FIFTH day's SITTIKa. 107 



no existing race of apes seems to have got beyond the 

 "growl" of which Mr. Darwin has spoken. 



Homo. Nor even so far as that, my Lord. No existing 

 race of apes ever had this " unusually wise " progenitor 

 to teach them to imitate the growl of a beast of prey to 

 warn their " brethren " of danger. Only the race which 

 developed into man was so favoured ! 



Lord C. "What follows after this ? 



Homo. Mr. Darwin goes on, my Lord, through page after 

 page, telling us, among other things as little to the point, 

 that, " as Home Tooke observes, language is an art, like 

 brewing or baking," and not an instinct ; that " the sounds 

 uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest analogy 

 to language," and what he " cannot doubt " as to the origin 

 of language ; that ants communicate among themselves 

 " by means of their antennte ;" that " we might have used 

 our fingers " for speech, but that the loss of our hands, 

 while thus employed, would have been a serious incon- 

 venience ; that " the fact of the higher apes not using their 

 vocal organs for speech, no doubt results from their intel- 

 ligence not being sufficiently advanced ;" that, in this 

 respect, they are like those "birds which possess organs fitted 

 for singing, though they never sing ;" and that the crow 

 has " vocal organs similarly constructed " to those of the 

 nightingale, though it uses them merely for " croaking." 

 He thus wanders from one unimportant point to another, 

 always avoiding the real point, and then winds up as 

 follows : — " From these few and imperfect remarks I con- 

 clude that the extremely complex and regular construction 

 of many barbarous languages, is no proof that they owe 

 their origin to a special act of creation. Nor, as we have 

 seen, does the faculty of articulate speech, in itself, offer any 

 insuperable objection to the belief that man has been 



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