Prof. Max Müller says:
"How can we attempt to realise what passes within the mind of an animal? ... We can imagine anything we like about what passes in the mind of an animal,—we can know absolutely nothing."
We are fully aware of the fact that the problem of the origin of language is quite different from the problems of animal psychology. A solution of the latter, which are extremely complex and difficult, would not help us to solve the former. This being conceded we can nevertheless see no reason why animal psychology should be condemned and given up as a hopeless task.
It is not true that "we can know absolutely nothing about what passes in the mind of an animal." It is true we cannot see the animals' feelings and thoughts, but we can see their actions which reveal their feelings as much as and sometimes even plainer than the speech of our brother man reveals his thoughts. Might we not say with the same reason, "We see only the printed book of a scientist (which is an expression of his views as much as the behavior of an animal is of its feelings) but we can know absolutely nothing about what passes in the mind of that scientist. All we can do is to judge from analogy"? And should we on that account give up all reading and studying and also all arguing with others?
Animal psychology is not only justified as a science, but we can even hope that correct observations of animal intelligence will assist us in correctly understanding the higher intelligence of human thought. And "that some useful hints may be taken from watching children is not denied " by Prof. Max Muller either, although this little concession appears only in the shape of a short foot-note. The homo alalus is by no means a merely mythical figure, for according to the law of evolution man must have developed out of a being lower than the present man. His first ancestor must have been simple life-substance something like that of the amoeba. He must have passed through a long period in which he was not capable of articulate speech. That we know nothing particular about the homo alalus is no proof against his existence. Moreover every infant is an actual real homo alalus, a speechless man, or should we according to Prof. Max Müller class our babies among the brutes?
