ANIMAL PSYCHOLOGY. 279 



differences which characterize every organism. Most 

 of the arguments of philosophy in favor of the im- 

 mortality of man apply equally to the permanence of 

 this principle in other living beings." ^ 



With two or three further suggestions this discus- 

 sion will be concluded. It cannot be said that the 

 views, herein presented, tend to lower the personal 

 dignity of man; but, on the contrary, they rather 

 serve to distinguish his position. His great superior- 

 ity is abundantly assured by the bestowment of the 

 highest structural organization, of the fullest mental 

 endowments, and by the possession of articulate 

 speech. The distance which separates him from the 

 highest of the mutes is sufficiently immeasurable to 

 relieve his pride from all sense of humiliation from 

 the consciousness of sharing the principle of intelli- 

 gence with the latter. Sidney Smith has touched 

 this point with his satirical pen in the following lan- 

 guage : " I confess I feel myself so much at ease about 

 the superiority of mankind — I have such a marked 

 and decided contempt for the understanding of every 

 baboon T have ever seen — I feel so sure that the blue 

 ape without a tail will never rival us in poetry, paint- 

 ing, and music, that I see no reason whatever that 

 justice may not be done to the few fragments of soul 

 and tatters of understanding which they mny really 

 possess." The mental principle here derided, while 

 its possession is admitted, has, nevertheless, the in- 

 herent dignity of w^hich a thinking principle cannot 

 be divested. By his pre-eminent endowments, man 

 stands at the head of the animal kingdom, the great 



» Nat. Hist. U. S., i. 64. 



