a little pantomime for the purpose of relating its experiences. Now, this fact enables me to dispense with the imaginary comparison of a dog that is able to talk, or of a parrot as intelligent as a dog; for the fact furnishes me with the converse case of a child _not_ able to talk at the usual age. No one can suggest that the intelligence of such a child at two years old differs in kind from that of another child of the same age, who, on account of having been earlier in acquiring the use of words, can afford to become less proficient in the use of gestures.[136] The case of a child late in talking may therefore be taken as a psychological index of the development of human ideation of the receptual order, which by accident admits of closer comparison with that of the higher mammalia than is possible in the case of a child who begins to talk at the usual age. But, as regards the former case, we have already seen that the gestures begin by being much less expressive than those of a dog, then gradually improve until they become psychologically identical, and, lastly, continue in the same gradual manner along the same line of advance. Therefore, if in this case no difference of kind can be alleged _until_ the speaking age is reached, neither can it be alleged _after_ the speaking age is reached in the case where this happens to be earlier. Or, in the words previously used, if a dog like a parrot were able to use verbal signs, or if a parrot were equal in intelligence to a dog, the connotative powers of a child would continue parallel with those of a brute through a somewhat longer reach of psychological development than we now find to be the case.