THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGE 239 



and from this point the rise might be at once 

 exceedingly swift and in directions wholly new. 

 The illustration is not to be taken for more than 

 it seeks to illustrate — which is not the method of 

 transition as to qualitative detail, but simply the 

 fact that an apparently slight change may have 

 startling and indefinite results. 



The last difficulty is this. If the connection 

 between Mind and Language is so vital, why do 

 not Birds, many of which apparently speak, emulate 

 Man in mental power? If his speech is largely 

 responsible for his intelligence, why have not Birds 

 — the parrot, for instance — attained the same in- 

 telligence? Several answers might be suggested 

 to the question, and several kinds of answers — 

 biological, physiological, philological, and psycho- 

 logical. But the real answer is the general one, 

 that to make animals human required a conspiracy 

 of circumstances which neither Birds nor any other 

 animal fell heir to. It was one chance in a 

 million that the multitude of co-operating con- 

 ditions which pushed Man onward were fulfilled ; 

 and though it may never be known what these 

 conditions were, it was doubtless from the failure 

 on the one hand to meet one or more of them, 

 and on the other from the success with which open- 

 ings in other directions were pursued by competing 



