Darwinisnz Tested by Language. By F. Bateman, M.D. (Rivingtons.) —It
was said long ago by Aristotle "that animals merely emit sounds (0.'0, but have no articulate speech (S■fixizros), which is the peculiar characteristic of man." There is no such thing as a speechless tribe ; such seems to be the decidei opinion of most scientific inquirers, as well as of travellers and explorers. The most degraded savage, like the Fuegian, can acquire articulate language ; a monkey cannot. It is evid- ent how this bears on the Darwinian controversy. If well established, it implies a missing link, and would seem to be fatal to Darwinism Such is the view taken by Dr. Bateman, and elaborated in this little volume. The position unquestionably is a strong one ; whether it is absolutely unassailable is more than we can say. But that language does seem very sharply to differentiate man from all other animals cannot, in the present state of our knowledge, be denied,—and this much, we presume, would be c:nceded by most Darwinians. The case of the parrot, which will at once occur to every one, does not help them much ; it is a case merely of phonetic mimicry, and the results attained are exceedingly limited. Nothing approach- ing to articulate language is ever acquired by that remarkable bird. As Max Muller has said, "Speech appears to be a barrier between the brute and man, and no process of natural selection will ever distil significant words out of the notes of birds or the cries of beasts." It is, in fact, nothing to the purpose to show that some bird or beast can utter a few isolated sounds resembling words. This is not so much as the least step in the direction of articulate speech, and the difference between man and the brute is left just as wide as ever. Dr. Bateman discusses the subject with what will seem to the Evolutionists undue warmth, and he shows that he feels strongly how mischievous in its tendencies Darwinism is. But we can hardly blame him, for, as has been truly said, many of those who talk loudest about the odium theo- ' logicum exhibit themselves an equally offensive odium anti-theologicum, on the strength of which they denounce as fools or hypocrites all who venture to question their theories.
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