[83] Some cases are on record of dogs having been taught to articulate. Thus the thoughtful Leibnitz vouches for the fact (which he communicated to the Académie Royale at Paris, and which that body said they would have doubted had it not been observed by so eminent a man), that he had heard a peasant’s dog distinctly articulate thirty words, which it had been taught to say by the peasant’s son. The Dumfries Journal, January, 1829, mentions a dog as then living in that town, who uttered distinctly the word “William,” which was the name of a person to whom he was attached. Again, Colonel Mallery writes:—“Some recent experiments of Prof. A. Graham Bell, no less eminent from his work in artificial speech than in telephones, shows that animals are more physically capable of pronouncing articulate sounds than has been supposed. He informed the writer that he recently succeeded by manipulation in causing an English terrier to form a number of the sounds of our letters, and particularly brought out from it the words ‘How are you, grandmama,’ with distinctness.” As I believe that the barrier to articulation in dogs is anatomical and not psychological, I regard it as merely a question of observation whether this barrier may not in some cases be partly overcome; but, as far as the evidence goes, I think it is safer to conclude that the instances mentioned consisted in the animals so modulating the tones of their voices as to resemble the sounds of certain words.
[84] Mr. Darwin writes:—“It is certain that some parrots, which have been taught to speak, connect unerringly words with things, and persons with events. I have received several detailed accounts to this effect. Admiral Sir J. Sullivan, whom I know to be a careful observer, assures me that an African parrot, long kept in his father’s house, invariably called certain persons of the household, as well as visitors, by their names. He said ‘Good morning’ to every one at breakfast, and ‘Good night’ to each as they left the room at night, and never reversed these salutations. To Sir J. Sullivan’s father he used to add to the ‘good morning’ a short sentence, which was never repeated after his father’s death. He scolded violently a strange dog which came into the room through an open window, and he scolded another parrot (saying, ‘You naughty polly!’), which had got out of its cage, and was eating apples on the kitchen table. Dr. A. Moschkan informs me that he knew a starling which never made a mistake in saying in German ‘good morning’ to persons arriving, and ‘good-bye, old fellow’ to those departing. I could add several other cases” (Descent of Man, p. 85). Similarly Houzeau gives some instances of nearly the same kind (Fac. Ment. des Anim., tom, ii., p. 309, et seq.); and Mrs. Lee, in her Anecdotes records several still more remarkable cases (which are quoted by Houzeau), as does also M. Meunier in his recently published work on Les Animaux Perfectibles. In my own correspondence I have received numerous letters detailing similar facts, and from these I gather that parrots often use comical phrases when they desire to excite laughter, pitiable phrases when they desire to excite compassion, and so on; although it does not follow from this that the birds understand the meanings of these phrases, further than that they are as a whole appropriate to excite the feelings which it is desired to excite. I have myself kept selected parrots, and can fully corroborate all the above statements from my own observations.
[85] Journal of Mental Science, July, 1879.
[86] This term has been previously used by some philologists to signify ejaculation by man. It will be observed that I use it in a more extended sense.
[87] Man’s Place in Nature, p. 52. I may here appropriately allude to a paper which elicited a good deal of discussion some years ago. It was read before the Victoria Institute in March, 1872, by Dr. Frederick Bateman, under the title “Darwinism tested by Recent Researches in Language;” and its object was to argue that the faculty of articulate speech constitutes a difference of kind between the psychology of man and that of the lower animals. This argument Dr. Bateman sought to establish, first on the usual grounds that no animals are capable of using words with any degree of understanding, and, second, on grounds of a purely anatomical kind. In the text I fully deal with the first allegation: as a matter of fact, many of the lower animals understand the meanings of many words, while those of them which are alone capable of imitating our articulate sounds not unfrequently display a correct appreciation of their use as signs. But what I have here especially to consider is the anatomical branch of Dr. Bateman’s argument. He says:—“As the remarkable similarity between the brain of man and that of the ape cannot be disputed, if the seat of human speech could be positively traced to any particular part of the brain, the Darwinian could say that, although the ape could not speak, he possessed the germ of that faculty, and that in subsequent generations, by the process of evolution, the ‘speech centre’ would become more developed, and the ape would then speak.... If the scalpel of the anatomist has failed to discover a material locus habitandi for man’s proud prerogative—the faculty of Articulate Language; if science has failed to trace speech to a ‘material centre,’ has failed thus to connect matter with mind, I submit that speech is the barrier between men and animals, establishing between them a difference not only of degree but of kind; the Darwinian analogy between the brain of man and that of his reputed ancestor, the ape, loses all its force, whilst the common belief in the Mosaic account of the origin of man is strengthened.” Now, I will not wait to present the evidence which has fully satisfied all living physiologists that “the faculty of Articulate Language” has “a material locus habitandi;” for the point on which I desire to insist is that it cannot make one iota of difference to “the Darwinian analogy” whether this faculty is restricted to a particular “speech-centre,” or has its anatomical “seat” distributed over any wider area of the cerebral cortex. Such a “seat” there must be in either case, if it be allowed (as Dr. Bateman allows) that the cerebral cortex “is undoubtedly the instrument by which this attribute becomes externally manifested.” The question whether “the material organ of speech” is large or small cannot possibly affect the question on which we are engaged. Since Dr. Bateman wrote, a new era has arisen in the localization of cerebral functions; so that, if there were any soundness in his argument, one would now be in a position immensely to strengthen “the Darwinian analogy;” seeing that physiologists now habitually utilize the brains of monkeys for the purpose of analogically localizing the “motor centres” in the brain of man. In other words, “the Darwinian analogy” has been found to extend in physiological, as well as in anatomical detail, throughout the entire area of the cortex. But, as I have shown, there is no soundness in his argument; and therefore I do not avail myself of these recent and most wonderfully suggestive results of physiological research.
[88] I may, however, add the following corroborative observations, as they have not been previously published. I owe them to the kindness of my friend Mr. A. E. Street, who kept a diary of his children’s psychogenesis. When about two years of age one of these children possessed the following vocabulary:—
Af-ta (in imitation of the sound which the nurse used to make when pretending to drink) = drinking or a drink, drinking-vessel, and hence a glass of any kind.
Vy = a fly.
Vy-’ta = window, i.e. the ‘ta or af-ta (glass) on which a fly walks.
Blow = candle.