276 THE AMERICAN BEAVER. 



assert and maintain a fundamental distinction be- 

 tween the mental principle of the human species and 

 that of the inferior animals. With its multiform defi- 

 nitions, and with the repeated enlargements of its 

 signification, it is wholly incapable of explaining the 

 phenomena of animal intelligence. As a vain attempt 

 to embody a system of philosophy in a definition, it 

 has proved a failure, as might have been expected. 

 When carried to its legitimate results, it endows every 

 animal with a supernatural principle, and makes 

 each of his intelligent acts little short of a miracle. 

 As a term or invention it is functus officio. With its 

 disuse the subject of Animal Psychology is freed from 

 all extraneous embarrassments, and the mental phe- 

 nomena manifested by the mutes can be investigated 

 and explained on philosophical principles. 



In the second place, we are led to recognize in the 

 mutes the possession of a free intelligence. In other 

 words, that they are endowed ,with a mental principle 

 which performs for them the same office that the 

 human mind does for man; that this principle is free 

 to act in view of motives and premises; and that it is 

 ample in measure to enable each animal, within his 

 sphere of action, to preserve his life and govern his 

 conduct. This conclusion seems necessarily to follow 

 from their possession of the organs of sense, from 

 their manifestation of the appetites and passions, and 

 from their ability to perceive, to remember, to reason, 

 and to will. 



And in the third and last place, as we are unable, 

 in similar specific acts, to find any difference in kind 

 between the manifestations of perception, appetite 

 and passion, memory, reason and will on the part of 



