MENTAL CONSTITUTION OF ANIMALS. 17jj 



arrived at its highest condition. The few gleams ot 

 reason, then, which we see in the lower animals are pre- 

 cisely analogous to such a development of the fore-arm as 

 we find in the paddle of the whale. Causality, comparison, 

 and other of the nobler faculties, are in them rudimental. 



Bound up as we thus are by an identity in the charac- 

 ter of our mental organization with the lower animals, 

 we are yet, it will be observed, strikingly distinguished 

 from them by this great advance in development. We 

 have faculties in full force and activity, which the ani- 

 mals either possess, not at all, or in so low and obscure a 

 form as to be equivalent to non-existence. Now these 

 parts of mind are those which connect us with the things 

 that are not of this world. We have veneration, prompt- 

 ing us to the worship of the Deity, which the animals 

 lack. We have hope, to carry us on in thought beyond 

 the bounds of time. We have reason, to enable us to in- 

 quire into the cn^'acter of the Great Father, and the re- 

 lation of us, his humble creatures, towards him. We 

 have conscientiousness and benevolence, b\ which we 

 can in a faint and humble measure imitate, in our con- 

 duct, that which he exemplifies in the whole of his 

 wondrous doings. Beyond this, mental science does not 

 carry us in support of religion : the rest depends on evi- 

 dence of a different kind. But it is surely much that we 

 thus discover in nature a provision for things so import- 

 ant. The existence of faculties having a regard to such 

 things is a good evidence that such things exist. The 

 face of God is reflected in the organization of man, as a 

 little pool reflects the glorious sun. 



The affective or sentimental faculties are all of them 

 liable to operate whenever appropriate objects or stimuli 

 are presented, and this they do as irresistibly and uner- 

 ringly as the tree sucks up moisture which it requires, 

 with only this exception, that one faculty often interferes 

 with the action of another, and operates instead by force 

 of superior inherent strength or temporary activity. For 

 example, alimentiveness may be in powerful operation 

 with regard to its appropriate object, producing a keen 

 appetite, and yet it may not act, in consequence of the 

 more powerful operation of cautiousness, warning against 

 evil consequences likely to ensue from the desired indul- 

 gence. This liability to flit from under the control of 

 one feeling to the control of another, constitutes what w 



