SPEECH AS A BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. powers of investigation; its ability to stifle the voice of instinct, not only for high good, but for base evil; its strange, contradictory power of either looking forward to a higher destiny in a Hereafter, or of looking backword to the unclean Ape, as a near relative, without the faintest idea of ever associating with it, or trying to form it into a new political party. Whereas the Anthropoid Apes are supposed to have differentiated from common Apes, and finally into Men, mostly by withdrawing themselves from association with the coarser Apes, this human Reason is capable, in the case of Ernst Haeckel, of looking upon the Anthropoid Ape as a more suitable ancestor than a "God-like Adam," and nevertheless develops into a giant intellect of the nineteenth century. Man can think as he sees fit about his relations with Apes and "other cattle," and yet remain Man; but if the Anthropoid Apes had not gone off by themselves and commenced to chatter and talk and get their heads together, so the coarser Apes could not understand them, they would never have differentiated; and even Evolution itself could never have changed them into even Bushmen, much less into the sagacious Lake-Dwellers of Switzerland, or the liberty-loving Mound-Builders of these States. If we ask, Are irrational animals endowed with the faculty of speech? we are met by three sections of advanced scientists at the very threshold of the discussion. The skeptic is in doubt as to whether there is any such distinction as the distinction between rational and irrational animals. The agnostic does not knowand claims no one else can know-whether there is any such distinction or not. The monistic philosopher, Ernst Heinrich Haeckel, endeavors to prove in "Evolution of Man" that Reason, as a frontier post between Man and Beast, is altogether untenable. Either we must take Reason in its narrow sense, argues Haeckel-and in that case it is lacking in most Men as well as in the lower animals; or we must take it in its broader and lower sense, in which case it is present in such animals as the Horse, Elephant, Dog and Ape, as well as in the human species. Under such circumstances it is evident that we cannot satisfactorily discuss the question by beginning at either Reason or Speech as a barrier between Man and Beast. If the atheistic evolution or development theory has been established, there is no distinction or barrier between Man and Beast, except a mere matter of higher development in the former than in the latter. Beasts have both Speech and Reason as well as Man has, and there is no barrier here. Going still further down the scale With these limitations as to the development of of organisms, we reach forms of life which have noth- human from brutal intelligence, we have no objections ing but skulless brain-bladders. The Mind in these to urge against a notable article in the Atlantic Monthly organisms cannot develop with its organ, the brain, for September, 1891, by Mr. E. P. Evans, on "Speech as for the brain has not yet differentiated in them. At a Barrier between Man and Beast." In reply to Max this point in the scale, at all events, development of Müller's dictum that "no animal has ever spoken," Mind has not yet begun. Mr. E. P. Evans asserts that parrots and ravens utter articulate sounds as distinctly as the average cockney, and in most cases make quite as intelligent and edifying use of them for the expression of ideas. Again: "In the course of ages, and as the result of long processes of evolution and transformation, monkeys have learned to speak, but when they have acquired this faculty we call them men." We hold that atheistic evolution cannot stand, unless it stands as an entirety. The question is not, Does Reason develop in connection with its organ, the brain? as Haeckel discusses it; but does Reason develop gradually all along the line-from the undifferentiated Amoeba, up through skulless brain-bladders, and, finally, in connection with its organ, the brain, in the higher Beasts and in Man? Was it Reason, or merely intelligence, which was developing, all along the line, until Man came upon the scene? If it is Reason, as between Man and the higher Beasts, why not Reason, as between the primitive slime and Protomonas? If we begin to call it Reason, as distinct from intelligence, anywhere in the line of development, why not begin at Man? Does not Man-even the Australian Bushman-show an intelligence which even in its degradation is quite distinct from the intelligence of the Ape? Haeckel quotes with approval the lines of Goethe's "Mephistopheles": "He calls it Reason, but thou see'st Its use but makes him beastlier than the beast." Instinct keeps the beast within the bounds of nature, but reason conferred upon the Bushman, and upon others besides the Bushman, is a dangerous possession. It controls nature. Here is the dividing line. This is human Reason, with its almost limitless If we call them Men, instead of Monkeys, when they have gained the power of speech, the question is, Do we, as it were, call them by their right name? Is it proper, scientific, to make the distinction? If it is not, then Man is not only descended from the unclean Ape, but he is a shameless pretender, usurper and tyrant. He snatches