ALL OTHER CREATURES AFRAID OF MAN. 161 
hilating the weaker ; and the dread of man’s supremacy 
is no more. The weakest, the very insect, then assails 
him, and at times becomes the victor. Does any com 
ceivable or visible cause exist from which this awe can 
proceed ? Does “ his sublime countenance, contem- 
plative of the heavens,” the image that he bears, or his 
deportment, afford any ascendent influence productive 
of this impression ? In bodily power he is more weak 
and obnoxious to injury than many that shrink from a 
contest with him ; his natural arms and means of pro- 
tection are inferior often to those of the beings which 
he subdues ; yet from an undefinable cause he is om- 
nipotent over all. Terror in man most commonly arises 
from a knowledge of power, apprehension of ills from 
accident, or fear of the evil inclinations of another. 
What the fowls of the air, or the beasts of the field per- 
ceive, or are impressed with, we know not ; but none 
of these causes can exist in a brute mind without in- 
telligence or experience. These are the reflections of a 
thoughtful hour. The cause, “ though a man labor to 
seek out, yet shall he not find it ; and though a man 
think to know it, yet shall he not be able.” But the 
contemplation is not wholly an unworthy occupation of 
time. All ages, all people, must have perceived the 
admitted power and universal dread occasioned by the 
presence of man, but no reason, no motive, could have 
been assigned for it ; but in these days, by revelation, 
we know the cause, have impressed upon our minds the 
immutable truth of that Being which ordained, and of 
that volume which has proclaimed his mandate to us. 
But man has the power assigned him of calling to his 
aid a visible object of dread, confided to him from the 
earliest periods; and he alone of all created beings has 
the agency of this terror. All the inferior orders have a 
fear of it, and flee from it, even when its effects could 
never have been known or experienced, but which ap- 
pears to be innate and inseparable from all. Man alone 
has the knowledge, the means of calling heat into ac- 
tion ; and though warmth is the delight, and essential 
to the being of most, yet, rouse it into active operation 
producing fire, and terror and flight succeed enjoyment 
O 2 
