ORDER PACHYDERMATA. 371 



Many persons are of opinion that to admit brutes to be 

 endowed with reason, the same in kind with ours, however 

 inferior in degree, is an insult to man: but let them endea- 

 vour to analyze this opinion ; to separate its component 

 parts ; and the whole will probably be found resolvable into 

 pride. This bane of society, this curse of all civil rela- 

 tions, not only pervades social life, but contaminates all our 

 intercourse with the whole range of creation. The invalid, 

 writhing under a complication of that frightful list of 

 corporeal maladies which follow in the train of civilization 

 and improvement, is with difficulty persuaded that he has 

 a body in all respects the same, only more exposed to acute 

 sensation, as that of his humble canine companion: he for- 

 gets also that this companion is capable of a degree of at- 

 tachment and gratitude, qualifications surely of a mental 

 character, which, while they will survive the severest shocks 

 of adversity, triumph over every temptation, and often 

 shame the frail friendship of proud, reasonable man. The 

 material part of man, though most harmoniously and aptly 

 adapted for his mental powers and mode of life, is in fact 

 in many respects beneath the average level of animal or- 

 ganization. Why then should we, who are on a level with 

 or beneath other animals in some respects, on the one hand 

 be so unwilling to acknowledge the justice of their very 

 humble comparative intellectual pretensions on the other ? 



One of the deepest thinkers of this country, the cele- 

 brated Locke, was willing to concede the reasoning faculty 

 in a restricted form to brutes. " It seems," says he, " as 

 evident to me that some of them do in certain instances 

 reason, as that they have sense." 



Mammalia, birds, and fishes are capable of intoxication ; 

 and in one of the following anecdotes of the species which we 

 must not forget is more immediately before us, the elephant, 

 it will be seen that a promise to the brute to make it drunk 

 with arrack, induced it to work when threats had failed. 



