210 THE GROUNDWORK OF SCIENCE

assume, will make known other facts, while parrots and

jackdaws can be taught to articulate whole sentences. All

this is very true, but it is nothing to the purpose, because it

does not surpass that lower emotional language which we also

possess. We have, we hope, sufficiently shown how truly

intellectual may be the language of gesture which mutes

can use. Could animals do likewise, could any of them

by gestures make us understand what the language of panto-

mime used in certain ballets can very plainly signify, there

would be no need for them to utter sounds such movements

alone would be amply sufficient to demonstrate to us their

rationality. And they have ample bodily powers so to do,

especially the apes, which- are so like us in structure. Their

senses, also, are quite keen enough to give them ideas about

the things they sensuously perceive were they not destitute

of some higher faculty such as enables us to form intellectual

conceptions. On the other hand, they might do much more

by sound and gesture than they do, and yet neither possess

nor express such conceptions. It is quite conceivable that a

parrot might learn to utter certain words which, by teaching,

he has come to associate with something pleasant to follow,

just as a dog who "begs" has associated that felt gesture

with the imagination of biscuit which he has habitually

received after begging. But such actions and imaginations do

not tend even to bridge over the chasm which exists between

intellectual speech and the language of emotion.

Similarly, dogs or pigs, trained to select from a number

of cards with letters on them, those bearing the letters

CAKE, are animals very curiously and ingeniously trained ;

but their actions prove nothing more than that there has

been established in their imagination sensuous associations

similar to those which have been formed in the psychical

nature of any dog that " begs."

It now only remains to consider what may be said

assume, will make known other facts, while parrots and

jackdaws can be taught to articulate whole sentences. All

this is very true, but it is nothing to the purpose, because it

does not surpass that lower emotional language which we also

possess. We have, we hope, sufficiently shown how truly

intellectual may be the language of gesture which mutes

can use. Could animals do likewise, could any of them

by gestures make us understand what the language of panto-

mime used in certain ballets can very plainly signify, there

would be no need for them to utter sounds such movements

alone would be amply sufficient to demonstrate to us their

rationality. And they have ample bodily powers so to do,

especially the apes, which- are so like us in structure. Their

senses, also, are quite keen enough to give them ideas about

the things they sensuously perceive were they not destitute

of some higher faculty such as enables us to form intellectual

conceptions. On the other hand, they might do much more

by sound and gesture than they do, and yet neither possess

nor express such conceptions. It is quite conceivable that a

parrot might learn to utter certain words which, by teaching,

he has come to associate with something pleasant to follow,

just as a dog who "begs" has associated that felt gesture

with the imagination of biscuit which he has habitually

received after begging. But such actions and imaginations do

not tend even to bridge over the chasm which exists between

intellectual speech and the language of emotion.

Similarly, dogs or pigs, trained to select from a number

of cards with letters on them, those bearing the letters

CAKE, are animals very curiously and ingeniously trained ;

but their actions prove nothing more than that there has

been established in their imagination sensuous associations

similar to those which have been formed in the psychical

nature of any dog that " begs."

It now only remains to consider what may be said