his hands, but his reason, which instructed man in the arts. The hands are only the organs by which the arts are practised."1

These general considerations seem sufficiently to prove, that the powers of the Human Understanding do not admit of comparison with the Instincts of the lower animals; the difference between them being a difference not in degree but in kind. Perhaps this is the single instance, in which that regular gradation, which we everywhere else observe in the universe, fails entirely. The fact is the more striking, as it fails only with respect to the human mind; for the bodily organization of man is distinguished from that of some of the brutes, by characteristics which it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to define. But this only places in a more conspicuous point of view, those intellectual prerogatives to which he owes the undisputed empire of the globe; and which open to him a boundless prospect of progressive improvement, amid tribes doomed apparently to retain for ever their primeval rank in the scale of being.

SECTION III.

Still, however, the metaphysical (or rather the logical) question recurs: What are the particular faculties belonging to Man, which are denied entirely to the Brutes?

In considering this question, it is proper always to remember, that the degree of evidence which it is possible for us to attain, is from the nature of the subject, far from being complete. In the case of our own species, we can judge of the

it may be all of these, because all of these it is able to seize and to make use of. To this destination of the hand co-operates its organization. For it is divided-it is cloven into a multitude of parts; since in division there is a capability of conjunction, whereas in conjunction there is no capability of divi VOL. IV.

sion. Each of the parts, likewise, may be used in one, two, and, indeed, a multitude of ways. The flexures of the fingers are also well adapted for apprehension and compression." And so forth.--Ed.]

1 Lib. i. cap. iii.

T

intellectual powers of other men, not only from the appearances of intelligence exhibited in their conduct, but from the direct information which they themselves are qualified to convey to us of the operations of which they are conscious. But, in the case of the brutes, all that we know of their nature is collected from outward signs, which are frequently obscure and equivocal; and which, in no instance whatever, afford the same satisfactory information we possess concerning the capacities of the human race. Where their external actions resemble those of man, we are naturally disposed to refer them to the same causes. When a dog howls, for example, in consequence of a blow, we conclude that he feels pain. When he fawns upon his master, after a long absence, we conclude that his apparent flow of affection is founded on something analogous to the power of memory. But still these inferences are not made with the same certainty as those we form concerning the powers of rational beings, who, by describing to us what passes within them, can afford us an opportunity of comparing their intellectual phenomena with our own. Notwithstanding, however, this circumstance, (which must be allowed to invalidate, to a certain degree, the force of our argument,) we are justified, I think, in adopting the foregoing conclusions, by the received maxim in natural philosophy, that similar effects are to be ascribed to similar causes. And it is on this principle that we are entitled, in my opinion, to reject as unphilosophical the Cartesian theory, which represents the brutes as mere machines. One thing is certain, that this is all the evidence which the nature of the subject admits of; and that, if we deny its legitimacy, we put an end at once to the inquiry.1

Proceeding, then, on the maxim now mentioned, we must allow to the brutes the powers of Sensation, Perception, and Memory. Whether they possess the power of Recollection, is more doubtful. If some of the more sagacious of them do, it is certainly in a very inconsiderable degree. That they are not wholly destitute of the faculty of Conception, we may infer from this that some of them appear to dream, and to be affected with absent objects as if they were present. And that something very analogous to the Associating principle takes place in their minds, is evinced by numberless phenomena. Among these it is sufficient to mention the means which are employed in teaching bears to dance, by making them move on heated floors to the sound of musical instruments; and in training

ancun doute, que des êtres pourvus des mêmes organes, exécutant les mêmes choses et communiquant ensemble, éprouvent les mêmes sensations, et sont mus par les mêmes désirs. La probabilité que les animaux qui se rapprochent de nous par leurs organes, ont des sensations analogues aux nôtres, quoiqu'un peu inférieure à celle qui est relative aux individus de notre espèce, est encore excessivement grande; et il a fallu toute l'influence des préjugés religieux, pour faire penser à quelques philosophes, que les animaux sont de purs automates. La probabilité de l'existence du sentiment décroît, à mesure que la similitude des organes avec les nôtres diminue; mais elle est toujours très forte, même pour les insectes. En voyant ceux d'une même espèce, exécuter des choses fort compliquées exactement de la même manière, de générations en générations et sans les avoir apprises; on est porté à croire qu'ils agissent par une sorte d'affinité, analogue à celle qui rapproche les molécules des cristaux, mais qui se mêlant au sentiment attaché à toute organisation animale, produit avec la régularité des combinaisons chimiques, des combinaisons beaucoup plus singulières: On

pourroit peut-être nommer affinité animale ce mélange des affinités électives et du sentiment. Quoiqu'il existe beaucoup d'analogie entre l'organisation des plantes et celle des animaux; elle ne me paroît pas cependant suffisante pour étendre aux végétaux la faculté de sentir; comme rien n'autorise à la leur refuser."-Esai Philosophique sur les Probabilités, pp. 203, 204.

