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sounds which are rational and articulate. It is by means of 
this language that our feelings, memories, thoughts, and voli- 
tions are made manifest to the senses of other men, and by 
which we ourselves learn other men^s feelings, memories, 
thoughts, and volitions. We are bold enough to assert that 
this rational language is peculiar to man. That brutes have 
a language is not denied, but no brute is found possessing 
rational language. 
This distinctive feature of man is a point that Mr. Darwin, 
in his Descent of Man, endeavours to account for in two ways, 
which, to say the least of them, are contradictory ; thus, in 
vol. i., p. 54, he attributes the faculty in man to his having 
acquired a higher intellectual nature ; while in vol. ii., p. 301, 
he says his higher intellectual nature was the result of his 
having acquired the faculty of speech. 
In this possession of rational speech there is a wide chasm 
between man and brutes — a chasm which has not been bridged. 
What has been attempted is only groundless speculation, such 
as that made by Mr. Darwin in vol. i., p. 56, where he says 
‘ That primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, 
probably used his voice largely, as does one of the Gibbon 
apes at the present day, in producing true musical cadences — 
that is, in singing ; we may conclude from a widely-spread 
analogy that this power would have been especially exerted 
during the courtship of the sexes, serving to express various 
emotions, as love, jealousy, triumph, and serving as a 
challenge to their rivals. The imitation by articulated 
sounds of musical cries might have given rise to words ex- 
pressive of various complete emotions.^ Might have ! But 
what proof, we ask, is there that it did ? Mr. Darwin says 
in another place, ‘^It does not appear altogether incredible 
tha.t some unusually 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 the first step in the formation of a 
language.^ 
To this conjecture we demur, and, we ask, what data is 
there to warrant such a supposition ? None is given. It is 
another case of the imagination controlling the reason. If an 
exceedingly wise ape in the past did what Mr. Darwin supposes 
was done, why does not some equally wise ape in the present 
do the same, and a race of apes be formed who have the faculty 
of speech ? Why not, we ask ? and we wait for an answer. 
Much might be said as to the impotency of evolution, as 
taught by Professor Haeckel^ to account for man^s mental 
