14 An Inquiry respecting 



and above the lower, animal, or natural mind. But that brutes 

 do not possess this higher conscious faculty, or soul, is made 

 evident by this ; — that if a particular individual of a species did 

 •possess it, such individual would be necessarily raised by it, as 

 to its nature ; which does not in any case occur. Thus, with 

 respect to the gratitude and fidelity of the dog, no greater ap- 

 parent moral sagacity can be exercised by any animal ; yet being 

 totally unable to contemplate his gratitude or fidelity in the 

 abstract, as objects of a. superior perception and consciousness, 

 those virtues are to him as if they existed not : — to man alone 

 this moral consciousness is proper, to the animal it is absolutely a 

 non-entity; he is not in the smallest degree more moral on ac- 

 count of his apparent moral qualities, for they are indeed only 

 apparently his own, because they do not reach down, if I may be 

 allowed the expression, to the seat of his proper consciousness ; — 

 but consist in powers or energies which act above it: he possesses 

 an apparent moral sagacity, but without any moral consciousness or 

 perception concerning it. To make this plain by an example: the 

 dog, if he saves his master from drowning, or preserves his life iu any 

 more remarkable manner, such as that in the instance we have 

 before related, reflects not upon any moral nobleness or disinte- 

 restedness in the action ; he is not at all the more refined foi 

 having performed an action, which, morally considered, would 

 tend to raise his nature ; on the contrary, he lives on as before, 

 like the rest of his canine brethren, in no respect more elevated 

 in the scale of being ; and yet it is certain that in this action 

 his highest natural powers of proper volition, and mental dis- 

 crimination and comparison, which we may term moral sagacity, 

 have been brought into full exercise. 



But it will perhaps be objected, that animals experience delight 

 in the exercise of moral qualities as such ; the dog, for instance 

 in gratitude. I answer, that every animal must necessarily have a 

 delight annexed to that exercise of its powers by which it fulfils 

 the end of its being ; and the dog, as the natural guardian of man, 

 has natural inclinations implanted in him, for the purpose of render- 

 ing him such ; but his delight in the exercise of the inclinations, 

 even when they are directed to moral acts, is purely natural, and 



