54 



Are not these powers of abstraction and language a 

 matter of degree rather than of Mnd ? Do not the 

 actions of many of the lower animals sufficiently 

 indicate that they reason from the particular to the 

 general ? And have they not the power of communi- 

 cating their thoughts to one another by vocal sounds 

 which cannot be otherwise regarded than as language 1 

 No one who has sufiiciently studied the conduct of 

 our domestic animals but must be convinced of this 

 power of generalisation ; no one who has hstened 

 attentively to the various calls of mammals and birds 

 can doubt they have the power of expressing their 

 mental emotions in language. Their powers of 

 abstraction may be limited, and the range of their 

 language restricted ; but what shaU. we say of the 

 mental capacity of the now extinct Tasmanian, which 

 could not carry him beyond individual conceptions, 

 or of the monosyllabic click-cluck of the Bushman, as 

 compared with the intellectual grasp and the inflectional 

 languages of modem Europe ? If it shall be said 

 that these are matters merely of degree, then are the 

 mental processes and languages of the lower animals, 

 as compared with those of man, also matters of degree 

 — things that manifest themselves in the same way 

 ■ and by the same organs, but differing in power 

 according to the perfection of the organs through 



