SO An Inquiry respecting 



hibited by the Hamster Rat, (Mus Cricetus). The principle 

 of foresight as exhibited in this animal, who lays up food, " not 

 for his winter's support, (since during that season he always 

 sleeps,) but for his nourishment previously to the commencement, 

 and after the conclusion of his state of torpidity,"* cannot be con- 

 sidered as a principle of which he has any consciousness what- 

 ever ; for had the Hamster a conscious perception and apprecia- 

 tion of such a principle, he would be led to apply it in other 

 cases, as well as in that of storing up food for the preservation of 

 his life ; but as if to demonstrate the irrationality of the animal, 

 he attacks with blind fury the largest quadruped that comes in 

 his way ; instead of seeking safety by flight, like most other 

 creatures in whom the principle of caution is observable ; and 

 which a rational foresight would necessarily impel him to, when; 

 menaced with destruction by a gigantic adversary. 



The Arctic Fox, as Crantz relates, enters the water and splashes 

 with his foot to bring up the fish, which he then seizes ; and the 

 Greenland women, profiting by his example, employ with success 

 a similar artifice : the Fox surely does not reflect either upon the 

 act or the means as the women must do ; in him the act is 

 evidently spontaneous, and does not flow from any thought, of 

 which analysis is predicable. 



The limitation of the brute mind, and its exclusion from in- 

 tellectual consciousness, or proper reflection, is also apparent in 

 the inutility of speech to such animals as can be taught to 

 articulate, in effecting any thing beyond imitation ; evincing 

 clearly the incommunicability of the power of reason to the 

 creature; — while, at the same time, it illustrates the power of 

 the influence of the human mind, as exerted upon the mind and 

 faculties of the animal, and ascertains the limit of that influence. 

 There can be no reasoning without reflection, no reflection 

 without intellectual freedom : if this reflection and this freedom 

 were the attribute of the brute, — how, I ask, should we deny him 

 a share of human consciousness. Does this consciousness, in kind, 

 exist in the brute mind ? and are they endowed with it for no 

 other purpose than to produce,— what it could not fail to. pro- 

 * Bing. Anim. Bioj. vol. i, 452. 