from the monkey the priceless heritage of speech, and hies him to cities and towns, leaving in the woods of barbarous countries the sagacious little animals which he has robbed-and which now, perforce, chatter and pine away, while Man takes com fort and enjoys even free speech. On the other hand, if it is true that Man alone can justly lay claim to the power of speech, then, of course, speech is a barrier between man and beast. Is it an insurmountable barrier? According to Mr. E. P. Evans, when the Monkey speaks we call it Man. In this sense the barrier of speech is an insurmountable barrier; where speech begins the beast ends. But does human speech develop from brutal speech? xii INTRODUCTION. as "ul Max Müller stops at roots or "phonetic cells timate facts in the analysis of language," and virtually says to the philologist, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no further, and here shall thy researches be stayed." "The scholar," he declares, "begins and ends with these phonetic types; or, if he ignores them, and traces words back to the cries of animals or to the interjections of men, he does so at his peril. The philosopher goes beyond, and he discovers in the line which separates rational from emotional language, conceptual from intuitional knowledge-in the roots of language he discovers the true barrier between Man and Beast." Replying to this argument, Mr. Evans declares that the philologist, who recognizes in the roots of language the Ultima Thule beyond which he dare not push his investigations, confesses thereby his incompetency to solve the problem of the origin of language, and must resign this field of inquiry to the zoöpsychologist, who, freeing himself from the trammels and illusions of metaphysics, seeks to find a firm basis for his science in the strict and systematic study of facts. Imagine the folly of the physiologist who should say to his fellow-scientists: "In your researches you must begin and end with cells. If, in studying organic structures, you go back of cells and endeavor to discover the laws underlying their origin, you do so at your peril. Beware of the dangerous seductions of cytoblast and cytogenesis and treacherous quagmires of protoplasm.' In this, Mr. E. P. Evans presumes that the "origin of cells" has been clearly traced. If there is good advice to be found anywhere on the subject of the shadowy development and spontaneous generation which precedes the cell in atheistic evolution, that advice would be, Do not say you understand how primitive slime in the bottom of the primordial sea ever became a thing of life and a cell-unless you do understand it. Unless you see that such might have been the fact, do not say that you so see. If the tracing of the roots of human language from the roots of brutal language is to depend on anything like the arguments adduced by Haeckel in his attempt to make cells out of primitive slime, then indeed do the roots of monkey language need careful mulching for a few more winters. But Mr. Evans admits it is only natural that the philologist should think thus, being so absorbed in the laws which govern the transmutation of words that he comes to regard these metamorphoses as finalities, and never goes behind and beyond them. We must look, therefore, not to comparative philology, but to comparative psychology, for the discovery of the origin of language. Philology has to do with the growth and development of speech out of roots, which are assumed to be ultimate and unanalyzable elements, like the purely hypothetical particles which the physicist calls atoms; but as to the nature and genesis of roots themselves the philologist of to-day is as puzzled and perplexed as was the old Vedic poet, when, in the presence of the universe and its mysterious generation, he could only utter the pathetic and helpless cry, "Who, indeed, knows, who can declare, whence it sprang, whence this evolution?" "Show me only one root in the language of animals," says Max Müller, "such as ak, to be sharp and quick, and from it two derivatives, as asva, the quick one-the horse-and acutus, sharp or quick-witted; nay, show me one animal that has the power of forming roots, that can put one and two together, and realize the simplest dual concept; show me one animal that can think and say 'two,' and I should say that, so far as language is concerned, we cannot oppose Mr. Darwin's argument, and that Man has, or at least may have been, developed from some lower animal." Mr. Evans replies that according to the theory of evolution the language of animals has not yet reached the root stage and never can reach it; for it would then become articulate speech, and be no longer the language of animals, but the language of Man. But this is surely no evidence or indication that one may not grow out of the other; on the contrary, it rather suggests the possibility of such growth and development. We cannot be certain, however, that animals may not have general concepts. When a dog, in eager pursuit of some object, yelps, ak-ak, how do we know that this sharp utterance, which expresses the strong and impatient desire of the dog to overtake the object, may not stand in the canine mind for the general concept of quickness? It is used in pursuing all animals and inanimate things-bird, hare, squirrel, stick or