ORDER PACHYDERM AT A. 373 



tual powers we possess; we cannot therefore examine, 

 compare, and understand it. It is impossible for us to 

 study the principle of brute actions anywhere but in our 

 own actions, and the limits of our intellect are also the 

 limits of the intellectual world. We can explain, dis- 

 tinguish, and appreciate the nature of the actions of brutes, 

 only by means of the light which a study of ourselves affords. 

 It is of the utmost importance to bear this truth always in 

 mind. The comparison of our actions with theirs can be 

 our only guide to a determination of their character. What 

 we are conscious in ourselves to be the proximate cause of 

 the one, we may, nay must, from analogy presume to be 

 that of the other; we have in fact, no other means of judg- 

 ing. Why should we suppose two dissimilar causes for two 

 similar effects? It is in vain that we are told that the cause 

 of one is dissimilar to that of the other: let those who assert 

 this, prove it if they can ; in the interim let us content 

 ourselves with abiding by the rules of sound philosophy, and 

 not suppose an unknown cause, when one that is known 

 will explain the phenomena. In fact, if the Deity had 

 created a different faculty for the actions of animals, from 

 that to which the determination of our own is owing, all 

 our endeavours to discover it would be utterly in vain ; it 

 would escape the most piercing ken of human intelligence, 

 and remain an everlasting enigma. 



Not, therefore, to attempt any definition of a principle 

 in which we are supposed not to participate, which is totally 

 abstracted from us, and on which therefore we can have no 

 definite notions, we shall proceed to lay before the reader 

 a few well-authenticated instances of what, in common 

 conversation, would be called the sagacity of the Elephant, — 

 a word we believe to be strictly applicable to the cases in 

 question, which appear to us to have no connexion or 

 affinity with instinct, properly speaking, and at the same 

 time sufficiently to evince the limited reason of the species 



