Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/171

Rh by intention; when, for example, an utterance of pain or pleasure, formerly forced out by immediate emotion, was repeated imitatively, no longer as a mere instinctive cry, but for the purpose of intimating to another, "I am (was, or shall be) suffering or glad;" when an angry growl, once the direct expression of passion, was reproduced to signify disapprobation or threatening, and so on; that is to say, when expression for personal relief was turned into expression for communication. The human intellect had the power to see what was gained by this means and to try it further; and it could follow on and on, in the same course, until a whole language of signs was the result. It cannot be successfully maintained that no animals are capable of taking even the earliest steps in this process; if a dog stands outside a door, and barks or scratches, to attract attention, and then waits for some one to come and let him in, that is, in all essential respects, an act of language-making; and the dog, and some other animals, can do much more than that. Here is the point to which the attention of naturalists should be directed, if they wish to determine how far the animals advance on the road to language; to what extent are they able to turn signs—utterance, or gesture, or posture, or grimace—to account for the purpose, and with the intention, of intimating meaning. To determine what definite natural cries they have is comparatively nothing to the purpose, since these are not the analogue of human speech; to put the inquiry on this ground, involves the capital error of attributing to the human voice a special relation to the apparatus of mental action, as its natural means of expression, instead of regarding utterance as merely that form of bodily activity which, on the whole, is most available for expression, and which, therefore, after due experience of its advantages, is most availed of by man. The real expressiveness of cries and exclamations lies, not in their articulate elements, their vowels and consonants (if they have any), but in their tones; and we keep these same tones as auxiliaries of the very highest value to our articulate speech, when we wish to impress and persuade.

Quite as much, I am sure, lies within the compass of the lower animals, in the way of intentional intimation of their wishes, as in the way of tool-using; and hence the former is no more a "barrier" than the latter. But the animals can go no further in the direction of developing their rude beginnings of expression into a language, than of working up their tools into a mechanical art, with all its appliances, simply because they have not the capacity; and in this capacity of indefinite development, by accumulating the results of the exercise of his powers out of a condition originally as low, or wellnigh as low, as that of the animals, lies the distinction of man—a distinction which ought to satisfy the most exacting lover of his species.

As regards "general ideas," of which Mr. Müller arrogates to himself and his followers the monopoly, I confess to being wholly of the opinion of Mr. Ellis: "Animals, to my mind, have concepts, with quite