M. Fred. Cuvier's denial of reflection to Brutes. 355 



Were brutes gifted with a gleam of proper intelligence, there 

 would be no restricting their exercise of it, and it would, in all 

 probability, in the initiatory state of general improvement to which 

 such a principle would give rise, lead the more sagacious kinds 

 sometimes to manifest their talent in a whimsical manner. We 

 might perhaps, in this state of things, hear of Monkeys setting 

 fire to woods, or travellers tents, for the purpose of warming them- 

 selves ; or the pha?uomena, not merely of Dancing Dogs, but of 

 Dogs for dancing masters might become familiar : indeed, attri- 

 buting the actions of the Dog, to proper conscious intelligence, 

 the fable of the " Twa Dogs" who 



" Wi' social nose whyles snuff 'd an' snowkit; 

 Whyles mice an' moudieworts they howkit; 

 Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, 

 An' worry'd ither in diversion : 

 Until wi' dafRn weary grown, 

 Upon a knowe they sat them down, 

 Alt' there began a lang digression. 

 About the lords o' the creation ;" Burns, 



must, if we would preserve consistency, be struck out of the list 

 of moral impossibilities. 



M. Fred. Cuvier virtually advocates the truth of the view here 

 presented : for it would be impossible for brutes to act in a single 

 instance from essential or proper intelligence, unless they posses- 

 sed a free principle ; and if they possessed this principle, it must 

 include that very attribute of reflection which he is so strenuous 

 in denying them ; and which, as we formerly observed, can only 

 be regarded as an attribute of man's free faculty of intelligence. 

 Upon this subject he beautifully observes : 



'* Mais, ce qui nous paroit hors de doute, c'est que tous les ani- 

 maux sans exception sont depourvus du sens intime de la per- 

 ception du moi et de la faculte de reflechir ; c'est-a-dire, de con- 

 siderer intellectuellement, par un retour sur eux-memes, leurs 

 propres modifications, ils ignorent qu'ils recoivent I'impression 

 des corps extericurs, qu'ils pensent, qu'ils agissent; les actcs de 

 leur esprit, comme leur movemens de leur corps, n'ont que des 

 causes exterieurs. Depourvus ainsi de toule connoissance, ils le 



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