156 THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 



of language. It may be substituted for either 

 speech or gestures, but it does not thereby be- 

 come speech in a literal sense ; but within itself 

 it constitutes another form of language. There 

 seems to be some vague and subtle method of 

 communication found in certain spheres of life 

 which is called telepathy. While it is a mere 

 ghost of language, so to speak, it has an identity 

 which cannot be denied. This may, perhaps, be 

 called another form of language. 



By some eminent men of letters it is claimed 

 that speech was invented and therefore cannot 

 be universally the same ; and this is proven by 

 the fact that different tribes of men have different 

 tongues. They do not appear to realize that to the 

 first cardinal sounds of speech so much has been 

 added age by age, by slow accretions, that the 

 radix of speech is but a mere drop in the great 

 ocean of sounds. The mobility of speech is such 

 as to make it more susceptible to change than 

 matter is ; and yet we find that by the laws of 

 change man has been evolved from a less com- 

 plex state of matter, and that in these latter 

 years he can only be identified as the descendant 

 of his prototype by the most scrutinizing care and 

 by picking up the dropped stitches in the great 



