578 THE SENSORIAL FUNCTIONS. 



Wonderful as is the formation of the bodily fabric, 

 and difficult as it is to collect its history, still 

 more marvellous is the progressive construction 

 of the human mind, and still more arduous the 

 task of tracing the finer threads which connect 

 the delicate web of its ideas, which fix its fleet- 

 ing perceptions, and which establish the vast 

 system of its associations ; and of following the 

 long series of gradations, by which its affections 

 are expanded, purified, and exalted, and the 

 soul prepared for its higher destination in a 

 future stage of existence. 



Here, indeed, we perceive a remarkable inter- 

 ruption to that regular gradation, which we have 

 traced in all other parts of the animal series ; 

 for between man and the most sagacious of the 

 brutes there intervenes an immense chasm, of 

 which we can hardly estimate the magnitude. 

 The functions which are purely vital, and are 

 necessary for even the lowest degree of sensitive 

 existence, are possessed equally by all animals : 

 in the distribution of the faculties of mere sen- 

 sation a greater inequality may be perceived : 

 the intellectual faculties, again, are of a more 

 refined and nobler character, and being less 

 essential to animal life, are dealt out by nature 

 with a more sparing and partial hand. Between 

 the two extremities of the scale we find an infi- 

 nite number of intermediate degrees. The more 

 exalted faculties are possessed exclusively by 



