HUMAN AND BRUTE ACTION COMPARED. 41 



perhaps impossible to establish a radical distinction in genere be- 

 tween the two classes of effects, but there is an essential difference 

 between the motive of action which calls out the energies of civ- 

 ilized man and tlie mere appetite w^hich controls the hfe of the 

 beast. The action of man, indeed, is frequently followed by un- I 

 foreseen and undesired results, yet it is nevertheless guided by a ' 

 self-conscious will aiming as often at secondary and remote as at | 

 immediate objects. The wild animal, on the other hand, acts in- : 

 stinctively, and, so far as we are able to perceive, always with a ! 

 view to single and direct purposes. The backwoodsman and the 

 beaver ahke fell trees ; the man, that he may convert the forest 

 into an olive grove that will mature its fruit only for a succeed- 

 ing generation ; the beaver, that he may feed upon the bark of the 

 trees or use them in the construction of his habitation. The ac- 

 tion of brutes upon the material world is slow and gradual, and 

 usually hmited, in any given case, to a narrow extent of territory. 

 Nature is allowed time and opportunity to set her restorative 

 powers at work, and the destructive animal has hardly retired 

 from the field of his ravages before nature has repaired the dam- 

 ages occasioned by his operations. In fact, he is expelled from 

 the scene by the very efforts which she makes for the restoration 

 of her dominion. Man, on the contrary, extends his action over 

 vast spaces, his revolutions are swift and radical, and his devasta- 

 tions are, for an almost incalculable time after he has witlidrawn 

 the arm that gave the blow, irreparable. 



The form of geographical surface, and very probably the cli- 

 mate, of a given country, depend much on the character of the 

 vegetable hfe belonging to it. Man has, by domestication, greatly, 

 changed the habits and properties of the plants he rears ; he has- 

 by voluntary selection, immensely modified the forms and quali- 

 ties of the animated creatures that serve him ; and he has, at the 

 same time, completely rooted out many forms of animal if not of 

 vegetable being.* What is there in the influence of brute life 



* Whatever may be thought of the modification of organic species by nat- 

 ural selection, there is certainly no evidence that animals have exerted upon 

 any form of life an influence analogous to that of domestication upon plants, 

 quadrupeds and birds reared artificially by man ; and this is as true of unfore- 

 seen as of purposely efEected improvements accomplished by voluntary selec- 

 tion of breeding animals. 



It is true that nature employs birds and quadrupeds for the dissemination of 



