THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 1 53 



speech depends upon the quality of thought it is 

 intended to express. That type of speech used 

 by the Caucasian race within the space of a few 

 centuries has developed from a vocabulary lim- 

 ited to a few thousand words into the polished 

 languages of modern Europe, comprising new 

 types and tens of thousands of new words, until 

 to-day our own language contains more than two 

 hundred and twenty thousand words — very few 

 of which, however, if any, are entirely new. The 

 phonetic elements on which is built up this huge 

 vocabulary do not very greatly exceed in num- 

 ber those found in the lowest types of human 

 speech in the world. The total number of these 

 sounds does not much exceed two score in the 

 highest forms of human speech ; and about half 

 this number can be shown as the vocal products 

 of some species of the lower animals. Some 

 philologists claim that the blending of consonant 

 and vowel sounds is the mark which distinguishes 

 human speech from the sounds uttered by the 

 lower animals. To show how poorly this gigan- 

 tic superstructure of fossilized science is sup- 

 ported by the facts, I have developed such effects 

 in the phonograph from a basis of sounds purely 

 mechanical, and without the aid of any part of 



