Note 42 — Chapter I · THEORIES OF LANGUAGE. (continued 2)

See also Benfey’s article, “Einige Worte über den Ursprung der Sprache,” in the “Nachrichten von der k. Gesellschaft der Wissensch. zu Göttingen,” Jan. 30, 1878. Benfey here points out that just as we share a capacity of walking with the lower animals, so also do we share with them a capacity for communicating with one another by the help of a language of some sort. And he remarks pertinently that it was not harder for the first men to understand the meaning of what was said to them than it is for domestic animals nowadays to learn the meaning of the words and phrases we use in speaking to them or giving them orders.