OF THE BRUTE CREATION. 
659 
calls the hen — the pigeon, and the fieldfare, and the crow, make 
signals — and in the history of the wild horse we have a certain 
case of signals. They are described by travellers as living in a 
kind of community, sometimes consisting of thousands. Some 
affirm that they have seen ten thousand in one troop, 
“ With flowing tails and flying manes, 
Wide nostrils, never stretch’d by pain, 
Mouths bloodless to the bit and rein, 
And feet that iron never shod, 
And flanks unscarr’d by spur or rod.” 
They seem to he under the guidance of a leader, the strongest 
and boldest of the herd, and whom they implicitly obey. They 
appear to know that their safety consists in their union, and in a 
principle of subordination. The lion, the tiger, and the leopard, are 
their principal enemies. At some signal, intelligible to them all, 
they either close in a dense mass, and trample their enemy to death, 
or, placing the mares and foals in the centre, they form themselves 
into a circle, and welcome him with their heels. In this attack 
their leader is the first to face the danger, and, when prudence de- 
mands a retreat, they follow his rapid flight. All this implies not 
only abstraction, but that kind of abstraction, too, which gives us 
our language ; it is, in fact, a language which they possess, though 
simple and limited in its range. 
Many persons are of opinion, that, to admit brutes to be endowed 
with reason, the same in kind with ours, however inferior in de- 
gree, is an insult to man ; but, if we analyze this opinion, we shall 
find that pride produces all this. Pride, the curse of all civil 
relations, not only pervades social life, but contaminates all our in- 
tercourse with the whole range of creation. The invalid, writhing 
under a complication of that frightful list of corporeal maladies 
which follow in the train of civilization and improvement, is, with 
difficulty, persuaded that he has a body very nearly the same, only 
more exposed to acute sensation, as that of his humble canine com- 
panion. He forgets, also, that this companion is capable of a degree 
of attachment and gratitude, qualifications surely of a mental cha- 
racter, which, while they will survive the severest shocks of adver- 
sity, triumph over every temptation, and often shame the frail 
friendship of proud, reasonable man. 
“ Oh, man ! thou feeble tenant of an hour, 
Debas’d by slavery, or corrupt by power, 
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, 
Degraded mass of animated dust ! 
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat ; 
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit ! 
By nature vile, ennobled but by name, 
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.” 
