[23.] “In a word, would it be absolutely impossible to teach the ape a language? I do not think so.” Compare with this Haeckel’s statement of the relation between man’s speech and that of apes. “It is of especial interest that the speech of apes seems on physiological comparison to be a stage in the formation of articulate human speech. Among living apes there is an Indian species which is musical; the hylobates syndactylus sings a full octave in perfectly pure harmonious half-tones. No impartial philologist can hesitate any longer to admit that our elaborate rational language has been slowly and gradually developed out of the imperfect speech of our Pliocene simian ancestors.”[28]
[24.] Johann Conrad Amman was born at Schaffhausen, in Switzerland, in 1669. After his graduation at Basle, he practised medicine at Amsterdam. He devoted most of his attention to the instruction of deaf mutes. He taught them by attracting their attention to the motion of his lips, tongue, and larynx, while he was speaking, and by persuading them to imitate these motions. In this way, they finally learned to articulate syllables and words, and to talk. In his works “Surdus Loquens,” and “Dissertatio de Loquela,” he explained the mechanism of speech, and made public his method of instruction. From all accounts it seems that his success with the deaf mutes was remarkable. He died about 1730.[29]
[25.] “... the great analogy between ape and man....” Compare Haeckel: “Thus comparative anatomy proves to the satisfaction of every unprejudiced and critical student the significant fact that the body of man and that of the anthropoid ape are not only peculiarly similar, but they are practically one and the same in every important respect.”[30]
[26.] Sir William Temple was born in London in 1628. He attended the Puritan College of Emmanuel, Cambridge, but left without taking his degree. After an extensive tour on the continent, he settled in Ireland in 1655. His political career began with the accession of Charles II in 1660. He is particularly noted for concluding “The Triple Alliance” between England, the United Netherlands, and Sweden, and for his part in bringing about the marriage of William and Mary, which completed the alliance of England and the Netherlands. Temple was not as successful in political work at home as abroad, for he was too honest to care to be concerned in the intrigues in English affairs, at that time. He retired from politics and died at Moor Park in 1699.
Temple wrote several works on political subjects. His “Memoirs” were begun in 1682; the first part was destroyed before it was published, the second part was published without his consent, and the third part was published by Swift after Temple’s death. His fame rests more on his diplomatic work than on his writings.[31]
[27.] “Trembley (Abraham) a Swiss naturalist, born in Geneva, the third of September, 1700, died in Geneva, the twelfth of May, 1784. He was educated in his native city, and in the Hague, where he became tutor of the son of an English resident, and later the tutor of the young duke of Richmond, with whom he traveled in Germany and Italy. In 1760, he obtained the position of librarian at Geneva, and gained a seat in the council of the ‘Two Hundred.’ His admirable works on the fresh-water snake procured for him his election as member of the Royal Society of London, and as correspondent of the Academy of Sciences in Paris. From 1775 to 1782 he published several works on natural religion, and articles on natural history in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ 1742–57. His most important work is ‘Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire d’un genre de polype d’eau douce’ (Leyden, 1744; Paris, 2 volumes).”[32]
[28.] “What was man before the invention of words and the knowledge of language? An animal.” Compare this with the statement of Hobbes: “The most noble and profitable invention of all others was that of Speech, consisting of names or appellations, and their connexion, ... without which there had been amongst men neither commonwealth, nor society, nor contract, nor peace, no more than amongst lions, bears, and wolves.”[33]
[29.] Fontenelle. See [note 22].
[30.] “All the faculties of the soul can be correctly reduced to pure imagination.” Compare with this La Mettrie’s statement in “L’histoire naturelle de l’âme”: “The more one studies all the intellectual faculties, the more convinced one remains, that they are all included in the faculty of sensation, upon which they all depend so essentially that without it the soul could never perform any of its functions.”[34] This resembles Condillac’s doctrine of sensation: “Judgment, reflexion, desires, passions, etc., are nothing but sensation itself which is transformed in diverse ways.”[35] Helvetius also says: “All the operations of the mind are reducible to sensation.”[36]
[31.] “See to what one is brought by the abuse of language, and by the use of those fine words (spirituality, immateriality, etc.).” Compare Hobbes, “Though men may put together words of contradictory signification, as spirit and incorporeal; yet they can never have the imagination of anything answering to them.”[37]