368 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN 



tion. First, let us try to imagine an anthropoid ape, 

 social in habits, using its voice somewhat extensively as an 

 organ of sign- making after the manner of all other species 

 of social quadrumana, and possibly somewhat more saga- 

 cious than the orang-outang mentioned in my previous 

 work,* or the remarkable chimpanzee now in the Zoo- 

 logical Gardens, which, in respect of intelligence as well 

 as comparative hairlessness and carnivorous propensities, 

 appears to be the most human-like of animals hitherto 

 discovered in the living state.f It docs not seem to me 

 difficult further to imagine that such an animal should 

 extend the vocal signs which it habitually employs in the 

 expression of its emotions and the logic of its recepts, to 

 an association with gesture-signs, so as to constitute sen- 

 tence-words indicative of such simple and often -repeated 

 ideas as the presence of danger, discovery of food, &c. 

 Nay, I do not think it is too much to suppose that such 

 an animal may even have gone so far as to make sounds 

 which were denotative of a few of the most familiar objects, 

 such as food, child, enemy, &c., and also, possibly, of 

 frequently repeated forms of activity ; for this, as I have 

 shown at considerable length, is no more than we actually 

 observe to be done by animals which are lower in the scale of 

 intelligence ; and although it is not done by articulate signs 

 (except in the psychologically poor instance of talking birds), 

 this, as I have also shown, is a matter of no psychological 



* Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 238. 



t The carnivorous habits of this animal (which is named as a new species) are 

 most interesting. It is surmised that in its wild state it must live upon birds ; but 

 in the Zoological Gardens it is found to show a marked preference for cooked 

 meat over raw. It dines off boiled mutton-chops, the bones of which it picks with 

 its fingers and teeth, being afterwards careful to clean its hands. It mixes a little 

 straw with the mutton as vegetables, and finishes its dinner with a dessert of fruits. 

 But a more important point is that this animal answers its keeper in vocal tones — 

 or rather grunts— when he speaks to it, and these tones are understood by the 

 keeper as indicative of different mental states. I have spent a great deal of time 

 in observing this animal, but the publicity and other circumstances render it 

 difficult to do much in the way of experiment or tuition. ^Yith regard to 

 teaching her to count, see above, p. 58 ; and with regard to her understanding 

 of words, p. 126. 



