the parent may be lengthened out beyond its usual time if the preservation of the species require it, as we may see in birds that drive away their young as soon as they are able to get their livelihood, but continue to feed them if they are tied to the nest, or confined within a cage, or by any other means appear to be out of a condition of supplying their own necessities."1

SECTION II.

In what then, it may be asked, does the difference between Man and the Brutes consist? Do their faculties differ from each other in degree only, or is there an essential difference between the rational and the animal natures?

On this point philosophers have in general been disposed to run into extremes, and none more remarkably than the French philosophers during the course of the two last centuries; the

disciples of Descartes allowing no one faculty to belong to man and brutes in common, and considering the latter in the light of mere machines; while the prevailing creed of the present race of French materialists leads to the rejection of every theory which professes to discriminate the rational soul from the animal principle of action.

Mr. Addison appears to me, from various passages in the Spectator, to have entertained some vague and not very consistent notions on this question, but, on the whole, approaching more nearly to those of Descartes than of any other philosopher. "There is not," (he observes, No. 120,) "in my opinion, anything more mysterious in nature than this instinct in animals, which thus rises above reason, and falls infinitely short of it. It cannot be accounted for by any properties in matter; and, at the same time, works after so odd a manner, that one cannot think it the faculty of an intellectual being. For my own part, I look upon it as upon the principle of gravitation in bodies, which is not to be explained by any known qualities inherent in the bodies themselves, nor from any laws of mechanism; but, according to the notions of the greatest philosophers, is an immediate impression from the first Mover, and the divine energy acting in the creatures." In the following paper he expresses himself thus:-"As the different principles which act in different animals cannot be called Reason, so when we term it Instinct, we mean something we have no knowledge of. To me it seems the immediate direction of Providence, and such an operation of the Supreme Being as that which determines all the portions of matter to their proper centres."

The opinions of the ancient Stoics seem to have differed still less on this point, from the Cartesian theory. This we learn from a passage in Plutarch, in which it is stated as a doctrine of that sect with respect to animals, οὐ θυμοῦσθαι, ἀλλ ̓ ὡσανεὶ θυμοῦσθαι· οὐ φοβεῖσθαι ἀλλ ̓ ὡσανεὶ φοβεῖσθαι· οὐ βλέπειν, ἀλλ' ὡσανεὶ βλέπειν, κ.τ.λ. “ That brutes do not feel anger, but appear to feel it; that they are not afraid, but appear to he afraid; that they do not see, but appear to see," &c.1

1 Plutarch, De Solertia Animalium, [Opera, tom. ii. p. 961, ed. Xyl.]

It is from Descartes, however, that this doctrine has derived its chief celebrity in modern times, and it is principally to the influence of his name that we must ascribe its prevalence both in France and England in the earlier part of the last century.1 For a considerable number of years past, the French philosophers in general have gone into the opposite extreme, and have employed their ingenuity in attempting to account for the boasted superiority of man, by accidental circumstances in his bodily organization, or in his external condition. Of these theories the following passage from Helvetius will be a sufficient specimen :

"Many pieces,” says this amusing, though paradoxical writer, have been published on the souls of beasts. They have been alternately denied and allowed the faculty of thinking. But perhaps a research sufficiently accurate has not yet been made

1 The great Pascal is said by Baillet to have esteemed this theory as the most valuable part of the Cartesian Philosophy; probably on account of the easy solution it afforded of the apparent sufferings to which the lower animals are subject. "Au reste cette opinion des automates est ce que M. Pascal estimoit le plus dans la philosophie de M. Descartes."-Baillet, Vie de Descartes, tom. ii. p. 537.

Not having access at present to the works of Baillet, I quote this on the authority of Bayle. See his Dictionary, Article Gomezius Pereira. In proof of the faith attached to it by Father Malebranche, the following anecdote is told, on the authority of Fontenelle, by one of his intimate friends, in the Mercure de France for July 1757. "M. de Fontenelle contoit qu'un jour étant allé voir Malebranche aux PP. de l'Oratoire de la Rue St. Honoré, une grosse chienne de la maison et qui étoit pleine, entra dans la salle où ils se promenoient, vint caresser le P. Malebranche, et se rouler à ses pieds. Après quelques mouvemens inutiles pour la chasser, le philo

sophe lui donna un grand coup de pied, qui fit jetter à la chienne un cri de douleur, et à M. de Fontenelle un cri de compassion." "Eh quoi," (lui dit froidement le P. Malebranche,) “ne savez vous pas bien que cela ne sent point?"

