I take it then, as certainly proved, that the germ of the sign-making faculty which is present in the higher animals is so far developed as to enable these animals to understand not merely conventional gestures, but even articulate sounds, irrespective of the tones in which they are uttered. Therefore, in view of this fact, together with the fact previously established that these same animals frequently make use of conventional gesture-signs themselves, I think we are justified in concluding _a priori_, that if these animals were able to articulate, they would employ simple words to express simple ideas. I do not say, nor do I think, that they would form propositions; but it seems to me little less than certain that they would use articulate sounds, as they now use natural or conventional tones and gestures, to express such ideas as they now express in either of these ways. For instance, it would involve the exercise of no higher psychical faculty to say the word “Come,” than it does to pull at a dress or a coat to convey the same idea; or to utter the word “Open,” instead of mewing in a conventional manner before a closed door; or, yet again, to utter the word “Bone,” than to select and carry a card with the word written upon it. If this is so, we must conclude that the only reason why the higher Mammalia do not employ simple words to convey simple ideas, is that which we may term an accidental reason, so far as their psychology is concerned; it is an anatomical reason, depending merely on the structure of their vocal organs not admitting of articulation.[83] Of course at this point my attention will be called to the case of talking birds; for it is evident that in them we have the anatomical conditions required for speech, though assuredly occurring at a most unlikely place in the animal series; and therefore these animals may be properly adduced to test the validity of my _a priori_ inference—namely, that if the more intelligent brutes could articulate, they would make a proper use of simple verbal signs. Let it, however, be here remembered that birds are lower in the psychological scale than dogs, or cats, or monkeys; and, therefore, that the inference which I drew touching the latter need not necessarily be held as applying also to the former. Nevertheless, it so happens that even in the case of these psychologically inferior animals the evidence, such as it is, is not opposed to my inference: on the contrary, there is no small body of facts which goes to support it in a very satisfactory manner. A consideration of this evidence will now serve to introduce us to the fourth and last case presented in the programme at the beginning of this chapter, or the case of articulation with attribution of the meaning understood as attaching to the words. * * * * *