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man can articulate sounds, other animals can imitate sounds 

 as well as he can. He presents simply, in this respect, a 

 greater development of a faculty common to all social 

 animals.^'' 



Mr. Darwin, whilst admitting that language has justly been 

 considered as one of the chief distinctions between man and the 

 lower animals, quoting Archbishop Whately, says : Man is 

 not the only animal that can make use of language to express 

 what is passing in his mind, and that can understand more or 

 less what is expressed by another. Mr. Darwin says man 

 uses, iu common with the lower animals, inarticulate cries to 

 express his meaning, aided by gestures and the movement of 

 the muscles of the face, and he doubts not " that language owes 

 its origin to the imitation and modification, aided by signs and 

 gestures, of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, 

 and man's instinctive cries/^ He suggests the probability that 

 primaeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, used 

 his voice largely, as does one of the gibbon apes at the present 

 day, in producing true musical cadences — that is, singing ; and 

 it does not appear to him altogether incredible, that some un- 

 usually wise ape-like animal should have thought of imitating 

 the growl of a beast of prey, so as to indicate to his fellow- 

 monkeys the nature of the expected danger ; and this would 

 have been a first step in the formation of a language A 

 writer in the Edinhurgh Review, commenting upon the above 

 passage, asks for the evidence that at the present day some un- 

 usually wise ape has ever been known to imitate the cry of a 

 wild beast, so as to indicate its presence to its fellows. Further, 

 Mr. Darwin says that the sounds uttered by birds ofFer in several 

 respects the nearest analogy to language, and he lays great stress 

 upon the fact that parrots can talk. Now, I maintain that the 

 so-called talking of the parrot is not articulate language, it is 

 merely the result of a remarkable power of imitation possessed 

 by that bird, which faculty of imitation can exist in the human 

 subject after the power of language has ceased. The following 

 case observed by myself will illustrate my meaning: — During a 

 recent \4sit to La Salpetriere, an institution in Paris for the 

 reception of female patients for the most part afflicted with 

 some mental disorder, the physician, Dr. Auguste Yoisin, 

 knowing I was interested in the question of language, called my 

 attention to the case of an old woman in whom the faculty of 

 speech was completely suspended, but who, although she never 

 spoke, repeated like a parrot all that was said before her. For 

 instance, Dr. Yoisin addressed her thus : — Voulez-vous manger 

 aujourd^hui She said instantly, Youlez-vous manger 

 aujourd'hui.^'^ I then said to her, ^'Quel age avez-vous?^^ 



