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Feelings, Aspirations, are simply oxidation in Cerebral tissues of so much 

 phosphorus. " Ephraim is joined to Idols ; let him alone." 



Physical Science (in fine) must not pretend to dictate to Mankind on 

 subjects which transcend her sphere. Knowledge of the external shows of the 

 Work], beautiful and valuable as it is, can never supersede our inner experience 

 of the life which underlies those forms. Man's knowledge of his own mental 

 acts, derived from reflection, cannot be set aside by observation, which, 

 pretending not to leave the region of the sensible, remains of necessity 

 incognisant of mind. But, indeed, I do not greatly fear that common sense 

 will ever seriously lend its ear to a Philosophy which "denying that we can 

 know ourselves, yet insists that we can decipher the Universe." 



One puzzling question remains : Wherein shall we place the mental 

 difference between Man and those lower animals which most closely approach 

 him in intelligence ] " The range of the passions of Animals is," says Agassiz, 

 " as extensive as that of the Human mind, and I am at a loss to perceive a 

 difference of kind between them, however much they may differ in degree, and 

 in the manner in which they are expressed. The gradations of the moral 

 faculties among the higher Animals and Man are, moreover, so imperceptible, 

 that to deny to the first a certain sense of responsibility and consciousness, 

 would certainly be an exaggeration of the difference between Amimals and 

 Man." Again Huxley writes, " No impartial judge can doubt that the roots, 

 as it wore, of those great faculties which confer on Man his immeasurable 

 superiority above all other animate things are traceable far down into the 

 animate World. The Dog, the Cat, and the Parrot return love for our love, 

 and hatred for our hatred. They are capable of shame, and of sorrow ; and 

 though they may have no logic nor conscious ratiocination, no one who has 

 watched their ways can doubt that they possess that power of rational 

 cerebration which evolves reasonable acts from the premises furnished by the 

 senses, a jirocess which takes fully as large a share as conscious reason in 

 Human activity," 



It is no subject for any one to dogmatise upon ; yet, until the Naturalists 

 show better reasons than any yet adduced, men will continue to believe that 

 Nature, in passing upward from the Brutes, to what is, as yet, her crowning 

 work upon this planet, has taken one of her great strides, and made a 

 difference in kind. And a sound Psychology, guiding the careful observation 

 of external nature, will here, I think, wholly confirm the views of common 

 sense. As Man is apparently distiguished chiefly by his capacity for moral 

 and spiritual ideas, it is in the faculties concerned with these that we ought to 

 seek the special Human characteristics. It is to three great faculties, that we 

 may trace Man's capability in this direction — -Self-consciousness, Conscience, 

 and Free Will. The first confers the idea of personality ; in the second 

 originates the sense of duty ; the third carries with it the feeling of responsi- 

 bility. United, these faculties confer the power of conscious self-regulation by 

 an ideal standard of perfection. Now, what ground have we for thinking that 

 any of the Brute Creation possess these great endowments, and share the vast 

 responsibilities which they involve 1 Agassiz, in the passage I have just cited, 

 vaguely talks of " a certain sense of responsibility and consciousness ; " and I 

 know it has been thought that, in the Dog, there is the beginning of a 

 Conscience ; the first dawning of a Moral nature. And if by Conscience be 

 meant the dread of punishment, the Dog, no doubt, possesses one ; and not the 

 Dog alonej but many other Animals. But, if the term be used in its true 

 sense to indicate perception of the difference in moral worth of several 

 competing principles of action, there is then no reason to believe that Conscience 

 is a faculty possessed by any of the lower creatures. Such of their actions as 

 present, at first sight ? the aspect of true voluntary self-restraint, are all to be - 



