaining by this means similar 

 indulgences. Having been told of this I assumed an 

 expression of great pity, and said in a compassionate 

 voice, "Poor Jumbo! I'm afraid he's not at all well. 

 He must have some cake." The dog at once lay down on 

 his side, holding up the paw in which he had previously 

 suffered, and moaned in a heart-rending fashion. Histoial 

 •chaiige of demeanour was so sudden that I coidd not help 

 laughing at the artfulness of his ruse. 



This same dog has the emotion of compassion strongly 

 developtd in himself, and has more than once brought a 

 halfstarved m >ngrel hoii:e to hive it fed. 



I shall have further occasion to speak of my canine 

 friend, Jumbo, when discussing the question of how far the 

 lower animals are capable of understanding words as such; 

 but that they understand the expression of emotions by 

 gesture and voice, both in animals of their own and other 

 species, as well as in man, is so obvious to all who come in 

 contact with them, as to render discussion of the [loint 

 unnecessary. I may, however, refer to an interesting case 

 quoted by Romanes^ from a writer in Nntur<;, who kept a 

 number of gibbon apes (hijlohates ar/iliti) in his garden. 

 He says : — " Tuese live free from all restraint in the trees, 

 merely coming when called to be fed. . . . And I have 

 frequently noticed that a cry of fright, pain, or distress 

 from one would bring all the others at once to the corn- 

 plainer, and th^y would thtn condole with him, and fold 

 hira in their arms." 



If we look on the other side of the ]iioture, we find that 

 in this respect man has a great advantage over the animals ; 



* " Mental Evolution in Animals," p. 98. 



t America:i Naturalist, Vol. V., December, 1871, p. 701. 



X " AniDial Intelligence," p. 47-3. •i'-.\.«.-.. 



for, while the lower animals do not possess,* number of the 

 emotions displayed by man, and the signs of these emotions 

 are, therefore, meaningless to them, man possesses nearly, 

 if not quite all, the emotions of which the lower animals 

 are capable, and, being enabled to recognise them, can gain 

 a greater insight into their inner life. 



We recognise in animals anger, jealousy, envy, emula- 

 tion, disappointment, grief, Jove, parental affection, sym- 

 pathy, self-denial, joy, and many other emotions and 

 shades of emotion more or less complex. We are even 

 enabled to obtain a knowledge of the psychology of creatures 

 so far removed from us in the scale of life as the earth-worm 

 and the ant by observing certain manifestations in them 

 about which we reason by analogy with our own mental 

 processes. An extreme instance of this is given by Mr. 

 Langshaft in his " Treatise on the Honey-Bee": "There 

 is an air of roguery about a thieving bee which, to the 

 expert, is as characteristic as are the motions of a pick- 

 pocket to a skilful policeman. Its sneaking look and 

 nervous, guilty agitation can never be mistaken. 



An observation bearing on the subject of our compre- 

 hension of emotions in animals through voice was made by 

 a correspondent in the Daily Tehijrafh for December 17th 

 last, in the person of a Pomeranian. He says, " Shan 

 can, however, argue, and does so in the most iojuied tones 

 when he has been a ' bad dog ' and we show him the stick. 

 His voice rises and falls like that of a person wrongfully 

 accused." 



As a rule, people do not imagine what an important 

 part emotional gestures, including voice and those other 

 gestures of which I shall speak hereafter, play in language. 

 This fact was very forcibly impressed upon me by a personal 

 experience, which will serve as an illustration. 



About a year ago a Russo-Jewish Opera Company was 

 playing in England, and the edit ir of a paper, under the 

 impre-sion that the libretto would be in Hebrew, asked 

 me for once to act as dramatic critic. My brother,* who 

 is an excellent Hebrew scholar, accompanied me to the 

 theatre. We soon found, however, that the play was not 

 in Hebrew, but in a mixed jargon, of which we did not 

 understand a dozen words throughout the five acts. Hence, 

 in order to understand the play, we were I'pdiioed to the 

 observation of voice and gestures ; but our interest never 

 flagged, and in a subsequent discussion we thoroughly 

 agreed on every point in connection with the rather com- 

 plicated plot. Without even knowing as much as the 

 name of the language or dialect in which the play was 

 spoken, I wrote a review of it, minutely describing the 

 plot as it appeared to me, which, on inquiry, I found to 

 be correct in every detail. Doubtless others who have 

 witnessed plays in languages with which they were unac- 

 quainted will be able to corroborate our evidence on this 

 subject. 



Having now dealt rather fully with those gestures in- 

 cluded in my first class, expressive of feeling, and with the 

 interpretation of the same, I shall proceed in my next 

 article to consider the other two classes of gestures — those 

 which express Will and Thought. 



The snow-storm which visited the South of England last Sunday 

 morning caused very considerable damage to the telegraph and 

 telephone wires. Wires were broken and poles were strained out of 

 position in all directions, and but for tho energetic Rction of those in 

 charge of the system, an almost complete breakdown must have 

 ensued. Of tho London local telegraph wires, and thofo running 

 from London southwards and westwards, about 150 were down. 

 Wires going north suffered very lightly. 



* Mr. F. L. Ballin, co-author with me of " A Hebrew Grammar, 

 with Exercises." (Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. 1881.) 



