i66 MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 



dence, is one for the production of original, inventive, 

 and aspiring minds, which, when circumstances are not 

 decidedly unfavorable, strike out new ideas for the bene- 

 fit of their fellow-creatures, or put upon them a Jasting 

 impress of their own superior sentiments. Nations, im- 

 proved by these means, become in turn foci for the diffu- 

 sion of light over the adjacent regions of barbarism — their 

 very passions helping to this end, for nothing can be more 

 clear than that ambitious aggression has led to the civili- 

 zation of many countries. Such is the process which 

 seems to form the destined means for bringing mankind 

 from the darknsss of barbarism to the day of knowledge 

 and mechanical and social improvement. Even the no- 

 ble art of letters is but, as Dr. Adam Ferguson has re- 

 marked, " a natural produce of the human mind, which 

 will rise spontaneously wherever men are happily 

 placed original alike amongst the ancient Egyptians 

 and the dimly monumented Toltecans of Yucatan. 

 "Banish," says Dr. Gall, "music, poetry, painting, 

 sculpture, architecture, all the arts and sciences, and let 

 your Homers, Raphaels, Michael Angelos, Glucks, and 

 Canovas be forgotten, yet let men of genius of every de- 

 scription spring up, and poetry, music, painting, archi- 

 tecture, sculpture, and all the arts and sciences, will 

 again shine out in all their glory. Twice within the rec- 

 ords of history has the human race traversed the great 

 circle of its entire destiny, and twice has the rudeness of 

 barbarism been followed by a higher degree of refine- 

 ment. It is a great mistake to suppose one people to have 

 proceeded from another on account of their conformity 

 of manners, customs, and arts The swallow of Paris 

 builds its nest like the swallow of Vienna, but does i* 

 thence follow that the former sprung from the latter. 

 With the same causes we have the same effects ; with the 

 same organization we have the manifestation of the same 

 powers." 



MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 



It has been one of the most agreeable tasks of modern 

 science to trace the wonderfully exact adaptations of the 

 organization of animals to the physical circumstances 



