gg THE DESCENT OP MAN. 



shown by those curious cases of brain-disease in which speech is 

 specially affected, as when the power to remember substantives 

 is lost, whilst other words can be correctly used, or where sub- 

 stantives of a certain class, or all except the initial letters ot 

 substantives and proper names are forgotten." There is no more 

 improbability in the continued use of the mental and vocal organs 

 leading to inherited changes in their structure and functions 

 than in the case of handwriting, which depends partly on the 

 form of the hand and partly on the disposition of the mind; and 

 hand-writing is certainly inherited." 



Several writers, more especially Prof. Max Miiller,°= have lately 

 insisted that the use of language implies the power of forming 

 general concepts; and that as no animals are supposed to possess 

 this power, an impossible barrier is formed between them and 

 man.™ With respect to animals, I have already endeavored to 

 show that they have this power, at least in a rude and incipient 

 degree. As far as concerns infants of from ten to eleven months 

 old, and deaf-mutes, it seems to me Incredible, that they should 

 be able to connect certain sounds with certain general ideas as 

 quickly as they do, unless such ideas were already formed In 

 their minds. The same remark may be extended to the more in- 

 telligent animals; as Mr. Leslie Stephen observes," "A. dog 

 "frames a general concept of cats or sheep, and knows the cor- 



"> Many curious cases have been recorded. See, for instance. Dr. 

 Bateman 'On Aphasia,' 1870, pp. 27, 31, 53, 100, &c. Also, 'Inquiries Con- 

 cerning the Intellectual Powers,' by Dr. Abercrombie, 1838, p. 150. 



"1 'The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. 

 ii. p. 6. 



'^ Lectures on 'Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language,' 1873. 



™ The judgment of a distinguished philologist, such as Prof. Whitney, 

 will have far more weight on this point than anything that 1 can say. 

 He remarks ('Oriental and Linguistic Studies,' 1873, p. 297), in speaking 

 of Bleak's views: "Because on the grand scale language is the neces- 

 "sary auxiliary of thought, indispensable to the development of the 

 "power of thinking, to the distinctness and variety and complexity cf 

 "cognitions to the full mastery of consciousness; therefore he would 

 "fain make thought absolutely impossible without speech, identifying 

 "the faculty with its instrument. He might just as reasonably assert 

 "that the human hand cannot act without a tool. With such a doctrine 

 "to start from, he cannot stop short of MuUer's worst paradoxes, that 

 "an infant (in fans, not speaking) is not a human being, and tha.t deaf 

 "mutes do not become possessed of reason until they learn to twist 

 "their fingers into imitation of spoken words." Max Muller gives in 

 italics ("Lectures on Mr. Darwin's Philosophy of Language,' 1873, third 

 lecture) the following aphorism: "There is no thought without words, 

 "as little as there are words without thought." What a strange defi- 

 nition must here be given to the word thought! 



" 'Essays on Free-thinking,' &c., 1873, p. 82. 



