274 CLASS MAMMALIA. 



Nay, the mental superiority, so far from being the effect of 

 the more perfect organization, may, for aught we can tell, 

 be its proximate cause. There may be, there probably are 

 original differences in mind itself, which are much in- 

 creased by cultivation or neglect. Of the very influential 

 agency of mind on matter, we are far from being destitute 

 of the most sufficient evidence. And it may certainly be 

 allowed us to suppose that the soul has some power and 

 tendency to modify its material organ, and that not only by 

 the application of such physical means as it acquires a 

 knowledge of by observation and reason, but also by the 

 peculiar virtue of its own essential elementary nature, and 

 by its innate power and direct mode of energising on the 

 body. This opinion is at least as rational, and as well 

 supported by proof as its opposite, and beyond all com- 

 parison more elevated, more noble and more consolatory, 

 more worthy of the omnipotence, the wisdom, and the 

 unbounded benevolence of Divinity, more calculated for 

 the improvement, and more consonant with the character 

 of man. 



But, whatever may become of this last speculation, it is 

 incompatible neither with morality nor religion, to be- 

 lieve, that when the Deity, in his infinite and inscrutable 

 wisdom, bestows a certain mental character on any animal, 

 he may also bestow certain physical properties, to manifest 

 its e xistence, and be subservient to its tendencies. We 

 use the term mental without hesitation, in reference to the 

 lower animals, for we do not believe that even they are 

 mere machines, or that the approximations which they ex- 

 hibit to human intellect, are the result of organization 

 alone, any more than our own mental faculties. 



To return from this hypothetical digression, to matters 

 of fact. M. T. Cuvier found that the craniums of these 

 quadrumana differed considerably in form from those of 



