34 ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
rank to its lowest. In all the other parts of 
the visible universe, as in that of which we 
are now speaking, we behold form and beauty 
the most ample, the most impressive, and the 
most ravishing ; but, in the animal, we have 
the superaddition of moral and of intellec- 
tual charms; we see creatures, not only 
beautiful but happy, and not only happy, 
but gentle, tender, compassionate, sympa- 
thising, and benevolent, or at least inno- 
cent, like the best, and like the fairest, among 
ourselves ; creatures reflecting back again, as 
it were, from earth to the uplifted skies, that 
love and that goodness which gives and which 
sustains their being; and creatures display- 
ing, too, that intellect, that wisdom, that in- 
genuity, which are the best types of the infi- 
nite wisdom, the almighty understanding, 
which ordained and which organized their 
being; and all this, accompanied by those 
manners—those movements of animated bo- 
dies—either sedate or sportive, either ex- 
pressing gaiety, or tranquil enjoyment,— 
and proclaiming thus the beneficence of the 
giver, and winning from our sympathies, and 
from our testimony to the sweetness, the great- 
