CONCLUSION. 753 



reasoning powers with which they are furnished, and yet be 

 placed so far beneath the human species in all the attributes 

 which we term mental, as to indicate that a far different des- 

 tiny has been ordained for Man and for them in the scheme 

 of Universal Providence. The faculties which we term 

 Instinct in the lower animals, are perfect with relation to 

 the ends to be served, but do not admit of continued improve- 

 ment ; and all the knowledge which these animals can ac- 

 quire by means of experience and instruction, is as nothing, 

 when compared to that at which improvable reason can ar- 

 rive. Even in what relates to the mere supply of animal 

 wants, scarcely a parallel can be drawn between the endow- 

 ments of man and the inferior animals. Not one of them 

 can construct a wheel, a screw, or the simplest machine, or 

 form the rudest weapon for capturing its prey : not one of 

 them has acquired the art of clothing itself, or ministering 

 to its wants by other means than the Instincts with which 

 Nature has already supplied it : not one of them has learned 

 the means of warming its body by fire, or procuring for itself 

 an artificial day, when the light of the sun is withdrawn. 

 Man alone has the power of associating every idea which 

 arises in his mind with signs and sounds, and thus he alone 

 can connect proposition with proposition to the remoter con- 

 sequences. He alone can cultivate science and improve the 

 arts, and communicate to another age the results of his rea- 

 soning and experience. He alone, of all living creatures, 

 can distinguish right from wrong, and truth from falsehood, 

 in the degree which can render him an accountable being : 

 And he alone, we must believe, can trace, in the works of 

 Nature, the harmony of universal design, and so be conduct- 

 ed to the conclusion that there is a First Cause, and an Om- 

 nipotent Providence. 



3c 