stoneand cannot therefore denote any single one of them, but must have a general signification. For aught we know, the language of animals may be made up of undeveloped roots vaguely expressive of general concepts, or may even contain derivative sounds. Mr. Darwin asserted that, since becoming domesticated, the dog has learned to bark in as many as five or six distinct tones: eagerness, as in the chase; anger, as well as growling; the yelp or howl of despair, when shut up; the baying at night; the bark of joy, when starting on a walk with his master; and the very distinct one of demand or supplication, as when wishing for a door or window to be opened. Says Mr. E. P. Evans: "This variety of tones, expressing different desires and emotions in an animal that, in its wild state, could not bark at all, marks a very considerable advance in the power of vocal utterance as the result of association with man." In closing this very curious and highly entertaining article, Mr. Evans thinks it would be superfluous to multiply instances of the capability of understanding articulate speech manifested by monkeys, horses, dogs, cats, elephants, birds, and other animals that acquire this power, as children do, through the ear and by the exercise of attention. They also show a nice discrimination in distinguishing between words similar in sound. A parrot or a raven masters a new sentence by repeating it, and working at it, just as a schoolboy solves a hard problem. These birds associate sounds with objects, and thus invent names for them. Every dog is a "bow-wow," and every cat a "miaumiau." The denotive term has an onomato-poetic origin, and by the process of generalization is applied to all animals of the species; it is not necessary that the parrot should have heard each individual dog bark or cat mew before giving it its appropriate name. A raven belonging to Gotthard Heidegger, a clergyman and rector of the gymnasium in Zürich, was constantly picking up words dropped in general conversation, and using them afterward in the most surprising manner. Even animals whose laryngeal apparatus is not structurally adapted to the production of articulate sounds may be taught to utter them. Leibnitz mentions a dog which had learned to pronounce thirty words distinctly. In the Dumfries Journal of January, 1829, an account is given of a dog which called out "William" so as to be clearly understood; and Mr. Romanes cites the case of an English terrier which had been taught to say, "How are you, grandmam?" The careful and systematic experiments now being made in this direction by Professor A. Graham Bell SPEECH AS A BARRIER BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. and other scientists are exceedingly interesting, and may lead to important results. xiii 'Man's Place in Nature' from the 'only' Huxley. He will then entertain a fellow-feeling for the Ape as an unfortunate, poor relation who was left behind in natural selection or the struggle for existence,' etc., even more so than for a next-door neighbor who lacks force of character and general organic strength, because of certain habits and traits in his parents. Your child should be trained to point with pride to an ambitious, go-ahead Ape-Man from which came children who could build a fire and others which hung head downward from a tree by their tails-and are doing it yet to amuse some attractive female Ape. In view of these facts, it is evident that the barrier between human and animal intelligence, once deemed impassable, is becoming more and more imperceptible, and with the rapid progress of zoöpsychological research will soon disappear altogether. "When we remember, says Professor Sayce, "the inarticulate clicks which still form part of the Bushman's language, it would seem as if no line of division could be drawn between Man and Beast, even when language is made the test." Apes make use of similar clicks for a like purpose, and these sounds are doubtless sur- "It is far nobler to have such an ancestor, who had vivals of speech before it became distinctively articulate. two kinds of children, some with erect mien, who broke Whatever may be the value of the facts presented the old Man-Ape's heart by their insubordination, arby Mr. Evans, it cannot be disputed that the whole rogance and strange, outlandish, articulate chattering theory of atheistic evolution has one apparently insur--this is the crowd you and your child are descended mountable barrier to overcome before it can be gen-from-and others, whe were only collateral relatives erally accepted by the great majority of men. This barrier Haeckel calls "human arrogance. Man's instinctive dislike to be told that he is the same-only a little different, owing to adaptation-as the Ape that grins at him in the menagerie and pays no taxes; and that Man's mind, "the human reason" which evolutionists are wont to ridicule, does not separate him from the American Ape with the flat nose that claims relationship with the Mound-Builders, nor from the foreign Ape with the up-and-down nose, that used to throw cocoanuts, worth ten cents each, at English sailors, to keep the sailors from climbing the trees to get them: this instinctive dislike is called "human arrogance." Haeckel avers that this prejudice is very unbecoming in people who sometimes lay claim to