2334 Reason and Instinct. 



and the probable possession of a degree of the former by other fami- 

 lies of animated creation besides the human. The moment I began 

 to contend for the doctrine that certain brutes are evidently endowed 

 with something that is certainly more than instinct, and by no means 

 so certainly less than reason, I have once and again been met with 

 the objection, " No, I can never admit that ; for if admitted you 

 destroy a great part of the distinction between man and the brutes : 

 you bring the latter far too near the standard of the former to be 

 agreeable." And so ends the matter, of course ; for there is no scope 

 for reasoning when once such a position as this is laid down. 



It certainly seemed to me somewhat strange that objectors of this 

 class should not only be insensible to the fact, that they themselves 

 were by no means taking the best way of proving their superiority as 

 reasoning creatures by urging such an objection as this, but insensi- 

 ble, likewise, to the fact that their objection involved both fallacy and 

 glaring absurdity. For, supposing the question raised, " Are not cer- 

 tain animals possessed of something which is more than instinct, and 

 which is, moreover, either reason, or so much like it as to be easily 

 mistaken for it ? " I ask, Is it not plain that from the day of Creation 

 the relative position of man and beast have been unalterably fixed ? 

 Whether we admit or whether we deny the animal to be endowed 

 with certain attributes, — can our admission or our denial be in the 

 least tittle efficient towards altering such unalterable relative position ? 

 Unquestionably not! There is the gulf which cannot be passed over 

 between man and beast, — a gulf not placed by man, and which 

 nothing that can be said or done by man can either narrow or bridge 

 over. The man who has suffered from the pecuniary propensities of 

 the Pennsylvanian " men of drab " might as well fear lest the Atlantic 

 should be materially narrowed by the admission that, after all, there 

 are many honest men and true in the family of Brother Jonathan, — 

 as the sensitive stickler for human superiority over the brute creation 

 in every point, be apprehensive lest that superiority should be affected 

 by the concession of reasoning powers to certain members of the 

 brute family. For facts are facts, whether we concede that they are 

 such, or whether we dispute and deny them. If a town is currently 

 said to be fifty miles distant from another, while in point of fact it is 

 only forty-five, no one, I suppose, will undertake to say that these 

 towns are actually brought nearer to one another than they were, 

 when once the distance between them has been demonstrably ascer- 

 tained to be forty-five miles, instead of fifty, as was wont to be alleged. 

 And so with respect to the brute. If any individuals or species are 



