1846.] Characteristics of Animals. 243 



and the fierce rhinoceros, under whose feet man is but a grass- 

 hopper, are subdued to his service or awed into distance. The 

 craggy mountain has been cleft asunder. The earthquake's 

 abysmal chasm has been arched over, the " caves of the earth" 

 have been laid open, rivers have been turned from their courses 

 and seas hedged in by barriers of walls, the turreted peaks of 

 the rolling clouds have been channeled with a?rial boats, the 

 sun himself has been spanned as with a measuring reed, and the 

 thunderbolt even, ictus fulmineus, has been tamed to the guid- 

 ance of a little hand, and sound, and thought, and speech, have 

 been made to sweep, with sunbeam swiftness from north to south 

 and from west to east, along the chain links of the liohtnino;! 



The contrast widens as we look into the interior chambers of 

 man's spiritual frame. The pleasures of sense, the transcient de- 

 lights of the hour — the " being's end and aim" to other animals — 

 seem to man but as intercalary points in the vast cycle of frui- 

 tionary themes, among which his soul is fain to expatiate. Man 

 ever aspiring after the unseen and untried finds his solace and 

 encouragement in the " earnest expectation" of that future; but 

 where is the dog or the elephant, oi the chimpanze, that con- 

 ceives of a pleasure or a pain beyond the fleeting hour? 



" Their raptures now that wildly flow 

 No yesterday nor morrow know; 

 'Tis man alone, that joy descries 

 With forward, and reverted eyes." 



The inferior orders, incapable of penetrating beyond the ves- 

 tibule of generalization, are in consequence unequal to the con- 

 ception of an extraneous, impalpable, aboriginal cause endued 

 with personality, omniscience and ubiquity, and of the incidental 

 conviction of human dependence and amenability, are for like 

 reason unsusceptible of the experiences and enjoyments at- 

 taching to an existence essentially spiritual. Are they then pos- 

 sessed of a soul? Yes, but of a sensuous, perishable one. Has 

 man then no pre-eminence above a beast? " If a man die shall 

 he live?" Shall there be a palin genesia of the human soul in 

 a new theatre of existence? Nay, says the Pyrrhonist, " as one 



