Man, by outward signs, indicates what passes within him; he communicates his sentiments by speech, which is a sign common to the whole human species. The savage and the civilized man have the same powers of utterance; both speak naturally, and so as to be understood. No other animal is endowed with this expression of thought; nor is that defect owing, as some have imagined, to the want of proper organs. Anatomists have found the tongue of an ape to be as perfect as that of a man. The ape, therefore, if he had thought, would have speech, and if its thoughts had aught analogous to ours, this speech would have an analogy to ours also. Supposing its thoughts were peculiar to its species, it still would hold discourse with those of its kind, a circumstance of which we should have heard had it been endowed with the powers of speech. So far then is the ape from having any thought like ours, that it has not even any order of thoughts of its own. As they express nothing by combined and settled signs, they of consequence are void of thought, or at most have it in a very small degree. That it is from no organical defect animals are denied the gift of speech is plain, as several species of them may be taught to pronounce words, and even repeat sentences of some length. Perhaps many others might be found capable of articulating particular sounds[AG]; but to make them conceive the ideas which such sounds denote is an impracticable task. They seem to repeat and articulate merely as an echo, or an artificial machine. It is not in the mechanical powers, or the material organs, but in the intellectual faculties, that they are deficient. [AG] Leibnitz mentions a dog which had been taught to pronounce several German and French words. As all language supposes a chain of thought, it is on that account that brute animals have no speech, for even allowing something in them which resembles our first apprehensions, our most gross and mechanical sensations, they still will be found incapable of forming that association of ideas which can alone produce reflection; and in this consists the essence of thought. To this inability of connecting and separating ideas it is that they are destitute of thought and speech, as also that they neither can invent nor improve any thing. Were they endowed with the power of reflection, even in the most subordinate degree, they would be capable of making some kind of proficiency, and acquire more industry; the modern beaver would build with more art and solidity than the ancient; and the bee would daily be adding new improvements to its cell; for if we suppose this cell as perfect already as it can be, we ascribe to the insect an intelligence superior to our own; by which it could discern at once the last degree of perfection to which its work might be carried, while we ourselves are for ever in the dark as to this degree, and stand in need of much reflection, time, and practice, in order to perfect even one of our most trivial arts.