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SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

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MEN AND MONKEYS.

Monkeys are certainly, there is no denying it, very like men; and, what
is worse, men are still more like monkeys. Many worthy people, who have
a high respect for what they choose to call the Dignity of Human Nature,
are much distressed by this similitude, approaching in many cases to
absolute identity; and some of them have written books of considerable
erudition and ingenuity, to prove that a man is not a monkey; nay, not
so much as even an ape; but truth compels us to confess, that their
speculations have been far from carrying conviction to our minds. All
such inquirers, from Aristotle to Smellie, principally insist on two
great leading distinctions--speech and reason. But it is obvious to the
meanest capacity, that monkeys have both speech and reason. They have a
language of their own, which, though not so capacious as the Greek, is
much more so than the Hottentottish; and as for reason, no man of a
truly philosophical genius ever saw a monkey crack a nut, without
perceiving that the creature possesses that endowment, or faculty, in no
small perfection. Their speech, indeed, is said not to be articulate;
but it is audibly more so than the Gaelic. The words unquestionably do
run into each other, in a way that, to our ears, renders it rather
unintelligible; but it is contrary to all the rules of sound
philosophizing, to confuse the obtuseness of our own senses with the
want of any faculty in others; and they have just as good a right to