a proper and highly becoming humility of spirit. We propose to show, among other things, that in this Haeckel, and all who believe as he does, are turning traitor to their own species. If the struggle for existence and progress among organisms are at work among all living beings, let us think we are not related to the Ape and such cattle, even if we are. Was it not such arrogance as this, according to evolution, that caused a few choice Apes to go off by themselves as a select set and develop into Men-Apes, then into ApeMen, and, finally, to drop the Ape from their family name altogether? Did not this arrogance in the course of time cause them to go in out of the rain and cold and heat, so that they eventually shed their hair, for the most part? What caused them to get their heads together and talk, instead of chattering, so that the "cawser" Apes could not know what they were saying -if it was not arrogance? Could anything but arrogance impel them to make flint arrowheads with which to kill the cave-bear for a grand reception dinner of the select set, instead of climbing a tree to get away from Bruin? Mere "humility of spirit" and knowing "Man's Place in Nature" as well as a disciple of Huxley says he does, would have caused the bottom to drop out of the whole enterprise; and the other Apes would have the laugh on the select few, who had great expectations and absurd pretensions without the ability to realize on them. Huxley's Law gives, in substance, the following account of the "Place in Nature" occupied, for example, by your baby boy, one year old, in whom neither reason nor speech has yet awakened: "Your child is less above the Ape of the future, and perhaps of the present, than a human of the future, or perhaps of the present, is above him. This child may be nearer to the Ape in every essential characteristic than he is to a highly-developed human. When your child is old enough to study, let him first learn to your child and you, and who stayed with their progenitor, comforted his declining years by making him eat at the second table, if he could find anything, and finally let him die and rot on top of the ground to save funeral expenses. It is far nobler, we monists say, to have such a versatile, though badly used ancestor, than to be descended from a God-like Adam, whom the black International,' and the rest of the churches tell you about, for the sole purpose of getting your money, tickling your vanity and keeping you in ecclesiastical leading strings. Bear in mind, now, we do not say that Man is descended from the Ape. In fact, we hold that these low-down, flat-nosed, long-tailed American Apes are not in any way connected with Man's descent, and only very slightly, as a mere offshoot, with man's pedigree. What we say and can easily prove, if you will just bear in mind the natural descent of Man from the lower animal, is this: That Men and Apes are both descended from the same parent; that this same parent form is probably extinct; that if it is not, we will probably find him somewhere in Africa or Asia. It or he is either black, yellow or brown; either Mongolian, Malay or Ethiopian. The real Apes that you and your little boy are descended from never came to America until they became Men." Exciting prejudice against the development theory is entirely uncalled for, as intense prejudice against it already exists. We distinctly disclaim any attempt to do so in asking the reader to take monism home to himself, especially the "Ape Question." The argument that the foregoing enforces and illustrates is this: Adaptation is one of the mechanical causes of atheistic evolution. In this a prominent factor is a sense of superiority, pride, arrogance, on the part of individuals of a species who are about to change their habits of life, to submit to the mechanical cause or law of adaptation-to develop, as man is said to have done, from the Ape-Man parent form. This is a fixed and unalterable law; it is necessary, this causal connection between a sense of superiority, pride and arrogance, and the change in the habits of life. If that sense of superiority was necessary as between Ape-Men and other Ape-Men-the sense of superiority on the part of Man toward Apes-the customary arrogance is much more necessary, and Man cannot think that he is allied to Apes. The atheistic evolutionists are men. Therefore they cannot think that their views on the Ape Question are anything but arrant nonsense. Their readers are Men, therefore they cannot think what these monistic books try to prove. As between Men, those individuals compelled, by atheistic evolution, to rise not at all or very slo vly above their present condition, cannot think themselves equal to those above 66 them; and those who are compelled to rise cannot but | to a country where Apes and Ape-Men did not intrude look down upon their weaker brethren. This last is a distinction within the species; the other is a distinction between one species and another. Finally, what the human mind cannot think-but must think the contrary-is not true. Therefore, by the atheistic evolutionist's own laws, and according to his necessary connection between cause and effect, Man is not descended from, nor allied to, the Ape nor an Ape-Man form. In this we are grasping a really vital point, if connection between cause