2 8o THE HUMAN SPECIES 



being puzzled as to where the other ape can be. But Garner 

 allows his imagination to tempt him to conclusions which are 

 inconsistent with the well-recognised position of the capuchin 

 ape in the order of primates when he describes a small capu- 

 chin feeling cold and talking with a worried look about the 

 weather (!), or another making a speech defending itself against 

 an accusation, and finally receiving humbly a box on the ear. 



Garner's account, too, of the expression of negation (shaking 

 the head with a clucking sound), and of affirmation (nodding 

 the head) in these small apes sounds so suspiciously fantastic 

 that it is only fair not to suppress our doubts. On the other 

 hand, we can readily agree with Garner's further conclusion 

 that as a rule every action of an ape is accompanied by a sound, 

 and the sound has an accompanying action which conveys a 

 constant and fixed meaning to another ape of the same species. 

 Their speech consists simply of certain sounds, and since these 

 sounds are as a rule associated with corresponding signs, I ex- 

 pect that it would be easier for them in the course of time to 

 understand the sounds without the signs, rather than the signs 

 without the sounds. 



From the beginning to the end of Garner's book, there is 

 not a single proof of the existence of articulate speech among 

 apes nor of any difference between their language and that of 

 the other higher Vertebrates. Both are mere rudiments of a 

 true language in which there are sounds representing certain 

 moods and wishes, or orders, warnings, cries for help, etc., 

 but nothing approaching the higher phase of articulate speech. 



Man alone has attained to these higher planes of speech de- 

 pending on the development of ideas, judgment and reason, 

 and corresponding with a more highly developed brain. Ac- 

 cording to Wright 1 a psychological analysis of the faculty of 

 language shows that even the smallest proficiency in it might 

 require more brain-power than the greatest proficiency in any 

 other direction. 



The process of apperception in man when once it has been 

 acquired is much fuller and more intensive than in animals in 

 whom ideas are very indistinctly defined in consciousness 

 (Wundt). So the much-debated question presents itself, When 



1 Darwin, loc. cit., i., 72. 



