Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/187

Rh we accompany our interjections with corresponding gestures, and that the interjection itself is only one gesture more. We forget how we have trained him, how we have worked upon his instinct to make him run for the stick we have thrown, and have taught him to bring it back in his jaws, by leading him, and showing him how, and petting him when he performs the trick aright. You accompany your orders with certain words as if you were speaking to a child, and gave them a precise signification; but the dog does not attach this signification to the word only; to him the word, or the vowel in the word, is only a sign that concurs with all the others in helping to make him understand what we want of him.

If, while sitting at my table, I say to my son, "Charles, will you be so good as to bring me my slippers?" he will understand me. If I say the same thing to my dog, in the same tone and without moving, he will not understand me. I shall have to express myself in a particular manner and a particular tone of voice. He will understand, "Houston, bring the slippers!" or "Houston, slippers!" or "Houston, bring!" But he will not understand the cool, calm request that is sufficient direction to my boy. The word slippers does not call up in him the idea of my slippers, but that of a complex action which he is to perform, consisting of a combination of successive movements winding up with a caress. Provided I make the accustomed gesture, he will obey, though I use the wrong word; and he will not obey, though I use the right word, if I speak in an indifferent tone as if to some one behind the scenes.

It frequently occurs to us to think in this way by sensible images, although we do not remark it. When in the morning I hear the servants go down, make the fire, and arrange the table, hear the rattling of the dishes, I do not think in words that they are getting breakfast, and are preparing the coffee, and putting on the bread, and the butter, and the sugar; but I see these preparations in images; I behold the coffee-pot, the milk-pitcher, the sugar-bowl and sugar, and the slices of bread; and I see in my mind's eye the housemaid in her white apron going back and forth, opening the cupboards, and arranging the table-service. When, after this, she knocks at my door, and calls out, "Breakfast is ready, sir," it is very possible that these words will not awaken in my mind the idea of breakfast, but that of time to get up, to wash, dress, and go to business. I attach to the words, with their strict sense, a more remote sense which is associated with them. This is the way dogs and animals generally think; and this is the meaning our language has to them. They do not analyze, but comprehend in block. This is the way the deaf-mute comprehends our signs.

It surely is not by analysis that the child learns to speak; he understands our phrases as a whole, and it is not till after some time that he comes to see in them separate words; but, finally, he decomposes the phrases. Now, if the child can do this, why can not the