The Ego, or Personality. 931 



tribes possessing the most copious. But each language breaks up into 

 dialects in different communities, as it obviously must. The words are 

 monosyllabic, ambiguous and collective, having no negative terms ex- 

 cept resentment. The words refer to the most common things in their 

 lives, as food, pain, &c. Strange monkeys when shut up together will 

 come to understand each other's language, but will not usually attempt 

 to speak it. 



It is not possible that any two communities of monkeys have the 

 same language. Those having the same forms of vocal organs would 

 utter the same sounds, but different families disconnected from others, 

 would establish different applications of them. Thus, one of Mr. G-ar- 

 ner's monkeys had a word for milk, which he recognized when uttered 

 by Mr. Gr. , but that was probably only his meaning of the word, and a 

 monkey of another family, while necessarily using the same sound, would 

 attach to it some other meaning. He finds the language of the chim- 

 panzee to be poor, probably because though intelligent it is an unsocial 

 animal. 



Birds, too, have genuine language, as shown by their actions. Hen 

 talk has been, in part, translated into English. The vocabulary is not 

 extensive, but it answers the purpose. By one signal the little ones 

 are called to the protection of the mother's wings, by another the} r are 

 called to dinner, by another the}' are warned to scatter and hide from 

 the hawk, &c. This is genuine language under its strictest definition. 

 (See also cases in chapter 77. ) 



CHAPTER LXXXI. 



THE EGO, OR PERSONALITY. 



It is said that when persons are on the point of drowning, and also, 

 in some cases, when under the overwhelming terror of a great impend- 

 ing danger, an entire picture of their whole history flashes in one in- 

 stant into their consciousness. They remember everything that ever 

 happened to them, or that they ever did. The reason of this, no doubt, 

 is, that at that moment every memory cell in the brain is stimulated, 

 and gives its characteristic and usual recollection. Under ordinary 

 conditions, by no possible effort could a person direct attention to more 

 than one or two memories at once, although he might have a rapid suc- 

 cession of them. When all the memory organs are stimulated at once, 

 as in the cases named, the subject experiences for the moment, a con- 

 sciousness of his whole personality, or the whole of that portion of it 

 that ever becomes the subject of consciousness. This being the case, 

 .t follows that in ordinary states our consciousness at any one time can 



