THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS. 1 73 



are aware that ideas can be conveyed by sounds. 

 If they can interpret certain sounds of human 

 speech, they can ascribe a meaning to their own. 

 They think, and speech is but the natural ex- 

 ponent of thought ; it is the audible expression 

 of thought as signs are the visible expression 

 of the same — born of the same cause, acts to the 

 same end, and discharges the same functions in 

 the economy of life. To reason is to think me- 

 thodically; and if it be true that man cannot 

 think without words, the same must be true of 

 monkeys. I do not mean, however, to claim that 

 such is a fact with regard to man thinking ; but 

 if such can be shown to be a fact, it will decide 

 the question as to the invention of human speech, 

 as it was necessary for man to think in order to 

 invent, and by the rule he could not think a 

 word which did not exist, and therefore could 

 not have invented it. But I beg to be allowed 

 to stand aside and let Prof. Max Muller and Pro- 

 fessor Whitney, the great giants of comparative 

 philology, settle this question between them- 

 selves, and I shall abide by the verdict which 

 may be finally reached. 



But theories are useless things when the facts 



