200 DISTINCTIONS OF MAN, 



he communicates his sentiments by words 3 and this sign 

 is universal. The savage and the civilized man have the 

 same powers of utterance : both speak naturally, and arc 

 equally understood. It is not owing, as some have ima- 

 gined, to any defect in their organs that animals are denied 

 the faculty of speech. The tongue of a monkey is as perfect 

 as that of a man : Camper asserts that the laryngeal pouch 

 renders it impossible for the orang-utang to speak. I do 

 not clearly understand how this is ascertained : but allow- 

 ing its truth, there are other monkeys who have not this 

 pouch, and yet cannot speak. 



Several animals may be taught to pronounce words, and 

 even to repeat sentences ; which proves clearly that the 

 want of speech is not owing to any defect in their organs ; 

 but to make them conceive the ideas which these words 

 express, is beyond the power of art : they articulate and 

 repeat like an echo or machine. 



Language implies a train of thinking ; and for this rea- 

 son, brute animals are incapable of speech : for though 

 their external senses are not inferior to our own, and 

 though we should allow some of them to possess a faint 

 dawning of comparison, reflection, and judgment, it is cer- 

 tain that they are unable to form that association of ideas, 

 in which alone the essence of thought consists. 



The possession of speech, therefore, corresponds to the 

 more numerous, diversified, and exalted intellectual and 

 moral endowments of man, and is a necessary aid to their 

 exercise and full developement. The ruder faculties and 

 simple feelings of animals do not require such assistance. 

 The natural language of inarticulate sounds, gestures, and 

 actions, suffices for their purposes. The wonderful dis- 

 covery of alphabetical writing, and the invention of print- 

 ing, complete the benefits derived from the noble preroga- 

 tive of speech. 



With the operations of animals- — who always perform the 

 same work in the very same manner ; the execution of any 

 individual being neither better nor worse than that of any 

 other; in whom the individual, at the end of some months, 



