THE HOUSE-SPARROW'S SPEECH. 289 



How keep us in a putrid bath ! 



Restrain, I you beseech, your wrath ! 



That all much suffer, many die, 



You know, I ween, as well as I.* 



From Birds, to Beasts, to Fish, might pass—* 



Tell how he treats the horse, the ass — 



The bull how worries — and how eelis 



He skins alive — what crimp'd cod feels. 



But such a catalogue — so dire 



Would only more inflame your ire. 



He boasts his knowledge and his art ; 

 His wisdom, too; — his generous heart. 

 Have we no knowledge— none, when we 

 Pass over land and over sea, 



From clime to clime, 

 As constant as the march of time, 

 Our wants, our pleasures, tastes, to suit?— 

 Man calls this, instinct of the brute!— 

 A most convenient word is this, 

 For his sublimity, I wis — 

 Instinct ;f whenever and where he 

 Cannot perceive congruity — 



* See the Introduction, page 4?. 



t The term Instinct has been so long used by our philoso- 

 phers both prosaic and poetical, that it may be thought some- 

 what heretical to question its meaning and application. But as 

 Truth can never be injured by discussion ; and as it is the 

 duty of every one of us to verify, if possible, by actual experi- 

 ment, the truths which we are taught, in order that our convic- 

 tions may be rendered, by such experiments, more consistent, 



O 



