AFFECTIONS OF ANIMALS. 



in man, though upon that particular branch of the 

 question it is not so expressly said that either the one 

 or the other acts from the judgment of reason. Yet, in 

 that affection of animals, they show as much conduct 

 as in any other ; and the stratagems to which they 

 resort in their combats of gallantry with each other, 

 show quite as much plan and purpose upon their part 

 as any other of their habits. 



That not the affections of animals merely, but the 

 whole of their conduct and economy, are wonderful 

 beyond our admiration, and perfectly beyond our imi- 

 tating, must be admitted ; but they are not more so 

 than the economy of plants, or the properties of inor- 

 ganic matter ; and, were it not that we are unable to 

 trace in the substances belonging to the vegetable or 

 the mineral kingdom, any of those resemblances in 

 form and in mode of action to the material part of 

 ourselves which we can trace in animals, there is 

 little doubt that we would also attribute reason to 

 them, so prone are we to make ourselves the standard 

 in all our judgments. 



But, if we carefully examine the matter, we are, in 

 all cases, able to discover, that the principles upon 

 which an animal acts, even in those displays of its 

 habits, whether in wild nature or under human train- 

 ing, to which we give the name of affections, are 

 nothing more than the common principles of organic 

 matter, namely, those of yielding wholly to present 

 circumstances, without any relation to the past, or any 

 assistance from it. Their lives pass away without 

 leaving any trace or any lesson that can be useful to 

 them as a guide upon future occasions, or transmitted 

 from one generation to another. As it is most truly 

 and emphatically said, " their memories perish ;" for 

 if the individual could profit by experience as man 

 profits, it is not possible to doubt that the wisdom, 

 which is transmissible from day to day, could not also 

 be transmittable from generation to generation. Yet 

 there is no instance of any one race of animals which 

 is a jot wiser, or a jot more foolish, than in the times 

 of its remotest ancestry. Under the same circum- 

 stances of climate, soil, seasons, food, weather, and all 

 else by which an animal in a state of nature can 

 be affected, the animal is similar in all ages, just as the 

 plant or the mineral, under circumstances exactly the 

 same, is exactly similar. 



That it can be turned and tutored, even to the per- 

 formance of those feats which we look upon as pro- 

 digies, is no proof of reason in the animal, but rather 

 the reverse, because it shows the perfect readiness 

 with which it obeys the circumstances in which it is 

 placed. The training is not conducted upon the prin- 

 ciples of reason, and yet the animals to which we are 

 most ready to concede that " inferior degree of rea- 

 son," are the very same species which we can train 

 most easily and completely. That we can train some 

 species more readily than others proves nothing in 

 favour either of the reason or the superior tractability 

 of the animals ; it merely proves mat we are better 

 acquainted with their physical wants, to which their 

 physical organisation is obedient. But, as the train- 

 ing is for our purposes, and not for any purpose 

 formed by the trained animal, we must see, that, if 

 the animal had reason and purpose, it would resist our 

 training, and cease to obey those circumstances to 

 which we have, from the knowledge of its habits, 

 taught it obedience. If there were any experience of 

 the past, and any interpretation of the future, in the 

 animal, it would certainly rebel. If the horse, which 



had been driven and flagged in harness yesterday, 

 pinched with hunger and pelted with rain, then shut 

 up for the night in a close and pestilential cellar, with 

 little to eat, and that little not the most wholesome, 

 had any memory of that treatment and if he had, he 

 would remember that it began with the harnessing 

 he would resist to the death rather than be yoked 

 again to-day. Horses do sometimes rebel ; but it is 

 momentary, like all their actions, and begins and ends 

 with the peculiar circumstance or combination of cir- 

 cumstances which forms its cause. 



Whether we consider the affections of animals as 

 the result of chemical and mechanical principles ap- 

 plicable both to living matter and to dead, or as the 

 result of reason and judgment on the part of the ani- 

 mals, we encounter difficulties of no ordinary kind. The 

 physical theory puts an end to animal life altogether 

 as a portion of creation which man can rationally 

 know and usefully turn to account ; and the hypo- 

 thesis of reason not only shelters the animal from 

 our knowledge and dominion, but reduces us to its 

 level ; to the peril, nay to the certain destruction, of 

 moral obligation and eternal hope ; for these are so 

 linked together that the one of them cannot exist 

 without the other. 



But when we consider j&s nature itself would point 

 out to us, if we would keep silence till we have used 

 our eyes, that the animal organisation merely stamps 

 a new character upon matter a character which 

 varies with the species of organisation ; and which, 

 while it wants the operation of that part of the laws 

 of the material creation which determines the powers of 

 dead matter, becomes far more se'nsible to other 

 parts of the same laws ; then we have only to find 

 out what these laws are, and how they operate, in 

 order to bring the energies of animal life as completely 

 within our knowledge and dominion as we do inani- 

 mate matter. 



Viewing the subject in this light greatly extends 

 the field both of study and of usefulness, makes them 

 both wide as the world, and varied as all that it con- 

 tains. At the same time it shows us that what has 

 been already accomplished is a mere nothing com- 

 pared with what yet remains to be done. Take the 

 list of any of the classes of animals which have been 

 seen and named, and their shapes, sizes, and colours 

 in part described ; and mark how very few have been 

 turned to useful purposes, even as so much dead 

 matter. Then turn to the few that have been domesti- 

 cated, and their affections in part Ascertained and 

 turned to account, and mark what services they have 

 rendered to man. The ox, the horse, the sheep, the 

 dog, the rein-deer, the camel, the elephant : these 

 and perhaps not as many more are the whole of the 

 mammalia that have been so studied as to be turned 

 to use when living ; and yet they have borne a most 

 important part, not only in the improvement of the 

 soil, but in producing and maintaining the civilisation 

 of man himself. But all animals have their peculiar 

 affection, and those affections have only to be studied 

 in order to their being added to the animals on the 

 list of our useful servants. 



But by thinking and judging of them as if they 

 were human beings, reasoning from the past, forming 

 plans for the future, and acting by other laws than 

 those of organised matter, we mar the heritage which 

 God has given us, neglect or destroy the servants 

 which he has assigned us. Thus, we often have to 

 toil when we might be superintending and admiring ; 



