COMPARATIVE PSYCHOLOGY. 35 



how to develope in any way. Does it not seem that there is 

 here some comparison with what has just been stated ? that 

 under a civilising influence,, in contact with a superior being, 

 the dog has learnt a language ; but that not understanding its 

 general application (a more complex, and more highly elevated 

 idea), he has not known how to transmit the use of it to his own 

 race, or has himself forgotten it, from not having any occasion 

 to exercise this power ?* 



The language of animals is still a question full of obscurity, 

 but which may eventually, we believe, become fruitful in new 

 facts.f 



If Apollonius of Tyana and the ancient philosophers did 

 not understand the language of animals so well as has some- 

 times been believed, at least they did not do wrong in directing 

 their inquiries towards this matter. We have no doubt but 

 that in carefully studying animals, we shall arrive at a scientific 

 explanation of this well-known truth, recognised by all those 

 who live with them j which is that they can understand us, 

 that they make themselves understood by us, and that they 

 understood one another within certain limits. J 



For a long time it was believed that intellect and thought 

 belong to man alone, and that he had only organic instinct in 

 common with animals. This opinion tends each day towards 



* It is because there is a sort of capability for education in the animal, 

 and indeed in the whole of his race, placed under certain circumstances ; it 

 is because, on the other hand, we refuse to certain human races the " initia- 

 tive in progress," (see Broca, Bulletins de la 8oci4U d'Anthropologie, May 24 

 and June 21, 1860), that we cannot accept the " class man" of M. Chevreul, 

 preceding the " class mammalia," and having, as a characteristic, the capa- 

 bility of perfection in the individual, and in the association of individuals. See 

 Expose d'un moyen de Definir et de Nommer les Couleurs, 185. (Memoir es de 

 V Academic des Sciences f vol. xxxiii, 1861.) 



f See Dr. Gibson, Amer. Assoc. (compare Ami des Sciences, 29 August, 1858.) 



j It would be a curious study, for instance, to find out if certain noises, 

 certain sounds which have no signification to our ears, do not produce, 

 among some animals, clearly determined impressions, having their first 

 origin in these animals themselves, or in their mutual relations, the educa- 

 tion we give them going for nothing in this sort of evidence. 



[The Rev. F. W. Robertson (who died some years ago), states some 

 opinions in his published sermons which show he was almost before his 

 time in his ideas concerning animals. He says, in comparing them with 

 mankind, " There is the same external form, the same material in the blood- 

 vessels, in the nerves, and in the muscular system. Nay, more than that, 

 our appetites and instincts are alike, our lower pleasures like their lower 

 pleasures, our lower pain like their lower pain ; our life is supported by the 



D 2 



