84 HUMAN NATURE AND BRUTE NATURE. 



course of nature and beyond our comprehension, it 

 still follows from the language of the sacred writers 

 that they at least supposed these brute creatures 

 capable of intelligence, an intelligence sufficient to 

 receive the divine commands and to avoid, so far as 

 they might, opposition to God's will. For how else 

 could there be any moral teaching in the circumstance 

 that ' the dumb ass speaking with man's voice forbad 

 the madness of the prophet ? ' How else can the mi- 

 racle seem anything else or anything better than a 

 piece of puerile conjuring ? But this faculty, which 

 the sacred writers therefore attribute to the brutes, 

 the faculty of hearing and obeying the voice of God, 

 is the basis of the highest intelligence, the basis of 

 all true morality and religion. 



That which we are now concerned to prove is, that 

 human reason is an outgrowth and development of a 

 faculty common to the whole animal creation; that 

 we are the heirs of the past in fact, as we are inheri- 

 tors of the future in hope ; that an incalculable mul- 

 titude of small advantages acquired in successive 

 generations has brought man to his present vantage- 

 ground of superiority ; and that this very footing of 

 advantage has now become in its turn simply the 

 starting - point for future improvement to an estate 

 indefinitely higher and better. It may well be im- 

 possible in a few minutes' discourse to do more than 

 indicate the bare outline of the proof; and even this 

 might seem inappropriate to the time and place, did 

 we not hope to show further that these opinions, 