and effect everywhere is necessary, inevitable. When Man differentiated from ApeMen, as the latter had previously differentiated from Apes, it was necessary that the "progressive element," the "only" Men in the one case, and the "only" ApeMen in the other, should consider themselves, after a few generations, as entirely distinct from Apes in the one case and Ape-Men in the other. Now, instead of a few generations, give us an epoch, or even an age, or a few thousand years; then give us a general migration ❘ to remind the emigrants of their discreditable pedigree; add Heredity and Adaptation and the Struggle for Existence; contemplate the weeding out of the ne'er-do-weels; bring Natural Selection upon the scene, whereby male and female of the weaker class, and of others more worthy, are snubbed and jilted and swindled out of their property and given over to dishonest guardians, executors, administrators and assigns, and allowed to die bachelors and old maids; let this continue among the emigrants for a few thousand years, and we will show you a race under the control of the fixed and unalterable laws of Heredity and Adaptation to such an extent that they cannot think themselves allied to Apes or Ape-Men. And what the human mind cannot think-but must think the contrary-is false. At all events, why waste time and talents trying to make the human species think that, the contrary of which the "only evolution theory compels us to think? TABLE OF DIVISIONS OF THE THE English language-the offspring of the_Anglo-Saxon-is one of the Low German dialects which form part of the Teutonic branch of the Indo-European or Aryan languages. The Aryan languages may be divided into six principal branches: The Teutonic branch is divided into three classes, the Low German, High German and Scandina vian : GRIMM'S LAW OF THE INTERCHANGE OF CONSONANT SOUNDS. closed but that a thin stream of breath continues to escape with the sound of a whisper. Hence the name aspirate given to such articulations. Now, interchanges do take place between members of these vertical series-that is, one sharp takes the place of another, as in Welsh, pen; Gaelic, kin; or in Russian, Feodor for Theodore. Such instances, however, are comparatively rare and sporadic. It is between members of the horizontal orders that interchanges chiefly take place-that is, labials with labials, dentals with dentals, etc.; and it is with these interchanges that Grimm's Law deals. THE evidence that the group of languages known as the Aryan languages form a family-that is, are all sister-dialects of one common mother-tongue-consists in their grammatical forms being the same, and in their having a great many words in common. In judging whether an individual word in one of these tongues is really the same with a word in another of the tongues, we are no longer guided by mere similarity of sound; on the contrary, identity of sound is generally a presumption that a proposed etymology is wrong. Words are constantly undergoing change, and each language follows its own fashion in making those changes. Corresponding words, therefore, in the several languages must, as a rule, in the long course of ages have come to differ greatly; and these differences follow certain laws which it is possible to ascertain. Unless, then, a proposed identification accord with those laws, it is inadmissible. We are not at liberty to suppose any arbitrary omission of a letter, or substitution of one let-The table may be thus read: A classical sharp labial, ter for another, as was the fashion in the old guessing school of etymology. Of the laws of interchange of sounds in the IndoEuropean family, the most important is that known as Grimm's Law, so called after the famous German philologist who investigated it. It exhibits the relations found to exist between the consonant sounds in three groups of the Aryan languages-namely, (1) the Classical, including Sanskrit, Greek and Latin; (2) Low German, which we may take Gothic and English as representing; (3) High German, especially Old High German, in which the Law is more consistently carried out than in modern High German. The scope of the Law is confined to the interchanges among the following consonant sounds, which are here arranged so as to show their relations to one another: Labial... Sharp. Flat. t .k (c) g Aspirate. th (2) ch (h) The horizontal division into three orders depends on the organ chiefly used in the utterance. The differences between the vertical series are more easily felt than described. Pronounce first ip and then ib; in the first the lips are completely closed, and the sound or voice from the larynx abruptly cut off. In the second the lips are also completely shut, but a muffled voice is continued for a moment; it is produced by the vocal chords being still kept in a state of tension, and the breath continuing to issue through them into the cavity of the mouth for a brief space after the lips are closed. Next pronounce if; in this, although the voice-sound abruptly ceases, the lip-aperture is not so completely The substance of the Law may be presented in a tabular form, as follows: (1) Classical.........Sharp. Flat. Aspirate. Aspirate. as p, is represented in Low German by the aspirate labial f, and in High German by the flat labial b`; and so of the other orders. |