Analysis of Dr. Hancock's Theory/. 165 



*' Whence is that ? From this it follows, that io leason implies 

 superior intelligence and the power of attaining to the knowledge 

 of a First Cause, — or it implies a faculty which potentially includes 

 this knowledge ; — hence the universality of human belief in a Su- 

 perior Power, — and hence, if brutes could reason at all, they also 

 would know and contemplate a First Cause — or a God ! — for if 

 they possessed the f acult j potentialli/f it would be developed ac- 

 tually^ as in the case of man : — hence also it follows, conversely, 

 that if they understood human language, or any language that can 

 properly be considered a language, they would be men in na- 

 ture though beasts in form. It may thus be deduced, that what 

 are Moral and Rational Perceptions in Man, must be merely Na- 

 tural or Instinctive Perceptions in the Brute : — and it would be 

 equally philosophical to suppose the Beaver saying to himself, " I 

 must build a house to live in, near the water, and lay up a store of 

 twigs," as to suppose the Dog to say to himself, " I am going a 

 hunting to-day.'' In a word, if the ideas of brutes be the same in 

 kind with those of man, they must be embodied in a tacit but real 

 language, — a language as real as that of man himself. For it 

 appears certain that a creature capable of regarding an external 

 object, and of saying, or what amounts to the same, of thinking 

 of such object — "that is," would also be capable of saying 

 or thinking further respecting such object — " that is blue," or, 

 that is green ;" and the forms of language thus employed in tacit 

 thought being essential to such perceptions, their possessor must be 

 supposed capable of affixing signs to ideas ; and hence, if gifted 

 with the means of articulation, as some animals are, it requires no 

 stretch of the imagination to suppose him reasoning outright ; or 

 for example's sake, taking up, with a slight variation in language, 

 the theme of the disputants on the colours of the Chamaeleon, and 

 saying to a companion equally well versed in vocables 



I see it, Sir, as well as you. 

 And must again affirm it blue. 



And upon these principles, indeed, we might yield credence to the 

 story told by Locke, and apparently believed by Prince Maurice, 



