ALL OTHER CREATURES AFRAID OF MAN. 161 



hilating the weaker ; and the dread of man's supremacy 

 is no more. The weakest, the very insect, then assails 

 him, and at times becomes the victor. Does any con- 

 ceivable or visible cause exist from which this awe can 

 proceed ? Does " his sublime countenance, contem- 

 plative of the heavens," the image that he bears, or his 

 deportment, afford any ascendent influence productive 

 of this impression ? In bodily power he is more weak 

 and obnoxious to injury than many that shrink from a 

 contest with him ; his natural arms and means of pro- 

 tection are inferior often to those of the beings which 

 he subdues ; yet from an undefinable cause he is om- 

 nipotent over all. Terror in man most commonly arises 

 from a knowledge of power, apprehension of ills from 

 accident, or fear of the evil inclinations of another. 

 What the fowls of the air, or the beasts of the field per- 

 ceive, or are impressed with, we know not ; but none 

 of these causes can exist in a brute mind without in- 

 telligence or experience. These are the reflections of a 

 thoughtful hour. . The cause, " though a man labor to 

 seek out, yet shall he not find it ; and though a man 

 think to know it, yet shall he not be able." But the 

 contemplation is not wholly an unworthy occupation of 

 time. All ages, all people, must have perceived the 

 admitted power and universal dread occasioned by the 

 presence of man, but no reason, no motive, could have 

 been assigned for it; but in these days, by revelation, 

 we know the cause, have impressed upon our minds the 

 immutable truth of that Being which ordained, and of 

 that volume which has proclaimed his mandate to us. 

 But man has the power assigned him of calling to his 

 aid a visible object of dread, confided to him from the 

 earliest periods ; and he alone of all created beings has 

 the agency of this terror. All the inferior orders have a 

 fear of it, and flee from it, even when its effects could 

 never have been known or experienced, but which ap- 

 pears to be innate and inseparable from all. Man alone 

 has the knowledge, the means of calling heat into ac- 

 tion ; and though warmth is the delight, and essential 

 to the being of most, yet, rouse it into active operation 

 producing fire, and terror and flight succeed enjoyment 

 O2 



