For some of the Dogmatics, even, have put this aside, as opposing the acquisition of virtue, for which reason they practiced silence when studying. Besides, let it be supposed that a man is dumb, no one would say that he is consequently irrational. However, aside from this, we see after all, that animals, about which we are speaking, do produce human sounds, as the jay and some others. Aside from this also, even if we do not understand the sounds of the so-called irrational 74 irrational animals, it is not at all unlikely that they converse, and that we do not understand their conversation. For when we hear the language of foreigners, we do not understand but it all seems like one sound to us. Furthermore, we hear dogs giving out one kind of sound when they are resisting someone, 75 and another sound when they howl, and another when they are beaten, and a different kind when they wag their tails, and generally speaking, if one examines into this, he will find a great difference in the sounds of this and other animals under different circumstances; so that in all likelihood, it may be said that the so-called irrational animals partake also in spoken language. If then, they are not inferior to men in the 76 accuracy of their perceptions, nor in reasoning in thought, nor in reasoning by speech, as it is superfluous to say, then they are not more untrustworthy than we are, it seems to me, in regard to their ideas. Perhaps it would be possible to prove this, should we direct the argument to each of the irrational 77 animals in turn. As for example, who would not say that the birds are distinguished for shrewdness, and make use of articulate speech? for they not only know the present but the future, and this they augur to those that are able to understand it, audibly as well as in other ways. I have made this comparison superfluously, as I pointed out above, as I think 78 I had sufficiently shown before, that we cannot consider our own ideas superior to those of the irrational animals. In short, if the irrational animals are not more untrustworthy than we in regard to the judgment of their ideas, and the ideas are different according to the difference in the animals, I shall be able to say how each object appears to me, but in regard to what it is by nature I shall be obliged to suspend my judgment. THE SECOND TROPE.