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AN ESSAY ON THE FUTURE EXISTENCE 
We are not forgetting the boundaries which exist between man 
and his humbler yet elder brethren ; but, for the purpose of our 
argument, are endeavouring to shew that the difference between 
them is in degree, and not in kind. The material part of man, 
though most harmoniously and aptly adapted for his mental powers 
and mode of life, is, in fact, in many respects beneath the average 
level of animal organization. The elephant exceeds him in strength, 
and perhaps, in some cases, even in sagacity; the ape can climb 
more easily, and the stag-hound run more swiftly. Among other 
animals, the eagle can float on the sunbeam, and sail through the 
blue depths with not a downy feather ruffled by the fierceness of 
the storm ; the nautilus can spread on the wide ocean its sails, and 
plough securely the tempestuous wave ; the fish dives to the unex- 
plored halls of Neptune ; the corallinae erect an island on the foam- 
ing billow ; the bee constructs a mathematical figure, teaching man 
one of the finest lessons in architecture ; the ant erects for itself 
majestic halls and palaces, displaying a knowledge, so to speak, of 
the intricacies of political economy, commerce, government, and 
legislation: and all these, with man, exist as he exists, and vanish 
as he vanishes from the sphere of observation. Why then should 
we, who are on a level with or beneath other animals in some re- 
spects, on the one hand be so unwilling to acknowledge the justice 
of their very humble comparative intellectual pretensions on the 
other 1 
Mr. Youatt, in his Essay “ On the Obligations of Man to the 
Inferior Animals,” in which he has ably and powerfully advocated 
their claims, shews by a few interesting anecdotes (the authority for 
which is not to be impeached, most of them, indeed, capable of ve- 
rification by the testimony not merely of those on whose veracity 
they are given, but also of many eye-witnesses), that brutes are 
evidently possessed of attention, and memory, and association, and 
imagination ; the difference between the biped and his quadruped 
slave being in degree, and not in kind. But he stops not here. In 
man there is still a superior principle, and it is the same with brutes; 
they have the power of acquiring, and they do acquire, knowledge 
from experience ; they display a degree of memory, and of saga- 
city, and of docility, which are not estimated by us as they deserve, 
and which should procure for them an immunity from the cruelty 
of which they are frequently the victims. To properly illustrate 
this, it might be well to introduce a few of the pleasing anecdotes 
related by Mr. Youatt, in confirmation of his opinion ; but we refer 
our readers to the work itself. The following well-authenticated 
anecdote of the sagacity of the elephant will suffice our pur- 
pose, our only object being to prove that they possess reasoning 
powers. 
“ An elephant, which, a few years ago, belonged to Mr. Cross, 
