Lectures on The Science of Language 41

Lectures on The Science of Language 41

I say _mental faculties_, and I mean to claim a large share of what we

call our mental faculties for the higher animals. These animals have

_sensation_, _perception_, _memory_, _will_, and _intellect_, only we must

restrict intellect to the comparing or interlacing of single perceptions.

All these points can be proved by irrefragable evidence, and that evidence

has never, I believe, been summed up with greater lucidity and power than

in one of the last publications of M. P. Flourens, “De la Raison, du

Génie, et de la Folie:” Paris, 1861. There are no doubt many people who

are as much frightened at the idea that brutes have souls and are able to

think, as by “the blue ape without a tail.” But their fright is entirely

of their own making. If people will use such words as soul or thought

without making it clear to themselves and others what they mean by them,

these words will slip away under their feet, and the result must be

painful. If we once ask the question, Have brutes a soul? we shall never

arrive at any conclusion; for _soul_ has been so many times defined by

philosophers from Aristotle down to Hegel, that it means everything and

nothing. Such has been the confusion caused by the promiscuous employment

of the ill-defined terms of mental philosophy that we find Descartes

representing brutes as living machines, whereas Leibniz claims for them

not only souls, but immortal souls. “Next to the error of those who deny

the existence of God,” says Descartes, “there is none so apt to lead weak

minds from the right path of virtue, as to think that the soul of brutes

is of the same nature as our own; and, consequently, that we have nothing

to fear or to hope after this life, any more than flies or ants; whereas,

if we know how much they differ, we understand much better that _our_ soul

is quite independent of the body, and consequently not subject to die with

the body.”

 

The spirit of these remarks is excellent, but the argument is extremely

weak. It does not follow that brutes have no souls because they have no

human souls. It does not follow that the souls of men are not immortal,

because the souls of brutes are not immortal; nor has the _major premiss_

ever been proved by any philosopher, namely, that the souls of brutes must

necessarily be destroyed and annihilated by death. Leibniz, who has

defended the immortality of the human soul with stronger arguments than

even Descartes, writes:—“I found at last how the souls of brutes and their

sensations do not at all interfere with the immortality of human souls; on

the contrary, nothing serves better to establish our natural immortality

than to believe that all souls are imperishable.”

 

Instead of entering into these perplexities, which are chiefly due to the

loose employment of ill-defined terms, let us simply look at the facts.

Every unprejudiced observer will admit that—

 

1. Brutes see, hear, taste, smell, and feel; that is to say, they have

five senses, just like ourselves, neither more nor less. They have both

sensation and perception, a point which has been illustrated by M.

Flourens by the most interesting experiments. If the roots of the optic

nerve are removed, the retina in the eye of a bird ceases to be excitable,

the iris is no longer movable; the animal is blind, because it has lost

the organ of _sensation_. If, on the contrary, the cerebral lobes are

removed, the eye remains pure and sound, the retina excitable, the iris

movable. The eye is preserved, yet the animal cannot see, because it has

lost the organs of _perception_.

 

2. Brutes have sensations of pleasure and pain. A dog that is beaten

behaves exactly like a child that is chastised, and a dog that is fed and

fondled exhibits the same signs of satisfaction as a boy under the same

circumstances. We can only judge from signs, and if they are to be trusted

in the case of children, they must be trusted likewise in the case of

brutes.

 

3. Brutes do not forget, or as philosophers would say, brutes have memory.

They know their masters, they know their home; they evince joy on

recognizing those who have been kind to them, and they bear malice for

years to those by whom they have been insulted or ill-treated. Who does

not recollect the dog Argos in the Odyssey, who, after so many years’

absence, was the first to recognize Ulysses?(321)

 

4. Brutes are able to compare and to distinguish. A parrot will take up a

nut, and throw it down again, without attempting to crack it. He has found

that it is light; this he could discover only by comparing the weight of

the good nuts with that of the bad: and he has found that it has no

kernel; this he could discover only by what philosophers would dignify

with the grand title of syllogism, namely, “all light nuts are hollow;

this is a light nut, therefore this nut is hollow.”

 

5. Brutes have a will of their own. I appeal to any one who has ever

ridden a restive horse.

 

6. Brutes show signs of shame and pride. Here again any one who has to

deal with dogs, who has watched a retriever with sparkling eyes placing a

partridge at his master’s feet, or a hound slinking away with his tail

between his legs from the huntsman’s call, will agree that these signs

admit of but one interpretation. The difficulty begins when we use

philosophical language, when we claim for brutes a moral sense, a

conscience, a power of distinguishing good and evil; and, as we gain

nothing by these scholastic terms, it is better to avoid them altogether.

