40 
WILD SCENES AND SONG-BIRDS. 
aggregate system of facts, yet tlie wants of its social habi- 
tudes, crowding it in great numbers into a small space, soon 
led to the assertion of tlie utmost power its experience Avas 
capable of furnishing reason with, in regard to those lines 
and angles by the size of which space might best be econo- 
mised. 
The result was as we see ; this was the highest exertion 
of the mathematical faculty its organization admitted, or 
its necessities required ; and here its display rested, and 
will continue to rest. Reason has carried it up to the ulti- 
mate of its creative intention. 
So with the ant, the organization of which is complicated, 
its necessities more diverse, and the results of its reasoning 
more varied and curious ! So with all forms of animal 
life! 
We arrive at man — the perfection of organized matter. We 
find reason in him capable of nearly all the bee does or the 
ant can accomplish, and, as a general average, superior to 
all other animals — though in particular traits he is inferior to 
most of them. He has not the eye of the eagle or the vul- 
ture ; the scent of the hound or the moth ; the hearing of the 
deer ; the sense of touch of the mole ; the taste of the coy 
humming-bird. 
Therefore, the experience of his senses, or his physical abil- 
ity, will not enable his reason to accomplish just such feats as 
characterize these particular animals — ^but yet, the general su- 
periority of his senses over those of any one of these — ^their 
more equal and perfect balance — the higher complexity, sus- 
ceptibility, and delicacy of his whole organization — give to him 
the first position as the mere "reasoning animal." 
Though the migratory bird, or fish, from the superior acute- 
ness of one sense, and the familiarity its habits, must give it 
with the currents of the elements in which it dwells, can tra- 
verse the world in a straight line, without other guide than this 
experience of its peculiar senses — yet man can do the same 
thing by a more roundabout, but quite as wonderful process ; 
