MAN’S PREEMINENCE. 
HERE is a popular tradition that somewhere in the 
Scriptures we are taught that of all living denizens of 
the earth, man alone possesses a spirit,and that he alone 
survives in spirit after the death of the material body. Were 
this the truth, no room would exist for argument to those 
who profess belief in a literal rendering of the Scriptures, 
and who base their faith upon that literal belief How- 
ever much sucha statement might seem to controvert all 
ideas of benevolence, justice and common-sense, such believ- 
ers would feel bound to accept it on trust, andto wait a future 
time for its full comprehension. 
Even the possession of reason is denied by many persons 
to animals, their several actions being ascribed to the power 
of instinct, and it is therefore not the least bit strange that 
all but a comparatively few should believe that when an 
animal dies, its life-principle dies too. The animating 
power, they claim, is annihilated, while the body is resolved 
into its constituent elements so as to take form in other 
bodies. 
Two passages of Scripture, one in the Psalms and the 
other in Ecclesiastes, are almost entirely, if not wholly, 
responsible for this belief. The former, which runs in the 
authorized version, ‘“ Nevertheless, man being in honor, 
abideth not; he is like the beasts that perish,” is that which 
is generally quoted as decisive of the whole question. 
“Man, being in honor, hath no understanding, but is com- 
pared to the beasts that perish” is another translation, but 
differs not materially from the other. The second passage 
