ETHICS BETWEEN MAN AND BEAST. 641 



ogist has to consider is not whether the doctrine is impious, but 

 whether it is true. No scientific opinion has ever been advanced 

 that has not seemed impious to some minds, and been denounced 

 and persecuted as such by ecclesiastical authorities. 



Bishop Butler, on the contrary, in his work on The Analogy 

 of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course 

 of Nature, declares that " we can not find anything throughout 

 the whole analogy of Nature to afford us even the slightest pre- 

 sumption that animals ever lose their living powers." He admits 

 that his argument in support of the doctrine of a future life 

 proves the immortality of brutes as well as that of man, and thus 

 recognizes their spiritual kinship. 



An eminent Scotch physician and anatomist, Dr. John Bar- 

 clay, in his Inquiry into the Opinions, Ancient and Modern, con- 

 cerning Life and Organization (1825), urges the probable immor- 

 tality of the lower animals, which, he thinks, are " reserved, as 

 forming many of the accustomed links in the chain of being, and 

 by preserving the chain entire, contribute in the future state, as 

 they do here, to the general beauty and variety of the universe, a 

 source not only of sublime but of perpetual delight." The author 

 seems to infer the continued existence of the brute creation from 

 the fact that it forms an essential part of universal being, and 

 that its total disappearance would mar the perfection of the next 

 world, which should be more perfect than this world. He as- 

 sumes, however, that the lower animals are endowed with immor- 

 tality, not so much from psychological necessity or for their own 

 sake as sentient and intelligent creatures, as for man's sake, in 

 order that their presence may minister to his pleasure by forming 

 an attractive feature in the heavenly landscape. It is, therefore, 

 solely from anthropocentric considerations that they are granted 

 this lease of eternal life ; just as " the poor Indian" is represented 

 by the poet as looking forward to the possession of happy hunt- 

 ing fields after death, where he may follow with keener enjoy- 

 ment his favorite pursuit, and " his faithful dog shall bear him 

 company." 



More than fifty years ago Henry Hallam made the following 

 observations, which are remarkable as an anticipation of the 

 ethical corollary to the doctrine of evolution : " Few at present, 

 who believe in the immortality of the human soul, would deny 

 the same to the elephant ; but it must be owned that the discov- 

 eries of zoology have pushed this to consequences which some 

 might not readily adopt. The spiritual being of a sponge revolts 

 a little our prejudices ; yet there is no resting place, and we must 

 admit this or be content to sink ourselves into a mass of medul- 

 lary fiber. Brutes have been as slowly emancipated in philos- 

 ophy as some classes of mankind have been in civil polity ; their 



VOL. XLV. 48 



