368 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



so when He united mind to matter for a time, and made 

 each race of His creatures subservient to its own particular 

 laws, He deprived it of free agency in certain respects, and 

 placed an involuntary impulse in its stead, the real objects 

 of which impulse the creature itself is perhaps as uncon- 

 scious of, as matter is of its own gravitation ? 



We must confess the subject not within the reach of 

 our finite reason. Insatiable curiosity soon finds a limit to 

 its bold excursions, and when we once quit the world of 

 sense for that of immateriality, we soon find that all our 

 fancied discoveries are nought but hypothesis and conjec- 

 ture. The sacred volume, whose sole object is moral excel- 

 lence, and not abstracted knowledge, loses the character of 

 inspiration the moment it is perused with a view to the 

 latter alone. All the information it affords us is so much 

 only as is necessary to its higher objects of moral improve- 

 ment and faith. 



The accumulated intellectual inquiries of ages have 

 therefore left this part of the subject perfectly unexplained, 

 though, as in the case of almost all other impenetrable 

 mysteries, the successive hypotheses of men of reputation 

 have assumed the similitude of established truths, at least 

 with that preoccupied or idle portion of society, who take 

 things for granted on the authority of others, without the 

 trouble or the means of personal examination. The Car- 

 tesian philosophers, who attribute all the actions of 

 animals to mechanism, have certainly much more celebrity 

 than merit. 



L'impression se fait mais comment se fait-elle ? 



Selon eux par n£cessite 



Sans passion, sans volonte: 



L'animal se sent agite 

 De mouvements que le vulgaire appelle 

 Tristesse, joie, amour, plaisir, douleur cruelle; 



Ou quelqu'autre de ces etats. 



