“No,” he answered, “the states may be kin, but they differ, as the visual powers of a daisy, which can see the sun, differ from those of man. Education, by its necessary artificiality, tends to destroy natural gifts. The daily growth of a living language supplies adequate proof of this truism. The first sounds uttered by man, quite apart from signs and symbols, implied a want or an emotion. Those primary words run in unbroken gamut through all variations of speech or dialect. Of course, they vary, but not greatly, no more than the bark of the Indian dog, the grunt of the Indian pig, the caw of the Indian crow--I could recite hundreds of examples--vary from the typical cries of their European congeners. To my childish intelligence, sounds were all sufficing. I knew the voices of nature. The whinney of a horse told me whether he was hungry or thirsty, afraid or angered. I heard the kites whistling their fellow-ghouls to the feast. I could actually distinguish the answering bleat of a kid to the hoarse summons of its dam amidst a flock of goats. Good heavens! if only my baby mind could have uttered its knowledge, and found a scientific recorder, what undeciphered mysteries of human development might I not have solved!” Although this train of reminiscence was somewhat removed from the far more curious and complex sense he developed afterwards, it was interesting as showing a tendency towards the abnormal. “Have you any reason to believe that animals ever knew you possessed the key to their utterances?” I asked. “Not in a convincing degree. Oddly enough, my intelligence was more receptive than creative. Certainly my dogs, ponies, birds, and other so-called dumb creatures with which I was brought in contact were in extraordinary sympathy with me. But such human and animal collusions are far from rare. And I could not speak to them with effect. Our physical appliances are fashioned by use, remember. If the nasal sounds of French will change the shape of the roof of a Frenchman’s mouth, or singing develop the singer’s throat in a single lifetime, how much more profoundly must untold generations of ordered language have modified the vocal organs. So my four-footed friends could not understand my harsh imitations. They were too far down the scale. I could plumb _their_ depths, but _they_ could only gaze at me wistfully, as men look at the stars.”