30 
INTRODUCTION. 
what are called signs ; their assemblage is a language. When the language is com- 
posed of images that relate to the sense of hearing or sound, it is termed speech. \ 
When its images relate to that of sight, they are called hieroglyphics. Writing |; 
is a suite of images that relate to the sense of sight, by which we represent | 
elementary sounds ; and, in combining them, all the images relative to the sense of 
hearing of which speech is composed : it is, therefore, only a mediate representation 
of ideas. 
This faculty of representing general ideas by particular signs or images associated 
with them, enables us to retain distinctly in the memory, and to recall without con- 
fusion, an immense number, and furnishes to the reasoning faculty and the imagina- 
tion innumerable materials, and to individuals the means of communication, which 
cause the whole species to participate in the experience of each individual ; so that no 
bounds seem to be placed to the acquisition of knowledge : this is the distinctive 
character of human intelligence.* 
The most perfect animals are infinitely below man in their intellectual faculties ; but j. 
it is, nevertheless, certain that their intelligence performs operations of the same kind.llj 
nnViiriTr in r\^ c?£i-n c?o C! cn cr*/av^4-iT\lo r\f /I ni-oT-vl *lP 
theyl! 
They move in consequence of sensations received, are susceptible of durable affections, 
and acquire by experience a certain knowledge of things, by which they are governed in- 
dependently of actual pain and pleasure, and by the simple foresight of consequences. f 
When domesticated, they feel their subordination, know that the being who punishes 
them may refrain from doing so if he will, and when sensible of having done wrong, or 
behold him angry, they assume a suppliant air. In the society of man they become 
either corrupted or improved, and are susceptible of emulation and jealousy 
have among themselves a natural language, which, it is true, expresses onlyj 
their momentary sensations ; but man teaches them to understand another, muchf 
more complicated, by which he makes known to them his will, and causes them to||!' 
execute it. 
In short, we perceive in the higher animals a certain degree of reason, with all its : ’ 
consequences, good and bad, and which appears to be about the same as that of chil- 
dren before they have learned to speak. In proportion as we descend to the animalsj 
more removed from man, these faculties become enfeebled ; and, in the lowest classes 
we find them reduced to signs, at times equivocal only, of sensibility, that is to say, 
to a few slight movements to escape from pain. Between these two extremes, the 
degrees are endless. 
In a great number of animals, however, there exists a different faculty of intelli 
gence, which is named instinct. This prompts them to certain actions necessary to theTjjj 
preservation of the species, but often altogether foreign to the apparent wants of| 
individuals ; frequently, also, very complicated, and which, to be ascribed to intelligence, ' 
would suppose a foresight and knowledge in the species that execute them infinitely 
superior to what can be admitted. These actions, the result of instinct, are not the 
effect of imitation, for the individuals that perform them have often never seen them 
performed by others : they are not proportioned to the ordinary intelligence, but 
become more singular, more wise, more disinterested, in proportion as the animals 
belong to less elevated classes, and are, in all the rest of their actions, more dull and 
* Linnaeus defined the human being to he a “ self-knowing animal 
which is a bold assumption, taken either way. — E d. 
i- That is to say, they obviously remark coincidences and sequences ; 
but it is doubtful whether any of them can mentally trace remote 
causes, amid the complication of phenomena. It is with man in his 
least civilized state that they should be compared. — E d. 
