law of progress, and assign the origin of this faculty to that class of phenomena known as miracles, which once explained by increasing the mystery what we could not understand, and served at the same time to conceal the exact magnitude of our ignorance; but as we added little by little to our stock of knowledge, such phenomena were brought within the realm of our understanding, and to-day our children are familiar with the causes of many simple effects which our forefathers dared not attempt to solve, but reverently ascribed to the immediate influence of Divinity. If speech in its ultimate nature is symbolic, what must have been the condition of man before its invention, and how did he arrive at the first term or sound of speech? He did not invent sound nor the means of making it. He did not invent thought, the thing which speech expresses, and it is no more reasonable to believe that he invented speech than to believe that he invented the faculties of sight and hearing, which are certainly the natural products of his organic nature and environments. So far as I can find through the whole range of animal life, all forms of land mammals possess vocal organs which are developed in a degree corresponding to the condition of the brain, and seem to be in every instance as capable of producing and controlling sounds as the brain is of thinking: in other words, the power of expression is in perfect keeping with the power of thinking. From my acquaintance with the animal kingdom, it is my firm belief that all mammals possess the faculty of speech in a degree commensurate with their experience and needs, and that domestic animals have a somewhat higher type of speech than their wild progenitors. Why are all forms of mammals endowed with vocal organs? Why should Nature bestow on them these organs if not designed for use? One or the other of two conclusions seems inevitable. As a law of evolution and progress, all organs are imparted to animals for use and not for ornament. It seems consistent with what we know of Nature, to suppose that the vocal organs of these lower forms are being developed to meet a new requirement in the animal economy, or having once discharged some function necessary to the being and comfort of the animal, they are now lapsing into disuse and becoming atrophied. If they are in the course of development, it argues that the creature which possesses them must possess a rudimentary speech which is developing at a like rate into a higher type of speech. If they are in a state of decay or atrophy, it argues that the animal must have been able to speak at some former period, and that now, in losing the power of speech it is gradually losing the organ. In either case, the organs themselves would be in a state of development in harmony with the condition of the speech of the animal. [Sidenote: LIMITATIONS OF SPEECH] The function which speech discharges is the communication of ideas, and its growth must