INTRODUCTION. 27 



to tliat of sights hieroglyphics. JVriting is a suite of images 

 that relates to the sense of sight, by which we represent the 

 elementary sounds ; and by combining them, all the images 

 relative to the sense of hearing of which speech is composed ; 

 it is therefore only a mediate representation of ideas. 



This faculty of representing general ideas by particular 

 signs or images associated with them, enables us to retain dis- 

 tinctly, and to remember without embarrassment, an im- 

 mense number; and furnishes to the reasoning faculty and 

 the imagination innumerable materials, and to individuals 

 means of communication, which cause the whole species to 

 participate in the experience of each individual, so that no 

 bounds seem to be placed to the acquisition of knowledge ; it 

 is the distinguishing character of human intelligence. 



Although, with respect to the intellectual faculties, the most 

 perfect animals are infinitely beneath man ; it is certain that 

 their intelligence performs operations of the same kind. They 

 move in consequence of sensations received, are susceptible of 

 durable aflections, and acquire by experience a certain know- 

 ledge of things, by which they are governed independently of 

 actual pain or pleasure, and by the simple foresight of conse- 

 quences. When domesticated, they feel their subordination, 

 know that the being who punishes them may refrain from so 

 doing if he will, and when sensible of having done wrong, or 

 behold him angry, they assume a suppliant and deprecating 

 air. In the society of man they become either corrupted or 

 improved, and are susceptible of emulation and jealousy : they 

 have among themselves a natural language, which, it is true, 

 is merely the expression of their momentary sensations, but 

 man teaches them to understand another, much more compli- 

 cated, by which he makes known to them his will, and causes 

 them to execute it. 



To sum up all, we perceive in the higher animals a certain 

 degree of reason, with all its consequences, good and bad, and 

 which appears \p be about the same as that of children ere they 

 have learned to speak. The lower we descend from man the 

 weaker these faculties become, and at the bottom of the scale 

 we find them reduced to signs (at times equivocal) of sensibi- 



