PERCEPTIONS OP ANIMALS. 405 



of the lower animals; and, unless cultivated and improved 

 by reason and education, would, of themselves, produce but 

 inconsiderable results. That of which the effects are most 

 conspicuous, and which is the foundation of all that is noble 

 and exalted in our nature, is the instinct of Sympathy. The 

 affections of the lower animals, even between individuals of 

 the same species, are observable only in a few instances: for 

 in general they are indifferent to each other's joys or suffer- 

 ings, and regardless of the treatment experienced by their 

 companions. The attachment, indeed, of the mother to her 

 offspring, as long as its wants and feebleness require her aid 

 and protection, is as powerful in the lower animals, as in the 

 human species: but its duration, in the former case, is con- 

 fined, even in the most social tribes, to the period of help- 

 lessness; and the animal instinct is not succeeded, as in man, 

 by the continued intercourse of affection and kind offices, 

 and those endearing relations of kindred, which are the 

 sources of the purest happiness of human life. 



While Nature has, apparently, frowned on the birth of 

 man, and brought him into the world weak, naked, and de- 

 fenceless, unprovided with the means of subsistence, and 

 exposed on every side to destruction, she has, in reality, im- 

 planted in him the germ of future greatness. The helpless- 

 ness of the infant calls forth the fostering care and ten- 

 derest affections of the mother, and lays the deep founda- 

 tions of the social union. The latent energies of his mind 

 and body are successively, though slowly developed. While 

 the vital organs are actively engaged in the execution of 

 their different offices, while the digestive apparatus is exer- 

 cising its powerful chemistry, while myriads of minute ar- 

 teries, veins, and absorbents are indefatigably at work in 

 building and modelling this complex frame, the sentient 

 principle is no less assiduously and no less incessantly em- 

 ployed. From the earliest dawn of sensation it is ever busy 

 in arranging, in combining, and in strengthening the im- 

 pressions it receives. Wonderful as is the formation of the 

 bodily fabric, and difficult as it is to collect its history, still 