 

7. Brutes show signs of love and hatred. There are well-authenticated

stories of dogs following their masters to the grave, and refusing food

from any one. Nor is there any doubt that brutes will watch their

opportunity till they revenge themselves on those whom they dislike.

 

If, with all these facts before us, we deny that brutes have sensation,

perception, memory, will, and intellect, we ought to bring forward

powerful arguments for interpreting the signs which we observe in brutes

so differently from those which we observe in men.

 

Some philosophers imagine they have explained everything, if they ascribe

to brutes _instinct_ instead of _intellect_. But, if we take these two

words in their usual acceptations, they surely do not exclude each

other.(322) There are instincts in man as well as in brutes. A child takes

his mother’s breast by instinct; the spider weaves its net by instinct;

the bee builds her cell by instinct. No one would ascribe to the child a

knowledge of physiology because it employs the exact muscles which are

required for sucking; nor shall we claim for the spider a knowledge of

mechanics, or for the bee an acquaintance with geometry, because _we_

could not do what they do without a study of these sciences. But what if

we tear a spider’s web, and see the spider examining the mischief that is

done, and either giving up his work in despair, or endeavoring to mend it

as well as may be?(323) Surely here we have the instinct of weaving

controlled by observation, by comparison, by reflection, by judgment.

Instinct, whether mechanical or moral, is more prominent in brutes than in

man; but it exists in both, as much as intellect is shared by both.

 

Where, then, is the difference between brute and man?(324) What is it that

man can do, and of which we find no signs, no rudiments, in the whole

brute world? I answer without hesitation: the one great barrier between

the brute and man is _Language_. Man speaks, and no brute has ever uttered

a word. Language is our Rubicon, and no brute will dare to cross it. This

is our matter of fact answer to those who speak of development, who think

they discover the rudiments at least of all human faculties in apes, and

who would fain keep open the possibility that man is only a more favored

beast, the triumphant conqueror in the primeval struggle for life.

Language is something more palpable than a fold of the brain, or an angle

of the skull. It admits of no cavilling, and no process of natural

selection will ever distill significant words out of the notes of birds or

the cries of beasts.

 

Language, however, is only the outward sign. We may point to it in our

arguments, we may challenge our opponent to produce anything approaching

to it from the whole brute world. But if this were all, if the art of

employing articulate sounds for the purpose of communicating our

impressions were the only thing by which we could assert our superiority

over the brute creation, we might not unreasonably feel somewhat uneasy at

having the gorilla so close on our heels.

 

It cannot be denied that brutes, though they do not use articulate sounds

for that purpose, have nevertheless means of their own for communicating

with each other. When a whale is struck, the whole shoal, though widely

dispersed, are instantly made aware of the presence of an enemy; and when

the grave-digger beetle finds the carcass of a mole, he hastens to

communicate the discovery to his fellows, and soon returns with his _four_

confederates.(325) It is evident, too, that dogs, though they do not

speak, possess the power of understanding much that is said to them, their

names and the calls of their master; and other animals, such as the

parrot, can pronounce every articulate sound. Hence, although for the

purpose of philosophical warfare, articulate language would still form an

impregnable position, yet it is but natural that for our own satisfaction

we should try to find out in what the strength of our position really

consists; or, in other words, that we should try to discover that inward

power of which language is the outward sign and manifestation.

 

For this purpose it will be best to examine the opinions of those who

approached our problem from another point; who, instead of looking for

outward and palpable signs of difference between brute and man, inquired

into the inward mental faculties, and tried to determine the point where

man transcends the barriers of the brute intellect. That point, if truly

determined, ought to coincide with the starting-point of language: and, if

so, that coincidence ought to explain the problem which occupies us at

present.

 

I shall read an extract from Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding.

 

After having explained how universal ideas are made, how the mind, having

observed the same color in chalk, and snow, and milk, comprehends these

single perceptions under the general conception of whiteness, Locke

continues:(326) “If it may be doubted, whether beasts compound and enlarge

their ideas that way to any degree: this, I think, I may be positive in,

that the power of abstracting is not at all in them; and that the having

of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and

brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means

attain to.”

 

If Locke is right in considering the having general ideas as the

distinguishing feature between man and brutes, and, if we ourselves are

right in pointing to language as the one palpable distinction between the

two, it would seem to follow that language is the outward sign and

realization of that inward faculty which is called the faculty of

abstraction, but which is better known to us by the homely name of Reason.

 

Let us now look back to the result of our former Lectures. It was this.

After we had explained everything in the growth of language that can be

explained, there remained in the end, as the only inexplicab