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387 



particular form of organisation, and one particular 

 class of instincts should invariably accompany each 

 other ; yet the constancy of the latter accompani- 

 ment, to which in wild nature there is not one excep- 

 tion, at once shows the perfection of the system, and 

 that that system is altogether one of material nature, 

 varying in the instincts which it possesses, and in the 

 actions and habits to which those instincts give rise, 

 in exactly the same proportion as the organisation 

 varies ; so that when we have once made ourselves 

 duly acquainted with the relation between instinct or 

 habit and organic structure we are never at a loss in 

 assigning to any species its proper place in the system, 

 even although all that we knovy of it be merely one 

 dead specimen fetched from the opposite side of the 

 globe, about the habits of which the bringer can tell 

 us nothing. But as the instinct and the habit of the 

 organised being are thus constant to the organ, in 

 the same manner as the mechanical and chemical pro- 

 perties of any piece of inorganic matter are constant 

 to its mechanical size and consistency and its che- 

 mical constitution, we are warranted in concluding 

 that the animal is nothing more than matter, deriv- 

 ing peculiar properties from a peculiar organisation, 

 just as a chemical compound is nothing but matter, 

 deriving peculiar properties from the peculiar num- 

 ber and proportions of its ingredients. 



For some account of the rationale of taming ani- 

 mals, so as to make it appear to superficial observa- 

 tion that their instincts are altered, we must refer 

 to the article DOMESTICATION ; but we may here 

 remark, that, as animals never tame themselves, nor 

 those of the same species each other (for the use of 

 tame elephants in the capture of wild ones, and some 

 analogous cases, may be explained upon very different 

 principles), and as mankind, taken as an entire race, 

 must be self-educated, taming and educating are not 

 at all operations of the same kind. We may be said to 

 tame not only vegetables, but inorganic matter, much 

 in the same way, though not of course by the same 

 means as we tame animals. Every cultivated field 

 furnishes us with an example of the taming or do- 

 mestication of plants ; and the products of all the 

 arts show us how inorganic, or, at all events, dead 

 matter, may be tamed. The cases are not the same 

 in their details, because the subjects operated upon 

 are different, but the principle is in all the same : the 

 subject is placed under new circumstances, and the 

 result is a change in so far as the new circumstances 

 are calculated to effect that which man wishes to alter 

 in order to suit his purpose, but not any further. Thus 

 taming, or domestication, is nothing more than a 

 peculiar application of that which is learned from 

 experience, either in simple observation or in ex- 

 periment ; and all that it proves is, that the creature 

 which is domesticated is so far obedient to circum- 

 stances, and the right ones have been resorted to ; 

 but the change is no more brought about by anything 

 in the creature itself than animals bring about of 

 their own purpose or volition those changes of sea- 

 sons which are accompanied by changes in their 

 habits, and often in their appearance. 



If the dead body of a human being, which bear 

 upon it no marks by which the particular tribe to 

 which it belonged, or of the mode of life which it had 

 followed, were brought before all the naturalists in 

 the world, they could not, by the most profound 

 knowledge of the relation between structure and 

 habit, which is so easily and clearly traceable in 



every other animal, come to the smallest conclusion 

 as to what had been the habits of that human being 

 when alive. The houseless tenant of the wild wood 

 and the dweller in the most elaborately formed and 

 luxuriant palace, the king and the beggar, the philo- 

 sopher and the fool, the man adorned with every 

 virtue and the villain stained by every crime, all 

 become the same in death ; or if there is any expres- 

 sion on the countenance of the dead body, it is rather 

 that of the means of death than of the manner of life. 

 Every one conversant with the subject knows that if 

 the greatest hero falls by a gunshot wound which is 

 instantly mortal, his features are as much relaxed and 

 subdued as if he had died of fright ; while death, 

 produced by transfixing with a spear, will knit and 

 stiffen the features of the veriest coward into an ex- 

 pression of heroism. 



The organisation of man has, therefore, nothing 

 farther of a positive nature to tell than that he is 

 man ; but the negative eloquence of its silence in 

 other respects is most important as well as most 

 impressive. It speaks of the man, the active, the 

 reasoning, and therefore the accountable being, as 

 the empty sepulchre does of the body which was laid 

 therein " He is not here ;" and thus the very death 

 of the body bears testimony to the immortality of the 

 spirit. 



We should now proceed to the structural part of 

 the argument, that which shows, from the organisa- 

 tion of the human body, that that body is not in itself 

 a perfect being, and that, without the operation of 

 the mind, it could not maintain its place, or even 

 exist in the world. But this article has already ex- 

 tended to a greater length than could have been 

 wished ; though the great importance of the subject, 

 the most deeply interesting which can occupy the 

 human powers, and one in which we are all equally 

 interested, together with the novel mode in which it 

 is treated, and the perfect originality, in so far as the 

 author knows, of some of the arguments, may perhaps 

 be admitted in excuse of an additional paragraph or 

 two. If we omitted or passed slightly over this part 

 of the subject, we should consider our duty to the 

 public but ill performed by any mere account of ani- 

 mated nature, even if it emanated from ten times the 

 knowledge, and were drawn up with ten times the 

 ability, to which the writer of this article can have 

 any pretension. We have often regretted, upon 

 reading works on natural history, which were in every 

 other respect worthy of our warmest admiration and 

 gratitude, that they stopped short of or blinked this 

 question, as if it formed no part of that very subject 

 in the study of which it is almost the first question 

 that arises to an inquiring mind. And when we have 

 found material nature set forth with all the truth of 

 philosophy, and all the fascination of eloquence, with 

 the structure and functions of the human body among 

 the rest, but without one allusion to the immortal part 

 of man's compound nature, we have momentarily felt 

 that thrill of dreadful and indescribable horror which 

 " the dream of annihilation," how momentary soever 

 may be its visit, never fails to inflict; and we have 

 felt disposed to address our material instructors in 

 language somewhat similar to that in which queen 

 Katharine addresses the cardinals : 



"Ye turn me intn no/hint;: \vo upon ye, 

 And all such (alse professors ! " 



though there was no falsehood in the case, and no 



desire of concealing the truth, but merely the custom, 



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