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222 because I have found it difficult to account for them in any other way. If it could be made out that animals did really, in some degree, possess this power, it might throw a new light upon many things, and, possibly, explain some difficulties of a larger kind than those which I have called it in to do. To me, at least, it has always seemed a little curious that language of a more perfect kind than animals use has been so late in developing itself; but animals would feel less the want of a language if thought-transference existed amongst them to any appreciable extent.

Assuming its existence, it is amongst gregarious animals that we might expect to find it most developed, and gregariousness has, probably, preceded any great mental advance. Therefore, before an animal reached a grade of intelligence such as might render the growth of a language possible, it would have become gregarious; and, assuming it then to have a certain power of feeling, and being influenced by the thought of its fellows, without the aid of sound or gesture, it is obvious that here would be a power tending to dull and weaken that struggle to express thought by sound, which may be supposed to have slowly and unconsciously led to the formation of a language. Here, then, would be a retarding influence. Still, as ideas communicated in this way would probably be of a general and simple kind, corresponding, perhaps, more to emotions and sensations than definite ideas, the need for more precise impartment would gradually, as mental power became more and more developed, become more and more felt. Then would come language (as spoken), and spoken language,