GOD AND NATURE. 33 



in their habits and instincts as the plants, or nearly so, there is one 

 race, namely, the human, which is not fixed at all, but is constantly 

 devising something new, regarding nothing as gained while anything 

 remains to be achieved. 



Once more, take the more general attribute of thought. Much has 

 been written of late concerning the minds of animals ; it is a curious 

 and interesting subject, and certainly I for one do not grudge our 

 humbler friends in the great world-family of life any gift of mind with 

 which they have been endowed. The brain of the ant is, as some one 

 has truly said, perhaps the most wonderful little morsel of matter in 

 existence. But certainly the mind of man is so incomparably more 

 powerful and effective a machine of thought, that any comparison be- 

 tween it and the mind of the most gifted animal appears almost ridicu- 

 lous. The fact is that our natural tendency is so much to assume the 

 utter non-existence of mind in animals, that, when we find evidence 

 of mind which we can not resist, we stand amazed at the discovery. 

 In many things, as we know, the inferior creatures are much more 

 clever than ourselves ; we could never build a nest like a bird, or make 

 a comb like a bee, or do ten thousand things which are being done 

 every day by spiders and beetles. But still thought in the highest 

 sense belongs to man. A dog sometimes looks as though he was think- 

 ing a thing out, and dog-stories are very wonderful ; but, after all, the 

 cleverest dog that ever lived yet has never been able to get beyond 

 " Bow-wow," and we may safely predict that no dog will ever acquire 

 even the simplest elements of human knowledge. I can not believe 

 that this power of thought can properly be described as the mere result 

 of phosphorus in the brain. That epigram, " No phosphorus, no 

 thought" strikes me as having in it more of smartness than of wisdom. 

 It is of course true that the brain is in some manner the oro-an of 

 thought, and phosphorus may be the most important element in the 

 formation of the brain ; but is not thought conceivable independently 

 of this particular machinery for making it possible to a material crea- 

 ture, just as motion is conceivable apart from horses or steam, or any 

 of the causes to which it is commonly due? Is there not a kind of 

 absurdity in regarding thought as the result of phosphorus, as real 

 as if we should say, what upon the same principle of philosophy we 

 might say, that truthfulness, kindness, modesty, were all functions of 

 phosphorus ? Nay, I do not know why we should not go further, and 

 assert that there could be no thought without carbon or without any 

 other element of which the human body is composed ; for you can have 

 no actual thought without a living creattire, and no living creature 

 without a body, and no body without carbon, .*. etc. q. e. d.* 



* I had not observed, when this was written, that the Archbishop of York had said 

 nearly the same thing. " Without time, no thought ; without oxygen, no thought ; with- 

 out water, no thought. All these are true, and they import a well-known fact, that man 

 who thinks is a creature in a material world, and that certain forms of matter are need- 



TOL. XVII. 3 



