342 ZOOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 



If these principles are well founded, they appear to me to be of the 

 highest importance ; for not only do they correct our mistakes as to 

 the phenomena of hfe and organisation and the faculties to which these 

 phenomena give rise, but they set a limit to the marvels created by 

 our imagination ; and they give a truer and higher idea of the Supreme 

 Author of all existing things, by disclosing to us the simple method 

 that he has adopted for working the wonders of which we are witnesses. 



Hence the intimate feehng of existence possessed by animals which 

 have the faculty of feehng but not that of inteUigence, confers upon 

 them at the same time an inner power, which only works through the 

 emotions called up by the harmony of the nervous system, and which 

 causes them to carry out actions without any co-operation of the will. 

 But such animals as possess both the faculty of feeling and that of 

 intelligence, have this advantage over the first : that the inner power, 

 which inspires their actions, is susceptible of receiving its driving 

 emotions either through sensations produced by internal impressions 

 and wants that are felt, or through a will which, though more or less 

 dependent, is always the result of some act of intelHgence. 



We shall now consider more attentively this singular internal power, 

 which confers the faculty of acting on such animals as possess it : 

 the next chapter, which is devoted to this purpose, may be regarded 

 as a completion of the present. 