In this comparison of the regular and complicated operations of certain insects, to the regularity of those chemical combinations which are exhibited in the phenomena of crystallization, Laplace goes, perhaps, a little farther than sound philosophy warrants; but his hypothesis of animal affinities is not without its value, as it affords a decisive proof of the contempt with which he regarded that theory which would represent the ingenuity displayed in the works of some of the insect tribes, as analogous to the mechanical arts of the human species, and as manifesting reason in the one case no less than in the other. In whatever way the fact was to be accounted for, Laplace seems never to have suspected that the ingenuity of the contrivance was to be referred to the animal.

horses to military service, by combining the idea of their food with the noise of the drum. We must, too, in my opinion, allow them some degree of art, or a capacity of employing simple combinations of means to accomplish particular ends. This, indeed, will be disputed by some theorists; but, in the present argument, I am rather disposed to ascribe to them too much than too little; for, granting all that has ever been claimed in their favour, we shall still find a boundary distinctly and strongly drawn between the animal and the rational nature.

This boundary is drawn by the capacity of Artificial Language, which none of the brutes possess even in the lowest degree.1 They possess, indeed, natural signs, and the power of understanding their meaning, when employed by their own species; but they discover no marks whatever of a capacity to employ arbitrary signs, so as to carry on reasonings by means of them. Allowing that they possessed all our other faculties, this defect alone would render them totally incapable of forming any general conclusions, and would confine their knowledge entirely to particular objects and particular events. Nor is this all. The same defect would necessarily confine to each individual his personal acquisitions, and would prevent the possibility of any improvements resulting from the mutual communication of ideas, or from a transmission of knowledge from one generation to another.

The facts collected by Darwin to prove the reasoning powers of animals, only show that they are possessed of some small degree of mechanical art. Such, for instance, is the fact he mentions with respect to an old monkey at Exeter Change, London, "who, having lost his teeth, when nuts are given him, takes a stone in his hand, and cracks them with it, one by one, thus using tools to effect his purpose like mankind."

In the first volume of this work, (p. 200,) I have quoted a still more extraordinary fact concerning the sagacity of a monkey, related by M. Bailly in his Lettre sur les Animaux;

See Note H.

2 Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. chap. iv. sect. 5, p. 198, seq.

and I have subjoined to the narrative the following remark:"Admitting this anecdote to be correct in all its circumstances, it still leaves an essential distinction between man and brutes; inasmuch as in none of the contrivances here detailed, is there anything analogous to those intellectual processes which lead the mind to general conclusions, and which, consequently, imply the use of general terms. Those powers, therefore, which enable us to classify objects, and to employ signs as an instrument. of thought, are, as far as we can judge, peculiar to the human species.”1

To what this incapacity of language is owing, is a question of more difficult discussion. Locke ascribes it (and, I think, with great probability) to a want of the faculty of abstraction, of which none of the brutes discover the faintest traces.2 This

1 An artifice, not less refined than that employed by the monkey mentioned in the above anecdote, was daily put in practice by the female elephant which was lately exhibited at Exeter Change. When the keeper put a shilling near the boards separating the room from the staircase, and ordered her to pick it up, she immediately extended her trunk towards it; and, finding it placed beyond the reach of that instrument, she began to blow hard against the boards, so that the blast might move the shilling within her grasp. No spectator, surely, of common observation, who saw this elephant, could help suspecting that this feat, like all her other performances, was entirely the result of the instruction and discipline of the keeper. Without meaning to impeach, in the slightest degree, the veracity either of M. Bailly or of his friend, I may be permitted to express my doubts, whether the apparent sagacity of their monkey might not, if his history had been equally well-known, have been accounted for in a similar way; more particularly, when we consider how much the education of this animal is facilitated by those imitative

powers which he possesses in so uncommon a degree.

"This, I think, I may be positive in, that the power of abstracting is not at all in beasts; and that the having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction between man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain to," &c. &c.-(Locke's Essay, book ii. chap. xi. sect. 10.) The objection stated to this opinion by Darwin, will perhaps appear to the well-informed reader too frivolous to deserve a serious answer; but some reply is called for by the number and presumption of his half-educated, though, in some instances, ingenious disciples. 'Mr. Locke," says he, "published an opinion that other animals possessed no abstract or general ideas, and thought this circumstance was the barrier between the brute and the human world. But these abstracted ideas have been since demonstrated by Bishop Berkeley, and allowed by Mr. Hume, to have no existence in nature, not even in the mind of their inventor, and we are hence necessitated to look for some other mark