130 THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 



chance, I cannot see why such an accident might 

 not have occurred at some other point in the 

 scale of life, or why such anomalies are not more 

 frequent. Man appears to be the only one. 

 From any point of view we take it does not seem 

 consistent with other facts. All other primates 

 think and feel, and live and die, under like con- 

 ditions and on like terms with man ; then why 

 should he alone possess the gift of speech? 



I confess that such an inference is not evi- 

 dence, however logical; but I have many facts to 

 offer in proof that speech is not possessed by 

 man alone. It is quite difficult to draw the line 

 at any given point between the process of 

 thought and those phenomena we call emotions. 

 They emerge into and blend with each other 

 like the colors in light ; and in like manner the 

 faculty of speech, receding through the various 

 modes of expression, is forever lost in the haze 

 and distance of desire. The faculty of reason 

 blends into thought as the water of a bay blends 

 into the open sea; there is nowhere a positive 

 line dividing them. When we are in the midst 

 of one we point to the other and say, " There it 

 is;" but we cannot say at what exact point we 

 pass out of one into the other. 



