al is blessed with other mental
powers, there is found a perfect harmony--of tact, intuition, insight,
and genius--all that man himself possesses.

VII

THE LANGUAGE OF ANIMALS

_"Who ever knew an honest brute
At law his neighbours prosecute,
Bring action for assault and battery
Or friends beguile with lies and flattery?"_

The fact that all animals possess ideas, no matter how small those ideas
may be, implies reason. That these ideas are transmitted from one animal
to another, no one can doubt in the light of our present scientific
knowledge. "Be not startled," says the distinguished animal authority,
Dr. William T. Hornaday, "by the discovery that apes and monkeys have
language; for their vocabulary is not half so varied and extensive as
that of the barnyard fowls, whose language some of us know very well."
The means by which ideas are transmitted from one animal to another can
be rightly described by no other term than _language_.

It is evident that there are many kinds of language: the written; the
spoken; the universal, which implies the motion, sign, and form
language; the language of the eye, by which ideas are exchanged without
words or gestures; and lastly, a mode of expression little known to the
human world, but universal among animals. This language is spoken by no
man, but is understood by every brute from the tiniest hare to the
largest elephant; it is the language whereby spirit communicates with
spirit, and by which it recognises in a moment what it would take an
entire volume to narrate. In its nature it differs essentially from all
other languages, yet we are justified in thinking of it as a language
because its function is to transmit ideas from one animal to another.
Every form of language is used by animals, and each has its own peculiar
language or "dialect" common to its tribe only, though occasionally
learned by others. All the emotions--fear, caution, joy, grief,
gratitude, hope, despair--are disclosed by some form of language.

It would be interesting to know how the use of the word "dumb" ever
became applied to animals, for in reality there are very few dumb
animals. Doubtless the word was originally employed to express a larger
idea than that of dumbness, and implied the lack of power in animals to
communicate successfully with man by sound or language. The real trouble
lies with man, who is unable to understand the language spoken or
uttered by the animals.

The