On this point the opinion of Malebranche appears to have undergone a change in the progress of his studies; for in the earlier part of his life he certainly believed that animals were sentient beings. We are told, that when pressed in conversation by some of his friends with the sceptical objections to the justice of God drawn from the sufferings of the brutes, the good Father replied, "Apparemment ils ont mangé du foin défendu." This conversation, we may presume, took place before he was acquainted with the works of Descartes.

With respect to this question of Automatism, Fontenelle, a zealous Cartesian, had the good sense to dissent openly from the system of his master, and even to express his approbation of the sarcastic remark of La Motte, que cette opinion sur les animaux étoit une débauche du raisonnement."

into those differences between the nature of man and that of the other animals, from whence the inferiority of what is called the soul of the latter is derived. The following considerations seem to go far towards an explanation of the phe

nomenon :—

"1st, The feet of all quadrupeds terminate either in horn, as those of the ox and the deer; or in nails, as those of the dog and the wolf; or in claws, as those of the lion and the cat. This peculiar organization of the feet of these animals deprives them not only of the sense of touch, considered as a channel of information with respect to external objects, but also of the dexterity requisite for the practice of mechanical arts.

"2d, The life of animals in general being of a shorter duration than that of man, does not permit them to make so many observations, nor to acquire so many ideas.

"3d, Animals being better armed and better clothed by nature than the human species, have fewer wants, and consequently, fewer motives to stimulate and to exercise their invention. If the voracious animals are more cunning than others, it is because hunger, ever inventive, inspires them with the art of forming stratagems to surprise their prey.

"4th, The lower animals compose a society that flies from man, who, by the assistance of weapons made by himself, is become formidable to the strongest amongst them.

"5th, Man is the most prolific and versatile animal upon earth. He is born and lives in every climate, while many of the other animals, as the lion, the elephant, and the rhinoceros, are found only in a certain latitude; and the more any species of animals capable of making observations is multiplied, the more ideas and ingenuity it is likely to possess."

"But some may ask," continues Helvetius, "why monkeys, whose paws are nearly as dexterous as our hands, do not make a progress equal to that of man ?"-"A variety of causes," he observes, "conspires to retain them in that state of inferiority in which we find them. 1st, Men are more multiplied upon the earth. 2d, Among the different species of monkeys there are few whose strength can be compared to that of man,

and, accordingly, they form only a fugitive society before the human species. 3d, Monkeys being frugivorous, have fewer wants, and therefore less invention than man. 4th, Their life. is shorter; and, finally, The organical disposition of their bodies keeps them, like children, in perpetual motion, even after their desires are satisfied. In consequence of this last circumstance they are not liable to ennui; which ought to be considered (as I shall prove afterwards) as one of the principles to which the human mind owes its improvement.

"By combining," he adds, "all these differences between the nature of man and of beasts, we may understand why sensibility and memory, though faculties common to man and other animals, are, in the latter, only sterile qualities."1

It is not a little surprising that, in this theory, Helvetius takes no notice of the want of language in the lower animals, -a faculty without which the multiplication of individuals could contribute nothing to the improvement of the species. Nor is this want of language in the brutes owing to any defect in the organs of speech, as sufficiently appears from those tribes which are possessed of the power of articulation in no inconsiderable a degree. It plainly indicates, therefore, some defect in those higher principles which lay the foundation of the use of artificial signs. But of this subject more fully afterwards.

Among these different considerations stated by Helvetius, the first alone seems to me to deserve any particular attention. When to the indispensable necessity of the sense of touch for the examination of external objects, we add the beautiful mechanism of the hand, which Aristotle justly calls “the instrument of instruments," and without which the practice of many of the arts of life would be quite impossible, it is not wonderful that such a writer as Helvetius should have been led to conclude, that "if the wrist of a man had been terminated by the hoof of a horse, the species would still have been wandering in the forest."2 Nor is Helvetius the only philo

1 De l'Esprit, pp. 2, 3.

[In the De Anima, (lib. iii. c. ix. § 2,) he styles the human Hand-ὄργανον ὀργάνων. Elsewhere he calls it,

— ὄργανον πρὸ ὀργάνων, (De Partibus, lib. iv. c. 10.)-Ed.]

"Si la Nature au lieu de mains et de doigts flexibles eut terminé nos poignets