But though animals have a language
appropriate to the expression of their sensations and emotions, they
have no words, "those shadows of the soul, those living sounds." Words
are symbols of thoughts, and may be considered as a revelation of the
human mind. It is this use of language as an instrument of thought, as
a system of general signs, which, according to Bishop Whately,
distinguishes the language of man from that of the brute; and the same
eminent authority declares that without such a system of general signs
the reasoning process could not be conducted.
It is true, that we often see in the inferior animals manifestations of
deductions of intellect similar to those of the human mind,--only that
they are not made by the animals themselves, but for them and above
their conscious perception. "When a bee," says Dr. Reid, "makes its
combs so geometrically, the geometry is not in the bee, but in that
great Geometrician who made the bee, and made all things in number,
weight, and measure." Since the animal is not conscious of the
intelligence and design which are manifested in its instincts, which it
obeys and works out, the conscious life of the individual must be
wholly a life within the senses. The senses alone can give the animal
only an empirical knowledge of the world of its observation.
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