662 AN ESSAY ON THE FUTURE EXISTENCE 
inspectors to see them fed, which for some time had the desired 
effect : the elephants regained their strength, and appeared in good 
condition. 
Some months afterwards they fell off again. The inspectors were 
astonished, as they daily saw them fed. They examined the mossaul- 
la, found its ingredients excellent, and the quantity not diminished. 
The cause once more discovered, evinces the influence the keepers 
had attained over these extraordinary animals. They had taught 
them to receive the balls with their trunk, and convey them to 
their mouths in the inspectors’ presence, but to abstain from eating 
them. These docile creatures actually practised this self-denial; 
they received the food they were so fond off from their hands, put 
it into their mouths with their trunks, but never chewed it : the 
balls remained untouched until the inspectors withdrew, when they 
took them out, and presented them to the keepers with their trunks, 
accepting only of such a share as they thought proper to allow 
them*.” 
That animals can compare two or more objects present to their 
senses, discern some of their relations, and execute an act of judg- 
ment thereupon, is clear : the anecdote related is sufficient to prove 
this. “ The dog, however,” says Mr. Youatt, “ carries this restraint 
on his appetite, and feelings, and wishes, to a much greater extent. 
See him, accompanied by the brute that is too often his owner, 
dragging the dogs’-meat cart, half-starved in the midst of that 
which would be delicious fare to him. Was he ever known to 
steal one morsel! Were his obedience and attachment to his tyrant- 
master lessened by the scantiness of his fare, or even by the occa- 
sional cruelty of his conduct!” 
We have no inclination to discuss the question much farther; 
sufficient, we hope, has been already adduced to prove the truth 
of our motto, that animals “ do feel, will, and act with discern- 
ment.” You cannot deny reflection to animals. Do they not de- 
liberate! and do not the anecdotes which we have already re- 
counted prove that they possess a mind! Reflection, then, is as 
inseparable from mind as extension is from matter: that which is 
not extended cannot be material ; that which does not reflect cannot 
be intellectual. 
But we will go still further. The few anecdotes which we have 
adduced prove that brutes possess the faculty of conscientiousness as 
well as ourselves. This faculty is very prominent in the dog, the 
horse, the elephant, and, indeed, in all our domesticated animals; 
and it is of the very highest importance as a regulator of some of 
their other faculties. If combativeness and destructiveness be too 
* Forbes’s Oriental Memoirs. 
