242 Characteristics of Animals. [Oct., 



amounts in none save man to more than plurality as distinguish- 

 ed from individuality, and presumes in no shape the obscurest 

 conception of a scheme of rotation. The baited bull is ready to 

 cope with one horseman but not with half a dozen; the tiger, 

 a match for an hunter or two, recoils before a company. The 

 dog at dominoes is guided by the pictorial, and not by the nu- 

 merical sign, for he plays indifferently either piece, being the 

 number sought. What elephant ever solved the simplest mathe- 

 matical problem, as that " two and two make four?" Now man on 

 the contrary, calculates not the visible and tangible only, but over- 

 leaping the outposts of space-time, he would scale the azure 

 vault above to track the cometary whirls, or range the stellated 

 arch of the lacteal way, till dazzled by the fadeless splendor 

 of their fires, or lost in the abysmal swamp of their gyrations. 



Thus man by virtue of his generalising powers, as contrasted 

 with other orders among the host of living beings that walk the 

 earth, becomes invested with the prerogative of genius. 



'' Indulsit communis conditor illis 

 Hirtum animas, nobis animum quoque." 



But for the presence of man, what face would this terraqueous 

 Gib of ours present? Solitary wastes, arid plains, pestilent fens, 

 sombre forests, savage mountains and blighted fields — 



" A vast, immeasurable abyss, 

 Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild." 



Here the lion would make his habitation; here the owl would 

 hold his court; day resounding with the panther's screams, 

 night echoing to the growdings of bears; trees withering under 

 the locust, flowers wasting before the caterpillar. But when 

 the crowning work of creative energy unfolded into being, 

 then indeed the earth first " rose out of chaos." Then the 

 desert was made to blossom, then the wilderness resounded 

 with song. What has man done; rather what has he left 

 undone? While other tribes succumb to opposing agencies 

 from without, man has signalized his birth-right by subjugating 

 to himself such agencies. But for him the weak had been tram- 

 pled down or exterminated by the strong; now the huge elephant 



