50 
ILLUSTRATIONS OP 
tion of his wants and wishes. He alone is blessed 
with the power (apparently denied to the lower ani- 
mals) of communicating his thoughts^ wishes^ wants, 
and feelings ; he alone can look back on, reflect upon, 
and contemplate the past ; he alone can look forward 
to, atid calculate the destinies of the future. 
Into the high, intellectual and moral attributes 
of man it is not so much the province of the naturalist 
to enquire, — such investigations belong more exclu- 
sively to the divine and metaphysician ; but the bare 
contemplation of them is calculated to awaken feel- 
ings of awe and reverence for the great First Cause, 
and constrains us to say with the immortal Shak- 
speare— 
" What a piece of work is man I how noble in reason ! how infinite in faculties ! 
in form, and moving, how express and admirable ! in action, how like an angel I in 
apprehension, how like a god 1 The beauty of the world 1 The paragon of animals 1 " 
Man, says BufFon, holds a legitimate dominion 
over all brute animals which no revolution can 
destroy. Among animals, however, some are more 
soft and gentle, others more savage and ferocious. 
When we compare the docility and submissive temper 
of the dog with the fierceness and rapacity of the 
tiger, the one appears to be the friend, the other the 
enemy of man. Thus his empire over animals is not 
absolute. Many species elude his power by the 
rapidity of their flight, by the swiftness of their 
course, by the obscurity of their retreats, by the 
element which they inhabit : others escape him by 
the minuteness of their bodies ; and others instead 
