CH.ii.] PRINCIPAL GENERA OF EXISTING ANIMALS. 325 



from this point of view, it is readily seen how the operation of 

 the mysterious and God-like element of the instincts (263), may 

 lead us to erroneous conclusions in attributing them to mind 

 and external sensations. 



626. An argument for the existence of animals endowed 

 with mind may be drawn from analogy. In the scale of crea- 

 tion, nature ascends by successive degrees of perfection. From 

 physical bodies she constructs natural mechanical machines, as 

 elastic matter, capillaries. To these, by means of the intimate 

 connection and combined action of many mechanical machines 

 for a common object, or in other words, by means of organisa- 

 tion, she communicates organic forces, and thus from them she 

 forms organised bodies, such as plants and growths. Organised 

 bodies are undoubtedly capable of three successive degrees of 

 perfection. If by means of animal machines, they be endowed 

 with the vis nervosa, they attain the grade of insentient 

 animal (609 — 611). If to this a brain be superadded, and 

 the vis nervosa determine and act in accord with a conceptive 

 force, it becomes then a purely sensational animal (605, 620) ; 

 and when in this class the conceptive force attains to that per- 

 fection, that it regulates itself and its body independently of 

 the vis nervosa, then it is a rational animal, such as is man 

 (619). If there were no insentient animals, the scale of nature 

 would be defective in that one point. Now this is very im- 

 probable, and, consequently, it is in accordance with a perfect 

 creative scale, to consider microscopic creatures, conchifera, 

 and insects, as insentient animals. 



627. There are degrees of perfection in every genus of 

 animal. A mathematician and a hottentot, equally belong to 

 the class of rational beings. Both comprehend the multipli- 

 cation table, both can think of God, and distinguish between 

 right and wrong ; both in short are capable of ideas and acts, 

 to which the most intelligent monkey can never attain. But 

 what a difference between the two, and how much the one is 

 more nearly allied to the brute than the other ! A bee, an ant, 

 a cheese-mite, are in the same class of insentient animals as a 

 snail, an oyster, or a microscopic animal, but how intelligently 

 and perfectly the vis nervosa acts in the former, how imper- 

 fectly and awkwardly in the latter ! Those are nearly allied 

 to the sensational animals, whose actions they imitate so 



